Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Muzzleloaders TC QLA - accuracy aid or accuracy inhibitor?

I've worked with / been around 2 pre QLA TCs and 2 QLA TCs. The two pre QLA rifles both shot (or shoot) conicals pretty well. The two rifles with QLA did not / do not. Among them was 1 .50, 1 .54, and 2 .58s, all Renegade/Big Boar sidelocks.

I was wondering if anyone else has noticed a pattern of the QLA interfering with accuracy instead of helping it, especially with conical bullets, or if other people are seeing improvement and I've just been unlucky.

Tom

Thats TC's biggest problems today with their inlines. Most get by with using powerbelts when they have to use a conical. I wont spend the $$$ on one of their inlines due to the fact that i will be stuck using one single projectile that may or may not shoot.

QLA is a fix for a conical problem, that came into being with manufacturing for the conical shooters, and the sabot shooters.
That is my take, anyway.

My Fix:

Make a short, lightweight, false muzzle. It seems to be more of a problem of getting projectile (conical & sabot/bullet) started straight to rifling.

In essence, would have to agree with you. If you want best accuracy with conical, the rifling has to be concentric on the end cut to bore. Kind of like the muzzle crown issue on any rifle barrel. Unless the taper portion of the rifling to QLA is noticeably bad, I have no issues with 2" accuracy at 100 with the right charge and conical. But I use a homemade false starter that is lightweight, loaded with a projectile I'm using for quick reload if needed.

Just guessing, but think the reason not much issue with sabots. Believe the sabot petals begain to open away from projectile in the QLA area, while the cup of sabot is still sealing gas flow. Just a theory, have no idea if I'm right. Just observation over many QLA equipped barrels.

See, I never had any accuracy problems with conicals BEFORE I had a gun with the QLA. I think the intent was to improve accuracy with them but it backfired making things worse instead of better.

My ol' .58 Big Boar, without QLA, would put 5 of the TC 555 grain bullets into about 4 to 4.5 inches at 100 yards which was not awesome but good enough for elk at any range I'd try a shot. The current TC custom shop renegade .58 I have which has QLA won't hold 5 of those in an 18" circle at 100 yards.

I've tried changing powders, caps, tried some other brands of bullets ... nothing does any better.

We can use sabots if we're hunting in a regular rifle season here but in the muzzleloader-only season they're explicitly banned so there's not much point in even trying them for me.

My most recent previous gun was a TC Renegade .50 with the QLA. It was not much better than the .58 with QLA with conicals, but it didn't do very well with patched round balls either.

Buddy of mine has a .54 Renegade w/o QLA ... it's a real good shooter.

Tom

Reading about this over on modern muzzleloading forum and guys there have cut the barrel down to get rid of the QLA. I don't shoot conicals so have no experience with that, but my Omega with the QLA shoots the saboted barnes very well.

Does anyone know exactly what year TC switched to the QLA?

I came across two Super XR Black Diamond 45s. They're the older ones with the 1:20 twist. Shortly after they were released, TC switched to the 1:28 twist. I'm sure they're AT LEAST four years old.

Should be on the porch by next week. Man, I sure hope they don't have the QLA on them...

I wanted the fast twist bc I'm going to attempt to stabalize a .358 200gr bullet. I've tried it with a 30 twist 45 and it just won't work. If this does work, look out!

The QLA doesn't get along with patched round balls very well for me. I use TC's "speed loaders". The QLA is just deep enough the patched ball doesn't quite hit the rifling and I've had a ball fall off the patch a couple times. Growl hiss snarl. Pour it all out and start over.

Doesn't seem to affect accuracy with round balls as drastically as it does accuracy with conicals, but it still rubs my fur backwards once in a while. (If you have a cat, you understand the results. :-))

As far as when it came out .. not sure. I would guess 4-5 years ago. When I got rid of the ol' Big Boar (a mistake, I should have tried a little harder to fix the ignition problems) and got the .50 Renegade when those were reintroduced, the .50 had it.

Tom

Not sure, but I'm guessing about the time of the Black Diamond/ThunderHawk or the one that you could buy interchangable/switch barrels for (can't even remember name of that one right now).

I'm gonna guess between 10 - 15 years ago, .

Edit: Just remembered, T/C introuced the QLA shortly after the time saboted projectiles began to catch on due to the use of pistol bullets (availibilty) sub-bore to barrel caliber. Seem to recall T/C's answer to getting the pistol bullet to seat square to sabot, with a short starter.

So these things are going to have the QLA.

Dawggoneit!

I think the problem with the TC QLA is that its so darn long! What is it, about a 1" long qla? CVA/traditions i know only use MAYBE a 1/4" QLA and these rifles "Atleast cva" are not picky with conicals. Atleast i have never owned one that was fussy.

Nimrod,

Those rifles are likely 5-6 years old. I had a 1/20 twist .45 barrel, not sure what it was good for. I had T/C replace it.

Doc

T O M,

T?c has turned out some "QLA" barrels where the QLA was not cut correctly just as a bad crown on a center fire will not shoot accurately..

SKANE had a bad QLA on a new T/C Triumpth he bought last fall. T/C replaced the rifle.

I don't shoot conicals much anymore in my T/C Hawkin but there is a difference in conical rifling VS. sabot rifling.

I would send the barrel back to T/C customer service...you have everything to gain and nothing to lose.

Doc

Doctor Encore is right about the 1 -20 twist. Will only handle light bullet/light charge loads. I got stuck with one in the new Contender. I think they went to 1/24 for the new Contender.

He is also right about the rifling depth. They optimized it for sabots, not round ball, or conicals sometime ago also.

At one time Green Moutain made the drop-in barrel for rifled/without QLA for round ball and conical. Don't know if they still do or not. Cabelas also listed the Green Mountain barrels, and several ML shops handled them also. Search might turn one up for the Hawken and Renegrade if they are still around.

Here is link to the info on bullet twist.

Search Precision Bullets for home page, lot of info there, along with chart mentioned before.

There is a guy here in states that handles all PB products, which save the international problem. Will try to find it, and maybe one of the Green Mountain barrels.

Here is link to the info on bullet twist.

Search Precision Bullets for home page, lot of info there, along with chart mentioned before.

There is a guy here in states that handles all PB products, which save the international problem. Will try to find it, and maybe one of the Green Mountain barrels.

http://www.prbullet.com/s45.htm

Here is link to the guy in the 48, located in Iowa IRC.

Have dealt with him bulk orders 3 or 4 times, and good man to deal with each time. Basically all of PBs products available, and same page. Note the shipping break on bulk orders.

http://blackpowderbullets.com/accurate%20muzzleloading%20shipping%20information.html

Here is link to Green Mountain.

If on the shelf, usually a quick order.

http://www.gmriflebarrel.com/catalog.aspx?catid=HawkenRenegadeStyleRifles

IMHO, QLA is at best a solution to a non-existent problem and at worst turns good barrels into bad fenceposts.

I'm surprised T/C still hangs on to it.

Let's put the QLA to bed. An answer to a question that was never asked. Pure BS. Argue that, and you don't shoot conicals.

Now let's get back to the idea of a fast twist 45. Why did the 20 twists fail? We were shooting the wrong bullets through them. It was an idea before it's time. Way too fast for a .40 bullet.

Not only that, but we didn't have a BP sub that would get us the velocity needed for a 45. Enter Blackhorn 209.

I agree, when shooting a .40 saboted bullet out of a 45, yes a 28 or 30 twist seems to be the balls. In fact, I have done some crazy $hit with a 30 twist Knight Elite and a .40 dia 200gr SST at 2500fps. Stupid accuracy.

Now, consider a .358 bullet out of a 20 twist 45 cal MLer. EVERYONE abandoned them bc they wouldn't shoot a .40 bullet (not surprisingly). We were shooting the wrong bullet. Thankfully MMP and PR now make a sabot for us (actually they're both made by MMP).

I initially played with this out of my three 30 twist 45s. Terible results.

The twist was wrong. I resurected a couple of the pre-recall Black Diamonds with the 20 twist 45s and now I've got something to play with.

Think about it, everyone who is rebarreling their MLIIs are doing it with 20 or 22 twist Pacnor 45 bbls. Shooting sabotless or a Barnes 195 saboted out of these seems to be the balls.

Now, why not use either MMPs or PRs .357/45 sabot and put a .358 bullet down the bore shoot a rifle bullet out of that charcoal burner.

More to come.

All this being said, my dream front stuffer is a Ruger #1 action threaded to a .45 krieger 28 inch 16 twist bbl.

Until then, I will continue to get my $200 Black Diamond 20 twist 45s to gobble up BH209 and give me a "cheap" alternative to smokeless.

NimrodRX,

When T/C was marketing the 1/20 .45 barrel their bullet offerings were the re-packaged Hornady 180 gr and 200 gr bullets.

I have range shot 5 T/C Encore/Omega 1/20 twist rifles. One Encore and 1 Omega shot sub MOA.. 3 other barrels would not group at all. Most shooters blamed the twist..yet for whatever reason T/C replaced more .45 barrels regardless of twist (1.20 vs 1/28).

My conclusion is that the .45 was more succeptable to pressure curves and barrel harmonics in relation to powder charges.

I spent time talking to Cecel Epps on this issue years ago. A T/C .45 barrel has to be internally "perfect" to shoot well.

T/C should have used smaller diameter bar stock on the .45 barrel instead of the standard .50 caliber bar stock. The .45 is over 1/2 pound heavier than the .50 caliber rifle.

Doc