Contender 22 LR Match barrel Question....

[ShooterAZ]

I just picked up a 14" 22LR Match barrel for my Contender. None of the 22 ammo I have on hand will fully chamber just dropping them in the chamber. They will chamber upon closing of the action, but are really jamming the boolits into the lands. It's like it's short chambered or something. Is this normal? Just wondering.....Shooter.

[upnorthwis]

Normal. That's part of what makes it a match chamber.

[smoked turkey]

+1 on the match chamber. Mine is also what I would call a tight chamber. They do shoot very good.

[Bob Busetti]

My Kimber 82 G loads the same way. Excellent shooter for me.

[BK7saum]

Normal. I have a 10 inch 22 long rifle match contender barrel that Chambers the same way.

Engraving the bullet upon chambering is what makes it a match chamber

[ShooterAZ]

Thanks guys. Just thought I'd ask first. I had an older non-match barrel and the cartridges would just drop all the way into chamber with no resistance. I'm looking forward to getting out and shooting it.

[BK7saum]

I had mine scoped with a rifle scope at one time and it would out shoot my Ruger 10 22 target easily.

[Hamish]

Don't ever be tempted to trade it off if it shoots well,,,,,,,,,

[pietro]

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IIRC, for the best results, a match barrel/chamber requires match ammo......................


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[ShooterAZ]

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IIRC, for the best results, a match barrel/chamber requires match ammo......................


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We shall soon see. I have a few boxes of various RWS match. I'm hoping it shoots awesome with CCI Mini Mag, because I have a whole bunch of it.

[leadman]

My 14" Contender match barrel will shoot the CCI mini-mags pretty good. Nothing like match ammo though. Forgot the name of the last box of match ammo I bought, but not the $17 price for 50 rounds. Good part is they shoot very tight at 100 yards if there is no wind.

[475BH]

A good place to start is with Eley Tenex @ around 1050.

EDIT- They also double for small game loads with the flat nose bullet they use these days. I haven't found Remington/Eley to be all that accurate, I think they are just too fast @ 1080+/-.

[lovedogs]

A number of years ago I called one of the tech guys at Fox Ridge, the old T/C custom shop, about their match chamber. He told me they cut the chamber for Federal .22 ammo. I used the economical American Eagle ammo for shooting Richardson ground squirrels (gophers here in Montana). This economical ammo shot under an inch at 100 yards and worked wonderfully well on gophers. It shoots almost any ammo really well. RWS match will shoot into one hole at 50 yards. It's fun to challenge guys at the shooting range who are shooting rifles. It will outshoot almost any rifle unless they have a very good match rifle.

[waco]

I have a 10" octagon .22LR barrel I have yet to shoot. Need a scope. How do these things shoot normally?

[lovedogs]

In my experience Contender .22 barrel accuracy is dependent on quality of ammo. Use good ammo and they shoot. The better the quality, the better the accuracy. All of their barrels I've seen shoot better than most shooters. I'm no expert on which barrels were made when but I think you may have a nice older barrel that would be desirable to many Contender users. They require a different forearm but are really classy barrels. By the way, Weaver's 2.5X8 is a nice scope on a .22. It's not so big as to look funny on your smaller barrel yet good enough for anything you can do with a .22.