I've seemed to acquire a fair amount of muzzleloaders and am thinking of having one cut down to 16 or maybe 14 inches for a compact lightweight gun for close range Adirondack hunting. Has any of you done something similar

I never cut one down that short, but I have made them that short starting from scratch.

To cut one down would not be hard to do but will look a bit odd when it's done. Simply cut it off where you want, and remove the barrel to crown it. Next install a muzzle cap and then an under lug to cross pin or key it, to hold it together if need be. In some cases you might just sand the wood where it was cut and not install a muzzle cap. Last, install a sight and you are done.

I think srwshooter has cut some down, maybe to get rid of the TC smoothbore muzzle sect, the name of which escapes me at the moment.

Even 16” seems pretty short to me. CVA makes a 14” inline pistol, the Optima V2, and TC used to make a 20” Encore.

I cut about 10" off this one for old son. Big .62 caliber hog thumper.



Refinised the wood a bit too.

counterboring or false muzzle Pappy! more commonly known as a waste of space!

They called it QLA, but I'm not remembering what
that stood for. Quick something or other

As for chopping one, no. Never done it.
I do have some with different barrel lengths.

I've seen magazine articles on the subject in
various publications

If it's near twilight, one should see an amazing fireworks display when he lights it off.

The only snivel is that I like a muzzleloader to be handy to load and when you shorten them you either have to get on your knees to start the ball or have a bench, stool or something to put the butt of the rifle on to put the muzzle in a handy place to work with while loading. A 28 inch to 32 inch barrel is perfect for me. Another thing oddly black powder can be pretty loud from a short barrel.

T/C Black Diamond 12.5 barrel w/cut down rifle stock, also have a walnut stock that I turned into a pistol stock for it, very accurate at 75 yds farthest Ive shot it.
T/C Renegade .54, was a .50 with trashed barrel, I chopped barrel then sent to Bobby Hoyt to rebore to .54, very accurate with 535 gr No-Excuse conical.
Knight Disc Extreme .52, sent to Jeff Fisk(Bestill Creations) and had 5 inches chopped off and recrowned, very accurate with 325 gr FTX and 110 gr BH209.





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Quick Load Assist - IIRC...actually - it’s “Quick Load Accurizor”.

A nice, short rifle;

I have cut down around 20 different brands of muzzleloader to 20-21” in the last few years. Everyone I have cut has shot just as good as it did with the long barrel. Most Tc’s have grouped better without QLA . I have 2 triumphs that I have been hunting with for 8-10 yrs now. I love the shorter barrels .

Old thread I know, was researching TC's QLA bs and came across this. In any case we removed the QLA false muzzle on Saturday and recrowned it. Shoots a helluva lot better. Prior to this it would not group on a 10" paper plate at 50 yds with a scope. Much better now, still need to sort out best combo of powder, bullets, ect.

TC Bone Collector

I've wanted to do it for years, never can across a deal to do it to. Two years ago a friend offered me a nice T/C for $100, I jumped, I finally had one to chop. Make my MLSBR.

Once I had it I started to doubt myself. One, it was an awfully nice rifle to cut up. 2. My eyes are no longer playing along, a long sight radius is now my friend and almost a requirement for the front sight to be in focus. And 3, I decided I just didn't trust the idiots in NY enough to not know it wasn't illegal.

Being from NYS, I’d be cautious about wandering around with something that had a pistol length barrel and a rifle stock attached. Remember, everything is illegal here.

Agree with the above. I would stay at least 16”+ just to be safe.