Ken, Looking through that article on Contenders by Bob Milek nearly brought tears to my eyes for the appreciation of seeing it again and thinking back to those times.

I only wish that I had taken the time to become more involved with Bob than I did.

Read what he has to say and how he says it. There has always been something about his style that simply seemed "right" all the way.

Consider also that Bob was a serious shooter and writer, not a gunsmith, yet he had a far better grasp of the functioning and handling of the Contender than any single person I have known. Most of what he wrote is on track, but times and experience have proven that his work in 1985 was merely a platform from which to work, and there are some refinements and qualifications that need to be made to what he wrote.

I did not follow all of the thread earlier about copyright and permission to use the article, etc., but I would gladly pursue it with Peterson publishing and put it on the website along with a discussion of points I'd add to what he said.

Thinking back on the article at the time I read it in '85, it was probably quite influential to my own thinking and understanding of Contenders. I went for many years just working on the barrels without understanding the mechanism myself. And I am sure that at that time, 1985, there was a whole lot that I did not know! So, indeed, I am sure I owe a lot to Bob for the understanding I do have.

For now, if those of you who have gotten copies of the article want to, we can have a discussion of it here.

I have some comments on his info about trigger jobs I'd like to make and some clarifications/qualifications/refinements to his comments about headspace. For example, the cut away section of the Herrett chamber in the article is excellent to show how to headspace the bottle neck rounds correctly, but the Peterson editors blew it by not noted the specific points to be looked at. They presented a beautiful picture, but no decent explanation of what to look at!

Gotta run for now..... let me know if you as a group here want to pursue it on the forum.

Thanks again, Ken. I cannot begin to tell you how much that magazine means to me. I owe you one, bud.

If I may be so bold, I'd sure appreciate copies of any of the other many Peterson Pub. magazines with articles about me written by Bob Milek.
As I mentioned some time ago, I had a collection of them that I let go of and never saw again. Ken's sending the magazine sparked those sentiments again.

Mike

Heck yea Mike. I'm sure everyone would like to hear more about the trigger job refinements and just about anything else that can be done to improve the preformence of the contender.

Mike, you are very welcome and I have learned much from you in a short period just by reading your info on the website, Thanks to 1buba for a great job on that, and also on this forum.

You need not ask if we want an update, of course we want any info you may have gained over what Bob said over 16 years ago. Great actions only get better with your help

I plan on pulling my stainless one apart to do a full polish on it and will be doing some action work on it at that time. I will not start that part till I hear your updates!

Glad you enjoyed the artical. I hope we can find others for you to reassemble the collection.

KENTX on the work laptop

A couple points come to mind ref. the trigger job.

In the article he is stoning the long side of the striker holding it flat on a stone. He also is says to polish the front side (short angled tip) of the upper end of the striker. Not the best idea on either count. This produces a knife edge.

If you slightly round the tip of the striker, you will produce a greater contact area which makes for a smoother pull.

Also, since the striker's upper end on the one hand cams past the end of the trigger and on the other in some situations is jammed against the vertical surface of the trigger below the engagement or sear surface, a sharp edge is more prone to being bent, knicked, or otherwise damaged and no longer smooth.

Bottom line is that a sharp edge as produced by the methods Bob shows is not the best overall.

Also, by way of clarification, he says to polish the sear surface on the trigger.... top end that the striker engages. "Polish" means different things to different people. That surface is very, very short and polishing as it is usually thought of can ruin this surface.

Once the sear notch on the trigger is "polished" it will also then be very, very prone to disengaging or "bumping off" when the barrel is snapped shut. For this reason I undercut the surface, and what I always look for is a "resetting" of the striker when the trigger is pulled just part way, then backed off. Ie., the angled surface on the trigger lets the tip of the striker slide back under it and re-engage itself. Plus, the undercut of course helps resist bumpoff.

I use the fine cut 1/4" square Diamond EZE Lap to rough in everything and undercut the sear notch, then do the polishing with the 1/4" thick Wyoming stone. In both cases the stone or lap is held flat on the surface, then angled over to the vertical leg of the trigger. Vis., stand the trigger upside down with the top on the bench/table. The stone or lap is first held down flat on the sear surface, then the 1/4" thickness of the stone or lap tipped back firmly agains the vertical part of the trigger. These two surfaces.... the sear surface itself and the vertical part of the trigger...... act as guides to help you 1) keep the surface level left to right and 2) cut the notch at the same angle.

Once you get the ground finish off the trigger's sear surface and get it under cut, it takes only a few strokes with the Wyoming Stone to bring it to a polished finish. With this slick finish, it is smooth alright, but also more prone to bumpoff, thus the need for undercutting.

It was good to see that he was using stones to do the work. Too many people whip out the Dremel, and this to me is a big mistake, especially when the EZE Laps and the Gunsmith size Wyoming Stone costs less money than the Dremel and does the work so, so much better.

Bob says to replace the trigger return spring, and this is great if you can find JUST the right diameter spring, which is always a problem. He cautions against shortening the return spring to reduce the pull weight in the event you get it too short. If you do, no biggy. Just stretch it back out a little.

Here is a somewhat coveted secret. For a really light pull weight, the external springs on tire valve cores are great. However, they are quite often too light to overcome the inertia of the heavy trigger when the barrel is snapped shut and thus bump off easily.

Tip. If you go for a light pull weight and have a problem with bumpoff, simply press your triggr finger against the side of the trigger and hold it forward while you snap the barrel shut.

Lest someone yell, "Unsafe," let me remind you the hammer is not cocked yet at this point. So long as the trigger is held forward so as to engage the striker ok, then the hammer can be cocked and life goes on normally. If it bumps off, as you know, the hammer will not cock.

Another tip. Much of the crunch and grind in the Contender trigger comes from the return spring and plunger in the easy open models. With the striker released, simply work the trigger and you will discover how much of the rough sensation comes just from this area, which can be aggravating getting rid of sometimes.

The old style triggers do not have this problem.

I get a little billious (not to be confused with any bill at the pond) sometimes when folks seem to think that tweaking the engagement screw to shorten the engagement constitutes something of a trigger job. There can be a lot of work that precedes this.

OK, moving on to another point that just came to mind. This is in regard to lowering the locking bolts to make sure they engage the frame far enough. Bob says to stone the bottom sides of the locking bolts. If only a very, very small amount of material is removed, this MAY be ok, BUT, by thinning the locking bolts top to bottom, they will then tilt more in the locking bolt slot in the lug, thus making them more prone to unlocking when fired. Take the material off the TOP side of the locking bolts, folks. Just use the Diamond EZE Lap or something similar that will keep the surface flat and maintain the established draft angle on the top surface.

Excuse the commercial plug, but I just got in a large shipment of EZE Laps. To me they are absolutely indispensible working on TCs... or jillions of other metal working tasks.

Mike

Forgot to mention that you might want to archive this 1buba.

Mike

Hmmmmm, Another free trigger job??? Can't get any better then that. Thanks Mike

I'm on it. :-)