Eager to get to the shooting range

Last week, I mentioned being “antsy” about getting out to the shooting range and beginning this season’s shooting experiences. I’m still feeling antsy and continued checking out some possible firearms to take out this year.

I have always enjoyed handgun hunting, especially with single-shot guns. I bought my first Thompson/Center (T/C) Contender back in the early 1970’s. My original collection included an octagon 357 magnum barrel, an octagon 22 hornet barrel, and an octagon 22 rimfire barrel. I used the 22 rimfire barrel to harvest gray squirrels and the 22-hornet barrel to eliminate feral animals on the fish hatchery grounds where I worked in Georgia.

T/C came out with different fore ends, and grip styles, and continued to add different calibers to their line. As time went on, I purchased a round 44 magnum barrel designed with a removeable choke tube which allowed using a special 44 magnum shot cartridge or regular ammo, without the tube, using a single projectile. I thought that barrel with the shot cartridge would prove useful for small game and birds, but the shot ammo was difficult to find and to reload.

I eventually got interested in a couple of calibers developed by a pair of nationally known gun writers and stock makers: the 30-Herrett and the 357-Herrett. These two wildcat calibers are based on the 30-30 Winchester case and are specifically designed to be efficient in the short (10-to-14-inch) barrels T/C used.

I have both length barrels in both calibers. I’ve used the 30-Herrett ten-inch barrel in handgun silhouette competition and did well until the scope broke during one match. I’ve also harvested Sitka Blacktail deer with both the 30-Herrett and 357-Herrett calibers while I was living on Afognak Island, and I took a nice caribou with the 357-Herrett while I was living near Dillingham.

T/C improved their shot shooting barrel by coming out with a barrel similar to the 44-magnum choked barrel, only they chambered the barrel in more readily available 45-Long Colt/410 gauge. The barrel was available with a 3-inch chamber to accommodate the longer shotshell. The choke tube had straight “rifling” to stop the main barrel rifling from spinning the shot charge and creating a pattern with a hole in the middle.

Over time, I continued to buy various caliber barrels I thought might be useful for hunting and fun to shoot. Some of those calibers included 256 Winchester, 222 Remington, 41 magnum, and a 14-inch 22 rimfire barrel with a match chamber. I acquired a 7-30 Waters caliber barrel which I used for deer hunting on Afognak Island in addition to the calibers already mentioned.

One fun caliber I like shooting is the 32 H &R. This is a small but powerful caliber which is accurate, but which also never caught on with the public. As a result, the caliber is fading into obscurity, which is a shame because it’s a good caliber for several things, including personal defense and small game hunting.

One of the last barrels I bought was in 375 Winchester to use for moose hunting. I’ve had it out a few times but haven’t had an opportunity to harvest an animal with it yet. Maybe, this year!

The Contender actions have also gone through a series of improvements since their introduction back in the late 1960’s. I’ve got an original action from early production, and three or four more I picked up over the years, culminating in T/C’s final design, known as the G2 action, with significant improvements over the original. I have one of the G2’s I use with the 375 Winchester barrel.

Some time ago, Smith and Wesson (S&W) bought T/C and continued production for a few years. However, the single-shot market was quite different from the revolver/semi-auto market S&W was used to servicing. Sales slowed and S&W closed the T/C production facility several years ago. I was sorry to learn that.

A third-party company known as SSK, LLC had been an aftermarket and custom supply firm for wildcat barrels and ammunition specifically marketed to use for hunting and silhouette shooting with Contender frames. I recently learned that SSK has come out with a newly manufactured, stainless-steel frame modeled after the Contender. This new frame has several functional improvements over the T/C G2 frame and is made of top-quality materials. The frame is called the SSK-50 model. The going retail price for this new frame is about the same as what the T/C G2 frame was selling for when T/C went out of business.