Contender Octagon Barrels

[eveled]

I'm trying to find a definitive list of 10" Octagon T/C Contender Barrels.

But I'm interested in all octagon barrels except for the "hot shot" barrels. Any added info about Octagon barrels is welcome. Dates they were available etc.

Does anyone have a list? Also does anyone know when they stopped making the octagon Barrels??

Here is my list of ones I own and ones I've seen for sale over the years. I'm pretty confident it is complete. It doesn't contain any of the "Hot Shot" barrels.

List updated 3/22/24

 

[bykerhd]

I had to look a bit to find them but I own .38 Special, .45 LC and .357 Magnum barrels in "10" octagon.
The .357 barrel, which I have not yet shot, has a Bushnell Phantom scope on it.

 

[contender]

I’m not home right now but I have all the T/C catalogs. I’m thinking that I put a list like this a year or two ago.
I’ll check but it may be a while. I’m currently being support for my wife. We’re at a nursing home where her mother is expected to pass soon.

 

[eveled]

@contender I'll send some prayers for you guys.

When you get a chance please post your findings for all the barrels. No rush obviously.


@bykerhd those are 3 good ones to have. In the years Ive been tracking them.

I've only seen one .38special one.

As far as actually shooting.45 Colt, the .45 Colt only one is much better than the combo .45/.410 barrels. While not rare, they aren't as common as the combo barrels and always sell high.

The .357 one is much more common, but also a very fun one to shoot.

 

[contender]

Thanks guys,
Well, it's over. After a long night, Miss Penny's mom passed about 5 am today. We've not had much sleep,, as we went ahead & went to the funeral home to make arrangements. The owner of the funeral home & I graduated HS together,, and we've kept in touch over the decades. As such,, when we went there,, he was very kind & gave us a pretty good discount. He recalled how I removed a skunk from inside his house many, many years ago, and took care of him then.
Anyway,, I'll see if I can get time in the next day or so to dig out my catalogs & see what I find. (Besides the small water pipe leak under the house that I have to fix tomorrow.)

 

[bykerhd]

I've still got a couple of Thompson Center's old custom shop Fox Ridge Outfitters catalogs.
The place is long gone but it was fun to visit back in the day. Some of the custom shop options available were pretty wild.
E Arthur Brown seems to be the closest thing to the old TC custom shop anymore. I have not done any business with them.
https://eabco.com/

 

[eveled]

@contender Wish I could come over and fix that leak for you.

I'm sorry for yours and Miss Penny’s loss.

 

[eveled]

OMG! This how my new .22Hornet barrel with forend showed up in my mailbox today! Luckily no damage.

Seller charged $14 to ship it.

 

[contender]

This is why I over-pack anything I ship if at all possible. Due to the many machines that sling packages & such,, combined with the human physical package throwers,, I want stuff to be protected during transit.

Glad it wasn't broken.

PS; eveled,, thanks for the kind words & the offer of fixing the plumbing. I'm hoping it's just a simple thing. Apparently one of the metal hot water heater copper corrugated pipes has a tiny pinhole. I'm hoping I'll be able to just remove the insulation, unscrew each end of the piece, and add a new one, & re-insulate. Hope, hope, hope!

 

[eveled]

Got good deals on 3 barrels this week. But when I laid them out, I realized my .22 Hornet barrel is 8.75" instead of 10"! There goes my perfect set. Lol.

I’m really excited about the other 2.
.45acp and .30M1

 

[eveled]

One of the new barrels came with a weird forend screw. I never noticed / knew about the snap on forends. Pretty neat.

 

[the_leper_colony]

OMG! This how my new .22Hornet barrel with forend showed up in my mailbox today! Luckily no damage. View attachment 35748
Seller charged $14 to ship it.

Some folks seem to be clueless, when it comes to packing barrels for shipping (ask me how I know)! Ditto when it comes to shipping bullets - I've lost track of how many boxes have reached me with bullets rumbling around loose inside, and dozens more leaking out of the box or left along whatever route the package traveled, because a corner or edge blew out in transit. Certain things need 2-4 layers of packaging, or they might not even reach the destination!

As always IMHO, FWIW, YMMV, etc., etc.

 

[Chief 101]

The first Contender I bought in the mid '70's came with a 9mm, 30-30 and 45 Colt. All octagon. I purchased many barrels since and new frames since but alas they are all gone. The only octagon barrels were the ones mentioned. The 45 Colt did not have the shotshell screw on thingy attached to it.

 

[contender]

Nice bunch.
I was able to fix the water leak,, run a USPSA match with 40 shooters, spend a great long afternoon & evening with family, prepare stuff for Christmas here,, and today,, we dern near didn't do too much. Just relaxing & then cooked a good dinner. (Slow cooked venison backstrap, red wine sauce, Idaho Klondike mashed potatoes, homestyle green beans, homemade dressing, brown gravy, and Crescent rolls.) Tomorrow,, I have a few phone calls to make,, and set a few work calls up. After that,, I'll be tinkering in my gun room, and I'll get into my T/C catalogs.

 

[eveled]

You mentioned you fixed the water leak in a different thread. I was happy/ relieved for you.

Sounds like you had an awesome Christmas.

No rush on the Contender info.

 

[contender]

Ok, looking in the catalogs, starting with catalog #1, all the calibers you have above, plus a few more.
They are;
.9mm (2 lengths,
.45 Colt, (with choke, only in 10", without choke, 2 lengths.)
.357 Bain & Davis
.30 Herrett

These are shown in the first few catalogs. The first bull barrels appeared in Catalog #2, and only in .30 Herrett & .357 Herrett. As the popularity of the bull barrels increased,, the calibers offered in the "Standard" or Octagon design, were slowly diminished.

So,, yes,, your hopes of finding a .9mm are valid,, but as with anything,, can be elusive.

 

[eveled]

Thank you.

 

[carbonfibrebob]

I have a 12" octagon in 7-30 Waters

 

[Uncle Howie]

OMG! This how my new .22Hornet barrel with forend showed up in my mailbox today! Luckily no damage.
Seller charged $14 to ship it.

Here’s how my ”new” (to me) Burris 2-7 AO scope just showed up:

Amazingly, the scope looks fine. The box didn’t match the scope, so no huge loss, there. A couple of wadded up newspaper sheets would’ve gone a long way toward preventing this… but that’s the seller’s fault.

The scope is going on a Contender, and I was replying to eveled’s post... so this post isn’t a TOTAL hijack.

Now, back to octagon barrels!

 

[eveled]

I gave it an angry face, because of the damaged box. Not because of thread drift. It’s definitely related.

Have fun with that scope and your Contender.

 

[contender]

"I have a 12" octagon in 7-30 Waters"

I'd bet that this barrel is a Fox Ridge barrel,, not a factory offering. Or maybe one of the other custom makers like BullBerry, or whomever. It's not in any of the T/C catalogs.

 

[Uncle Howie]

I gave it an angry face, because of the damaged box. Not because of thread drift. It's definitely related.

Have fun with that scope and your Contender.

No worries!

 

[eveled]

There must be some that were uncataloged. Found this one on Ebay. 12”octagon 38/40

 

[contender]

Interesting.
I didn't get into the later years,, as I was looking through stuff due to the yearly reduction in the offerings. I didn't look in ALL the catalogs. I'll go back & double check myself. That 38-40 is obviously a much later barrel by the box markings.

 

[bykerhd]

I bumped in to a couple guys at an Albany NY gun show maybe 30 years back.
They were talking about being members of the T-C barrel of the month club ?
I was curious but not in a financial position to actively follow up at the time.
I still wonder about what the T-C offerings were. I assumed they were produced from T-C's Custom Shop.
Based on standard barrel blank calibers they already were using T-C would have only needed chamber reamers to produce whatever wildcat they desired. Barrel lengths, diameters, blued or stainless all no problem.

 

[eveled]

Good points about being able to make any wildcat relatively easy. Especially when rim or center fire don't even necessitate any change.

When the 5mm Remington Rim Fire became obsolete it morphed into the 5mm Craig centerfire. The stumbling block was converting the rifle bolts to centerfire. Obviously with a Contender it is a much easier conversion.

First time I heard of the barrel of the month club. I wonder if it really was a subscription service or something said sarcastically? Some people now use the term "flavor of the month" generally to mean the latest fad.

 

[carbonfibrebob]

"I have a 12" octagon in 7-30 Waters"

I'd bet that this barrel is a Fox Ridge barrel,, not a factory offering. Or maybe one of the other custom makers like BullBerry, or whomever. It's not in any of the T/C catalogs.

Tis a factory barrel

 

[eveled]

@carbonfibrebob That's awesome! Thanks for posting the picture.

Probably a pretty scarce barrel. Only one I've seen.

Thats 2 that seem to be uncataloged both 12”. I think I’ve seen a .218 BEE 12” Too.

 

[Dan in MI]

I may well be wrong, but I’m guessing we’re overthinking this. Could it be as simple as they made 12” octagon barrels when they switched from 10” to 12” for the standard length?

 

[bykerhd]

Fox Ridge, T-C's custom shop offered non-standard barrel lengths, at least in the catalogs I have.
But, the catalogs I have all are later than the octagon era.
I would suspect that the 12" octagon barrel originated from Fox Ridge.