Hope you pistol guys don't mind me asking this here as well as on the single shot rifles page...I'm new to Contenders and I would like to hear from those of you with experience about the pros and cons of the two styles of hanger bars, i.e. the one screw super 14 spacing or the longer carbine spacing which I think uses two screws. As far as I know I have no preconsceptions as to which is better so I would appreciate hearing your thoughts/experiences. Forgot to add that I will be using an old style Contender set up as a carbine. Thanks guys,

AlanF

My hanger bar set ups are on a couple different barrels with different spacing. One style is on the "14" spacing and the other on Super 16 spacing but the foreends are all cut to fit both. All are single screw. There is about 3/8" difference in the bar but the hole is located the same distance from the breechend. Never had any trouble with this setup and use it all the time for hunting with a rifle sling or bipod. I much prefer the hanger bar set up over a factory foreend but have used both for many years.

I have some Contender barrels set up for the Pachmayr rubber fore arm grip, which requires a hanger bar to use. It works fine and I really have no comparison on those barrels because I set it up that way from the start.

When I got my Encore, I set it up with the rifle fore arm and like that set up much better, especially for shooting off hand and with a bipod because it gives a long wheel base instead of the teeter-toter effect you get with pistol length fore arms.

I am not using a hanger bar on the Encore. But I did add enough thin S/S washers to the two mounting screws to get enough fore arm clearance to be able to easily slide a dollar bill up the barrel between the screws with out making any contact with the barrel channel in the fore arm. This gun shoots under .75" for 5 at 100 yards with its preferred load, so I haven't fooled with it any more. You might give the washer trick a try before investing in a hanger bar set up.

Some custom shops offer pillar bedding of fore ends in place of a hanger bar system. My washer spacers were an attempt to see if pillar bedding might work on my gun. The washers worked better than not using them, and they worked well enough that I haven't felt the need to go any farther in seeking more accuracy. If the washers work for you, it is a really cheap fix and well worth a try...Rusty.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Could someone please post a picture of the hanger bar system?

Here's a hanger bar pic from a Virgin Valley Encore pistol barrel. Two attachment points for the bar, two screws go in to the forearm. (Ignore the silver stud - I added that.)



Here's a link to a few more pictures:
Encore forearm modification