Took the plunge....

[Gun-adian]

Okay.....I went and did it. I bought my first T/C Contender.

It's an early-ish one, if I'm right. It has the firing pin you have switch with a screwdriver.

It came with two barrels. A .221 Remington Fireball with a mounted 2X Redfield and a .44 Mag with the vent rib, flip-up rear sight and removable internal choke. I'll post pics as soon as I take delivery of it (....gotta love Canadian gun laws).

It doesn't look like it's been used much, but the previous (late) owner wasn't much on cleaning his stuff. He had about 170 guns in his collection that's being sold off and they're all filthy.

Anywho, a couple of questions to those with more experience than I....

Is there a thread protector available for the choked barrel? I know the choke has to be removed before firing a regular .44 Mag round. I'm not comfortable leaving the choke threads uncovered when shooting.

Does anyone have any .221 Rem brass they'd like to part with? The prospect of cutting down a bucket of .223 brass is not very appealing. (I'll do it if I have to.....)

Thanks.

Mike.

[timkelley]

Be careful with that 44 barrel, load it light, at least until you have tried it some. When I first got my Contender, 25+ years ago, I had one of those light 44 barrels and it would make me cry. I'm a bit of a wuss so I found a guy who liked to hurt and traded it off (think I got a Blackhawk 357 for it).

[7br]

My first big bore barrel for a contender was a .44. If I kept the bullet weight down, it was okay. If I didn't, it ate up my offhand middle finger. Funny thing is, I love them with something like a 30-30 or 7tcu.

[cbrick]

Mike, here's some light reading for those cabin fever nights up in Canada. All of these articles are on the Contender. Enjoy.

Contender Accuracy (http://www.lasc.us/ArticlesBellm.htm)

Rick