i found a guy with a tc renegade, 90 grains bp, round ball and fired his ramrod. he said it bulged the barrel so bad that he had to buy an replacement. Now this isnt something im proud of but was a very good accidental way to check the strength of the barrel. You know that 26"long aluminum thingy u use to push the bullet down the bore? yeah add its weight and a 385 grain bullet to it with 90 grains pyrodex. After i got up, i felt like i just got my butt kicked by 3 guys and they were all aiming for my head. After that i took it to the shop to inspect it, ran a really tight fitting patch down the bore after i cleaned it to find any loose/bulge spots and after it checked out fine, i went back to shooting. One good thing that i got out of that day,i found out those bullets dont recoil no where near as bad as that ramrod! whats an aluminum ramrod weight? 4oz? some where around a 2000grain bullet that day? Now my question. why would that guys TC bulge with such a light load while my rifle took a real pounding and still goes on living?
Can anyone tell me How stainless steel can vary between countrys? i dont think you can make it any weaker. And i believe its easy to say that a cheaper rifle can give a top quality rifle real stiff compitition when shooting against eachother.