Popular round

[Vinne]

Why is there nothing in 762x39 for the Contender? It is a popular round and there is ammo for it all over the place. Lots of wildcats out there in lots of barrel lengths. Just wandering.

[TCLouis]

Back many years ago, the first ime NRA Convention was in Nashville I posed that very question to a TC representative.
If 30 Herrett is good, then 7.62X39 should be (just think how great it would be sized to 6.5mm) a good cartridge. Right case capacity it seems to me.

Well the question I posed to the rep was, "When is TC going to produce a barrel for the 7.62X39 cartridge?"

Reply came quickly . . .

"NEVER!" "Tests of ammo have shown pressures over 40% above spec for the cartridge" 'so we and we can not make a Contender "safely" due to those outside influences over which we have no control'.

I would want it in 0.308 and that could make pressures even worse.

[contender1]

The Contender frame isn't capable of many calibers due to the pressures produced. But,,, the Encore was built to handle higher pressures,,, so maybe it's possible to get an Encore bbl in it. But,,, I'd never try it in a Contender.

[Kraschenbirn]

Got to agree with TC on this one. The SovBloc stuff, even current commercial production, seems to be all over the place. My first 7.62x39 was a very nice 1952 Tula SKS that would barely hold a full magazine of steel-case milsurp in the bottom of a gallon bucket at 100M. Would chuck some of the empties halfway down the firing line and barely drop others beside the bench. Looking at the fired primers, some showed indications of overpressure and others no flattening at all. Tried US commercial (W-W, IIRC) and handloading; groups tightened down to 'almost acceptable' but never better than '50-yard plinker' so I cleaned it up and sent it down road.

A couple months back, a shooting buddy showed up at the range with a Mini-30 and a carton of steel-case Wolf ammo. Lo and behold, his Ruger performed just about the same as my old SKS; peach basket groups, erratic ejection, and (primer) indications of inconsistent pressures. He doesn't handload but I did talk him into trying some US commercial ammo and, a couple weeks later, saw him again and he said the ammo change had improved accuracy quite a bit and showed me some of his fired brass which, to my eye, showed no sign abnormal/erratic pressures.

Unfortunately, for us, TC has to go with 'lowest common denominator' to minimize their liability exposure which limits what calibers they can offer.

Bill

[old woody]

The old Thompson Center Company was a wise & good Company.

[northmn]

I had an encore in the 7.62X39. Never had any problems with it. Can't remember now if it was a 12 or 15 inch bull barrel. I played with these pistols for bit and then got our of them. I could shoot them very well off a bench rest but not so well in the field. Had one in 22 Hornet that shot the best of any hornet ever. I also had a Rossi SS in the caliber and thought it would be great for the cheap ammo. Misfired a lot with the cheap stuff and was not so bad with Winchester ammo. Hard primers made for SA's. When hand loaded it worked fine. It would have been a very good hunting pistol and loaded about the same as the Herret without any of the headspace/case forming issues.
One of the issues with these barrels is probably more production costs than anything else. I think TC makes the 32-20 barrels .308 and may not want to use the 311 or 310 as needed for the 7.62. It would be a very good cartridge for a lot of uses but is held back for that reason. I think there are a lot of good cartridges not made anymore due to production shortcuts. They mostly have eliminated cartridges based on the old 7mm Mauser for instance. I would not argue with the crappy ammo reason either. Remington re-invented the cartridge more or less as the 30 AR made for their version of a practical AR15. uses 308 bullets.

[NoAngel]

One reason may be, not everyone handloads and the majority of factory ammunition in caliber is junk. You can pull some of that Russian stuff and no telling what bullet diameter you will get. .308-.311

The AK-47 gets a bad reputation for lack luster accuracy but it is not so much the guns fault. Many AK's are capable of surprisingly good accuracy. BUT, you put junk in, you get junk out.

Also, the engineers at Thompson know people will be shooting the cheap steel case stuff and can see how many warranty repairs will be in their future due to bent and broken extractors.

[Sur-shot]

The Thompson Center folks did not make the original Contender in the 39, but Richard Mertz of MOA did so and the guns were very accurate with a .308 barrel, using hand loads. Ran across several of the 7.62x39 chambered .308 barreled MOA guns at the Internationals back years ago.
Ed

[3leggedturtle]

Mike Bellm chambered them for it, but it wa an "improved" version that as meant to be handloaded.