TC Impact muzzleloader question

A TC Impact rifle (new) has very recently come into my possession.

The bore, slightly lower down from the QLA region has a tiny hole visible in the rifling. Similar to such that is visible inside the smoothbore of a gas operated semi - albeit the hole in the muzzleloader is very small.

Appears to be the screw hole that attaches the ramrod thimble to the barrel.

Seems unusual that the hole would be drilled right through into the bore? Hasn't touched the lands though as far as I could make it out.

Question for TC Impact owners - have you noticed something as such in your rifle bore?

I shall try to get in touch with TC customer service tomorrow.

Thanks,

Are you sure you are seeing a hole and not some sort of dirt/dust/fouling?
I'd unscrew the screw in question and look into the hole to see if it actually goes through to the barrel. If so, that sounds like a manufacturing defect.

That was my initial thought too. To make sure, I had cleaned the bore well - the hole is visible.

It is a manufacturing defect indeed. Need to find a warranty service here. Grech Outdoors is no longer the TC rep here in ON.

That's concerning. I wonder what would happen if it was fired? Would the screw shoot out of the barrel from the pressure, or is the pressure not high enough for that to happen in a BP rifle? Good thing you caught that - most users probably wouldn't have.

Yes, I could've missed that too. I reload smokeless for a number of cartridges. Scrutinizing stuff has become more or less part of the routine process. :)

TC Arms mentioned that the present warranty center is Wolverine Supplies in Manitoba - not convenient.

Let's see how the matter gets handled first at the retailer level.

Bit of an update .....

After a frustrating couple weeks of absolute zero response, the Canadian warranty center finally started to get the ball rolling yesterday when I lost patience and wrote a detailed note to TC Arms on July 6th.

To be fair, I suppose not everything is within control of the warranty center presently as far as the almost defunct TC Arms company may be concerned. The disappointing part was that they chose to ignore the warranty claim till such time I escalated the matter to TC.

It is certainly commendable that TC Arms still maintains their stance on product support.

The defective firearm is now on its way to the warranty center to be destroyed. The $ will either be credited or the retail store may send me another rifle provided they have the same model in stock.

Closure, hopefully ..... :)

After six weeks of wait time, I finally received the replacement ML. Everything looks good so far based on initial inspection.

Mounted an old Leupold, friction dial affair, 2-7×33 scope in Talley one piece mount.

We shall find out how the rifle performs .....

Initial range session with the TC Impact ....

Prior to shooting, ran a couple of dry patches down a cleaned/oiled bore. No swabbing done afterwards.

To save powder, tried only 100gr of BH209 behind Barnes TE-Z 250gr (factory sabot). No clear result, obviously. :)
https://i.imgur.com/Zzcnzyr.jpg
Plug was dirty but flash hole remained clear.
https://i.imgur.com/a2J2MZ3.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/HlEojJ7.jpg

Anyway, will need to test further with different powder loads. We shall see what happens ....