For the last couple weeks or so I have been lugging a T/C contender carbine around in .22lr, it is fitted out with XS peep site setup and pretty handy. I have had it for years and never really used it much, i dug it out for my nephew to use but he wasn't all that interested so I decided i would use it. Shot a pile of squirrels and a few rabbits with it this winter while wandering around on my daily woods walk. The fact that it is so handy got me to thinking about maybe getting another barrel for it and a 32 H&R popped into my mind. Seems like it would be a perfect woods walking companion, I have a 357 handy rifle with a set of peep sites on and it is very accurate but barrel is quite heavy and the 357, even with light cast bullet loads is a bit more than I need horsepower wise. My other usual walking around gun is a Marlin 94CL 25/20, this is about perfect weight wise and very pleasant to lug around, only down side is the loading of the thin cases and poor case life. With a 32 H&R i would be splitting the bore size between the 25/20 and 357 and being a straight case I would be using carbide dies for fast and lube free reloading. I also have 500 starline 32 cases and several molds to feed it with.
Has anyone on here gone this route before and got any thoughts or suggestions? My father in law has a 32/20 contender carbine barrel, it is from the T/C custom shop but has a 308 bore and I would be back to lubing cases which i would like to avoid.
Looking around it seems that MGM would be the first choice as they actually offer a 311 barrel option, all the others only build their 32's on 308 barrels and this doesn't interest me at all. Only twist rate in that bore size is 1-10 which should be perfect, heaviest boolit i might use is a 314440 that i got for my 7.62x39's.Thinking a 23" medium weight barrel would be about ideal, the standard carbine profile is pretty light and a bit hard to hard steady. Would most likely got with a set of skinner peep sights mounted.
Thanks for any thoughts or suggestions you may have regarding a 32hr carbine barrel!
Jerry