I bought a Scout Carbine several years ago in .54 cal and tried to tame the thing for about three weeks prior to the opening of the season that year, with no real success.
I did manage to take a button buck with it at about 35 yds. that had jumped up in front of me at about three paces and ran. When he slowed to a walk and looked over his shoulder to see what had snuck up on him as he slept, I put 425 gr. Hornady Great Plains through both shoulders.
Just a lucky shot the way that rifle performed. I tried every load and projectile I could find or cast on the bloody thing, but never got anything better than "patterns" out of it... recoil was pretty awful too, given the light weight and low buttstock angle. (The name Scout seemed to indicate what you need to do to find out where your last shot went!)
Working with TC, I tried to swap barrels off twice, without improvement. I ended up giving it away to one friend, and the little monster made the rounds back to another, my closest buddy, who still has it gathering dust.
Without a doubt, the problem with that rifle has to be the twist rate...
WHO ON EARTH EVER THOUGHT A 1 IN 20" TWIST IN A 54 CAL WAS A GOOD IDEA!!! Using the Greenhill formula to calculate an appropriate bullet length for this twist results in a required weight of apx 1200 gr. (I asked the good folks at TC if they were trying to build a muzzleloading anti-tank rifle!)
There's much to like about the design. Very handy to carry, quick to the shoulder, fast on target.. a real chummy little stalker. The simple and totally effective trigger-sear-hammer design is great too... safe, fast to use, nice crisp pull, BUT the choice of 1 turn in 20" twist rate is an incredible anomaly for a .54 caliber.
It was TC's first inline and employs an overly complex breechpug/nipple setup featuring pressure relief vents yielding a long, unsealed flash channel giving opportunity for inconsistent ignition (especially with #11 caps)... fear of litigation resulting from accidents due to overload or barrel obstructrion with it's inline, open breech I presume.
I suspect that twist was
selected (so to speak) due to developement work done on the Scout Pistol. There seems to have been a strong desire at TC to market an effective muzzleloading handgun for deer/hogs,etc. Perhaps a twist that fast was needed to produce RPM's sufficient to stabilize a heavy (long) conical at a relatively low velocity due to the limited time in the short pipe.
Then, to cut expenses, rather than retool and redevelope for the rifles they just banged-out longer barrels with the same fast twist rate.
Just a guess on my part, but it does explain what is otherwise, IMO, a
total brain-fart by TC.
Wish I could sound more optimistic, but my experience precludes it entirely.
