Another old friend at the range, TC Contender

[North Country Gal]

I used to shoot the 30-30 in the Contender, too, and also the 7-30 Waters. Both are great cartridges in the Contender if you can handle the recoil.

[Bake]

I had to take my TCs to the range this week, after shooting my Ruger revolvers for the last month, I had to prove to myself that it was still a good pistol shot. I tried registering the Rugers' cylinders [ Single 6, Super Wrangler, and Wrangler ], and was very disappointed. I found that maybe three or four chambers would shoot to the same point of aim, and the other chambers would shoot somewhere else. I guess they're good enough to hunt with but I'm not a hunter so I'm going to be looking for a new home for them. . .

[North Country Gal]

Ouch! Sorry to hear about that, but not surprised. I've had same issue with some Ruger revolvers, too. TCs are a good way to restore confidence after bad luck with other handguns.

[rickhem]

A buddy of mine had a tricked-out contender all set up by SSK with the magnaports and all. It was chambered in .375JDJ, which is a big cartridge. He brought it with him once and let me shoot it a bit. Our state range required all pistols to be shot on the pistol range, which was limited to 50 yards at that time. I put up a 25 yard timed and rapid center at 50 yards, and shot while sitting with my arms out over the bench. It had a 2½ power scope with long eye relief so it had to be held with arms out. After four of five shots, all in the black, I was impressed at how manageable the recoil was. Now these were his reloads for his pistol, not sure how hot they were, but he used it for big stuff out west a few times. The ammo he gave me was all leftover stuff from different boxes, so it was probably different loads, but it all shot well enough. After a few shots he asked how I like it, and what I was shooting at. I told him it was nice, and that I was shooting at the paper target. He laughed and said I should pick out some bowling ball size rocks way out in the backstop area at the base of the cliff 100-125 yards downrange and shoot those, that is what that gun was for. Every one I held the crosshairs on just disappeared into a cloud when I shot. Man was that an easy pistol to hit with. So even though I don't own one, I'm a very big admirer of the Contender pistol. For those that have one, hang onto it!

[North Country Gal]

For sure, Contenders are getting really scarce, now. The 375 JDJ was a famous Contender wildcat, one of the best.

Although the Remington XP-100 preceded the Contender by a couple of years, it was the Contender that really made specialty pistols popular. Of course, I have and shoot XPs, too.