Each time I am convinced that Thompson/Center has used up all the really good ideas in muzzleloading rifles, the company comes up with something new to prove me wrong. It first happened more than three decades ago, and it's happened again this year.

It started back in the 1970s when Santa--who looked a lot like my lovely wife Phyllis--placed a .50-caliber T/C Hawken with my name on it under the Christmas tree. The Hawken wasn't the only rifle of its type available at the time, but it was the best of the lot--and, on top of that, it was made in the United States.

For several hunting seasons I was quite content to own no other muzzleloader, and I was lucky enough to bag a deer or two and several wild hogs with it. Then T/C introduced two scaled-down versions of the Hawken: Seneca and Cherokee--the former in .36 and .45 calibers, the latter in .32 and .45 calibers.

At 5.5 pounds, the Cherokee weighed 2.5 pounds less than my Hawken, and as I saw it, that made the little rifle just about perfect for the mountain hunting I often did in those days. But the Seneca weighed only a half-pound more than the Cherokee, and its stock was all fancied up with brass hardware to boot. I solved my dilemma by buying one of each in .45 caliber and went on to discover that a 240-grain Maxi-Ball moving along at .45-70 velocity was big enough medicine for deer at iron-sight distances.

Thompson/Center has been leading muzzleloader design for more than three decades. Four of T/C's innovative models are (L-R) the Hawken, Triumph, Seneca, and Cherokee.

And then T/C did it again. Just as I had spent enough time in the field with my Encore 209x50 to become thoroughly convinced that it was the in-line rifle for me, those crafty guys up in Rochester, New Hampshire, tempted me with other options--the Omega, the Pro Hunter version of the Encore 209x50, and .50-caliber G2 Contender, which is to modern in-line rifles what my old favorite Cherokee was to traditional rifles. Short and lightweight (a mere 6.5 pounds), it is the Winchester 94 of in-line muzzleloaders.

Now, for the third time, T/C has done it to me again and added more temptation in the form of a new rifle called the Triumph. The hammer and trigger of the Triumph remind me of those of the Omega, but those are the only similarities between the two rifles. Like the Encore 209x50, the barrel of the Triumph tips downward to expose the breech area for the insertion of a 209 shotshell primer, but their lockups differ.

Pulling on the trigger guard spur of the Encore allows the barrel to hinge down, and then the barrel automatically locks up when it is closed. On the Triumph, the trigger guard is pushed forward to unlock the barrel and must be manually pulled to the rear to lock up the barrel as it is closed. The Encore gets a slightly higher mark here for its convenience, but the Triumph is fast enough once you become accustomed to using it.

The receiver is aluminum for weight reduction, but internal wear is not an issue since all metal-against-metal moving parts--such as the firing pin and its bushing in the standing breech along with barrel hinge pin--are made of steel.

Incorporated into the design of the Triumph is a variation of the Speed Breech, which first appeared on the Pro Hunter version of the Encore 209x50. The breechplug used in the Encore requires the use of a tool for removal and installation. With the Triumph, a tool is supplied, but its use is required only if the threads of the breechplug become heavily fouled during firing. When it is clean, it can be removed and installed by fingers alone.