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Is anyone shooting a Rimfire Contender Handgun?
Tuesday night I spent at the Indoor Shooting Range shooting groups with my SST Super 14 .22 LR Match Contender Handgun.
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The above Contender wears a 3x12x32mm AO Burris LER Handgun Scope in Weaver 1" High Silver Quad Lock Scope Rings on a Weaver Silver Scope Base. The farthest distance we can shoot at our Indoor Shooting Range is 18 yards, so I actually sent this scope back to Burris and had it modified so it will eliminate parallax at 18 yards (the AO only goes down to 25 yards). The Grips are the old T/C Walnut Herrett Finger Groove Pistol Grips while the Forend is a T/C Walnut Carbine Forend that I modified for use on the Super 14 Barrels (I had to open up the barrel channel to accept the bull barrel and relocate the front attachment screw hole).
It took me a lot of years to discover the T/C Contender in a Rimfire Chambering thinking if I was going to shoot a Rimfire in a Handgun I wanted a repeater. I had shot and hunted with Contenders for about 20 years before getting my first .22 LR Contender Barrel. It didn't take long for me to ask myself "what took so long".
At any rate on Tuesday night I was retesting some ammo. I had done an ammo test with this particular Contender Handgun a few years ago and decided to see how new production ammo stacked up against what I had previously tested.
On Tuesday night I concentrated on shooting Eley Target Rifle .22 LR Ammo. I had previously tested Remington / Eley Target Rifle .22 LR Ammo and boy what a difference there was from the old to the new.
I shot 10 - 5 shot groups with Eley Target Rifle. I started with a totally clean barrel, and as expected my first shot was way off. However the next 4 cut a single hole that measured .260" center to center. All in all (not counting the first group from to totally clean barrel) the average for the 9 groups came in at .066" center to center.
I was quite pleased with the accuracy of this ammo. Back when I tested the Remington / Eley Target Rifle .22 LR Ammo the testing procedure was exactly the same and the average for the 9 - 5 shot groups was .156".
The quest continues. I have 100 rounds of the following that I am going to also test in the next week or so.
Wolf Match Target
CCI Standard velocity
Federal Gold Medal Target #711B
Eley Sport
Federal Auto Match
I should note that all shooting was done with the Burris LER Handgun Scope set on 10x with parallax totally eliminated. Shooting was done with a Shooters Ridge BR Bipod up front with just a sand bag under the grip. At our club we have portable shooting benches that consist of 1 1/4" steel square tubing legs that fold with a 3/4" plywood top, so the benches are not the most sturdy in the world but everyone uses the same benches.
What all this boils down to is now much fun and how accurate Rimfire Contender Handguns can be. Granted the 18 yards at our Indoor Shooting Range doesn't really test what this handgun can do but the last time I shot it outdoors at 100 yards I was rewarded with 1" 5 shot groups from the bench.
If you are into Rimfires and if you are into Contender Handguns but have never tried or considered a Rimfire Contender Handgun you may want to give one a try. They are super accurate and very fun and rewarding to shoot.
I just may have to get myself a new Contender Barrel that shoots that new fangled .17 HMR Cartridge one of these days.
Larry
Tuesday night I spent at the Indoor Shooting Range shooting groups with my SST Super 14 .22 LR Match Contender Handgun.
The above Contender wears a 3x12x32mm AO Burris LER Handgun Scope in Weaver 1" High Silver Quad Lock Scope Rings on a Weaver Silver Scope Base. The farthest distance we can shoot at our Indoor Shooting Range is 18 yards, so I actually sent this scope back to Burris and had it modified so it will eliminate parallax at 18 yards (the AO only goes down to 25 yards). The Grips are the old T/C Walnut Herrett Finger Groove Pistol Grips while the Forend is a T/C Walnut Carbine Forend that I modified for use on the Super 14 Barrels (I had to open up the barrel channel to accept the bull barrel and relocate the front attachment screw hole).
It took me a lot of years to discover the T/C Contender in a Rimfire Chambering thinking if I was going to shoot a Rimfire in a Handgun I wanted a repeater. I had shot and hunted with Contenders for about 20 years before getting my first .22 LR Contender Barrel. It didn't take long for me to ask myself "what took so long".
At any rate on Tuesday night I was retesting some ammo. I had done an ammo test with this particular Contender Handgun a few years ago and decided to see how new production ammo stacked up against what I had previously tested.
On Tuesday night I concentrated on shooting Eley Target Rifle .22 LR Ammo. I had previously tested Remington / Eley Target Rifle .22 LR Ammo and boy what a difference there was from the old to the new.
I shot 10 - 5 shot groups with Eley Target Rifle. I started with a totally clean barrel, and as expected my first shot was way off. However the next 4 cut a single hole that measured .260" center to center. All in all (not counting the first group from to totally clean barrel) the average for the 9 groups came in at .066" center to center.
I was quite pleased with the accuracy of this ammo. Back when I tested the Remington / Eley Target Rifle .22 LR Ammo the testing procedure was exactly the same and the average for the 9 - 5 shot groups was .156".
The quest continues. I have 100 rounds of the following that I am going to also test in the next week or so.
Wolf Match Target
CCI Standard velocity
Federal Gold Medal Target #711B
Eley Sport
Federal Auto Match
I should note that all shooting was done with the Burris LER Handgun Scope set on 10x with parallax totally eliminated. Shooting was done with a Shooters Ridge BR Bipod up front with just a sand bag under the grip. At our club we have portable shooting benches that consist of 1 1/4" steel square tubing legs that fold with a 3/4" plywood top, so the benches are not the most sturdy in the world but everyone uses the same benches.
What all this boils down to is now much fun and how accurate Rimfire Contender Handguns can be. Granted the 18 yards at our Indoor Shooting Range doesn't really test what this handgun can do but the last time I shot it outdoors at 100 yards I was rewarded with 1" 5 shot groups from the bench.
If you are into Rimfires and if you are into Contender Handguns but have never tried or considered a Rimfire Contender Handgun you may want to give one a try. They are super accurate and very fun and rewarding to shoot.
I just may have to get myself a new Contender Barrel that shoots that new fangled .17 HMR Cartridge one of these days.
Larry
