Contender Carbine Problem

[Parson]

I have a Contender in 17 Rem by their custom shop. Using factory Remington ammo, shoots good, reasonably accurate but blows about 1 primer in 10 and shows signs of extream excess pressure. Primer will flow back into firing pin hole, sometimes locking up action. Using reloads and slowing down a little (chrono in storage yet so dont know exactly) Both Hornady and Remington 25's tumble about 3 out of ten. Reloading I know, what I dont know is 17's and this is my first Contender Carbine centerfire. Is it normal for a 17 to tumble at lower velocities? Also are all Contender fireing pin holes so sloppy? I have had several Contenders but all pistol cartriges, never had a problem with flow back till now. Dont really want to bush the hole but not sure what else to do at this time, anybody have a similar problem or am I the only lucky guy?

[Scrounger]

I guess you're just lucky. I've had three of those things, between 1994 and 2004, and everyone was absolutely great, less than one inch groups and no loading problems at all. I didn't use any "Little Old lady From Pasadena" loads in them, I got them to fly fast and they did. If I were you, that gun would already be on its way back to Contender, it has serious problems. One would think the barrel was undersized.

[badgeredd]

If you are having trouble with factory loads, I'd get one more box of ammo to be sure it isn't bad ammo. If the problem continues, I'd get hold of TC and have them repair it on their nickel. If the firing pin is sloppy, I'd say you just are the lucky guy to have bought a bad frame. Mistakes happen in manufacturing and it sounds like one got by the inspectors. I'm sure they'll fix it 'cause they don't want or need a liblity suit. Smith and Wesson Holding Company now owns TC so they should be more than willing to get it fixed for you since the reason they purchased TC was to diversify their product line. Good luck.

[leftiye]

Badger,
Last one a them critters that you have in your avatar that I saw got one of his canine teeth shot off at about 20 feet. Bullet continued on into his mouth and severed his spinal column. That was just before three more 22s impacted him in rapid succession.

Parson,
Check your bore and groove diameters. Check your case lengths. If some case mouths are pinching in the chamber due to being long (or dinged) pressures will vary wildly. Get your chrono out, and shoot some targets over it to see how your pressures/velocities are varying. Get some factory ammo, see how the pressure signs vary. You didn't say what powder/ loads you were using.

[Parson]

Thanks for the input especially from those who have them and know from experience. A .170 pin gauge is a tight squeez but goes in, dont know groove yet, the brass was shortened to make sure neck was not too long. I do have a pistol frame laying around somewhere, I think before I send it off I will switch frames just to see if there is a difference between them. I would like to hear from anyone who has had 25gr 17's loose stability, I know 30's in a one in ten twist can sometimes be iffy but have never heard of 25's tumbeling

[Parson]

Just remembered that I had a piece of .168 drill rod in the shop, just tried it, went down with no obvious tight spots

[johnly]

I'd give the 20 gr. Hornady V-Max bullets a try. They are about the same length as the 25 gr. Hornady HP, but it's easy to push them 200 fps faster than the 25 grain bullets. If they tumble, something is really funky.

I can shoot 25 grain Hornady HP in my 1/9 Ackley Bee 10" SSK pistol barrel. I can't imagine that they would be going more than 3300 fps.

John

[scb]

The last 2 boxes of factory ammo I bought did the same thing. I was firing them out of an AR 15 heavy bbl. upper I made. I hadn't fired it a lot, couple 100 rds of reloads and I'd had no problems. I picked these up cheap at a shop that was going out of business. Four of them blew out the primer and one showed signs of the brass flowing back into the hole for the ejector. I shot them with a shell catcher so wasn't aware of the problem 'till I got home and looked the brass over. 2 of the primers had gone down in side the mag, don't know where the others went. I haven't tried to load the other shells yet but I'm guessing I've got some loose primer pockets as all the primers were flat to the point that the radius of the primer pocket isn't visible.

[leftiye]

Excess headspace?

[Scrounger]

A Contender Carbine using a rimless cartridge probably would not fire with excess headspace. The rare bad barrel. Or maybe a super plating of copper? Clean it real good and use moly-coated bullets.

[OBXPilgrim]

What? I thought I stumbled into another Handi-Rifle bashing thread, I thought (from what I've been reading) that H&R was the only one to make crap.

[C A Plater]

At this stage I would do a chamber cast to get a look see at the chamber and throat dimensions and perhaps what's going on here. Being a custom shop barrel does not mean they are perfect. I recently returned one with a very sloppy chamber which they replaced.

[JSH]

From what I have seen in the 17 Rem, your results with factory ammo doesn't sound out of line.
One of the guys I shoot with had a 14" custom barrel and a 700 chambered in 17 Rem. They were both blowing primers off and on. He ended up trimming all to a uniform length and problems went away. Also to get the best out of both he neck turned just enough to clean the neck all the way around.

I have seen a lot of buggered stuff on a TC, never saw a issue with the bushing though. I would call TC and see if they will send you a new one if you believe that to be the problem, rather than the complete frame.



I really doubt you have short chamber. If you do feel lucky.
If there is excess headspace they will fire about 90% of the time, the extractor will hold it back far enough. As mentioned above, custom shop does not have much merit towards anything custom. The only thing the csutom shop offers over the TC regular line is things no longer in production and some wildcats. No better or worse chambering or work than an off the shelf barrel.
Jeff

[montana_charlie]

I'm not a Contender person. Haven't even held one.

But, a couple of weeks ago I was doing some Googling for information on a subject I know little about, and ended up reading many posts about T/C singleshots.

I was amazed by how many posts (either) complained about, or confirmed the 'fact' that there are many occasions when the chamber and bore are not correctly alligned.

Most attributed the problem to the practice of cutting the chamber with a pilotless reamer.

Don't know if it could apply here, but ...
CM

[leadman]

The Contender uses a bushing in the frame for the firing pins that is held in by a screw from the hammer side. I had one come loose and created more problems than I could have imagined.
I sent it back to T/C as I had hand surgery and they put a new bushing and firing pins in at no charge. Problems disappeared.

Couple of weeks ago at the range a guy was firing Remington brand 223 in an AR. He didn't want the brass so I picked it up. I sized it yesterday and was amazed at the variation in the case expansion and how flattened the primers were.