I picked up a 30-30 10" Factory T/C Contender barrel in Reno. The machining is of very poor quality. The lands show reamer marks and it fouls quickly. It also did not funtion properly. I had to back off the trigger engagement screw several turns to get it to fire. The hammer would not cock. I needed to reset the mechanisim by squeezing the trigger guard after I closed it. It then only fell to the stop and did not impact the firing pin. Now that I have it set for a long creepie pull it works most of the time. The frame works great with my 30 Herret barrel. Did T/C have quality control problems with the older barrels?

I have seen the finish quality go steadily downhill since I bought my first Contender in '71. Some of the first barrels I bought were very nicely finished and have a good, deep, durable blue. The newest factory barrels look really awful in comparison. I think the change took place in the early '80's.

Regarding your function problem, there are certain difficulties when using old style barrels and newer frames. One difference you may notice is the spring loaded locking lug on the barrel was one peice in the older ones and "split" on the newer ones. I don't know what is causing your problem, but it is very important that your action locks up completely.

You hammer not cocking is sort of indicative of a lockup problem and I would NOT shoot it until I had a closer look by a gunsmith or someone familiar with it. If your barrel has the old solid lug, T/C will send you parts to update it.

Once you get it working, you should enjoy your .30-30 barrel. I had one of the original octagon .30-30's that was pretty jumpy. Hold it firmly and use ear protection.

TC worries more about mass production. If they slowed it down a bit, they might be able to put out a good quality barrel.

I just never had any luck with factory stuff. I did have some shooting buddies that got great results out of theirs, but I never did, especially in the straight wall cartridges.

Just my .02

Good shooting,

HBL

You guys are tripping over the important stuff and getting caught up in the minor stuff.

The height of the top surface of the locking bolts determines whether the locking bolts will engage into the frame all the way. Barrels vary, frames vary, and lockup problems are simply no big deal at all..... very minor, and in my opinion do not reflect badly on TC. Considering the design and the tolerance limitations from one barrel and frame combination to the next, some fitting should be expected.

The reason you had to back off the engagement screw is because you had to slam the barrel shut harder in order to get it to lock up. This slamming bumps the striker off, and once it is bumped off, you have to open and close the barrel again to reset it.

The top surface of the locking bolts must be lowered, either by stoning down or by installing a lower set of locking bolts, which TC will either sell you in the first increment lower or install the necessary height for you at the factory.

The rough barrels are a black eye, but properly chambered will still shoot great.

What you are missing is the putrid chamber work they do in regard to alignment of the chamber with the bore and more recently the total absense of a throat at all in the .30/30 barrels..... just an overly long chamber neck and a chamfer on the ends of the rifling. Older vintages DID have throats in them, but chamber alignment has always been a travesty.

The other facet they have always fallen flat on their faces over is barrel crowns.... burred, off center, out of square, you name it. Anything but right. You would think that in 36 years they might figure out the basics by now, and at least learn what the vast majority of firearms companies learned eons ago. Hardly any company does the crowns as consistently poorly as TC has for 36 years.

Get out your magnifying lenses and examine the crowns. If you cannot see a clean, symmetrical outline of each land and groove, it simply is not cut cleanly. Look closely and you can often see that the edge of the cut is deeper on one side than it is on the other.

Stick these things in a lathe between centers, and it is not uncommon for the crown cut to be as much as .020" or more out of square with the bore as measured at the outer edge of the crown cut where you can put an indicator on it to check the runout.

Mike, THE TC Hairy Tick
And now you know why.

Also, old style v. new style really makes no difference at all.

Yes, the older frames were more problematic with newer vintages of barrels, but the fundamentals are the same.

You simply have to adjust the height of the top of the locking bolts so the things lock up far enough to release the hammer block.

It just is NO big deal, but yet this simple fact has soured perhaps tens of thousands of shooters against Contenders when two bits worth of common sense figuring out how this very simple mechanism works would have hardly caused a hiccup.

Thimpk.

Mike

Thanks all,

I read a bunch of info on Mike's site. First, I have a ca. 1982 frame. It is not the really old ones but it is not recent. The barrel is correct for the frame. It looks outwardly, identical to my 30 Herret barrel. The Herret works fine.

Quality, I know T/C barrels are nasty. I just did not expect the bore to be so poorly done.

I think I have a tight locking bolt situation. I will do Mikes marker trick to see. It seems that I should be working on the barrel and not the frame. If I change or modify the bolt in the frame it will not be right with the other barrel.

If I am visualizing the mechanisim correctly, it seems like I could take a couple of thousands off whatever is stopping the barrel when it is fully closed and make it close a tiny bit more.

I thought these things were supposed to be capable of swapping barrels easily. Live and learn!

[ 09-09-2003, 23:50: Message edited by: scot ]

[ 09-10-2003, 01:09: Message edited by: scot ]