Ok I dug all of them (Contender barrels) out of all of the nooks and crannies where I had squirreld them away, and I note two differences.

Most of the barrels have scratches in the muzzle end where the saw teeth cut them to length, they are just flat and blued right over the marks.

Two, have crowns, the 22 Hornet has a deep flat recessed crown, and one of two 14" 30 Herretts has an nice rounded crown (when did I buy a second 14" Herrett . . . Why . . . a 30 Bellm project til I noted the rifling style . . . who knows )!

Why crowns on two of them and the rest left as cut?

They all shoot better than I can so I will Not fault them for the ability to shoot accurately.

Course I use minute of deer at 125 yards as my measuring stick rather than thousandths (0.000").

LouisB

Early TC barrels were given something of a chamfer at the bore and the end of the barrel "kissed" on a belt sander, it appears.

They later went to what appears to be a piloted cutter that cuts a radius, ie., rounded end.

These were a radical improvement over the belt sander treatment that Elgin Gates and others beat them up over for years.

(I use the word "appears" since I have never had a death wish and stepped foot on TC's property. So all I can relate to is appearances based on hands on experience.)

For some reason they abandoned the radiused crowns and went to the flat recess cut they use now. There is nothing wrong with the type of crown they use now, but all too often the cut is out of square with the bore and eccentric to it, which is simply a sloppy hourly operator at work and "quality control" either untrained or asleep.

Mike, THE Heretic.

[ 10-29-2002, 09:50: Message edited by: Mike Bellm ]