I stumbled upon a stray Contender 18" Bullberry tapered barrel in 7mm TCU today and I think it followed me home and will show up on my door step next week. Any ideas on what I can feed it?? Maybe with IMR 4895.

I have lots of info on 10" pistol loads, but I can't find anything that is meant for an 18" or so. I was planning on starting with Speer 115 gr HPs in commercial cases. I'm using the 115 HPs in my 15" 7mm-08 Encore and they slap deer down real well....i know the velocity will be less with the TCU, but it may work there as well.

Any info will be appreciated!!!

Hi my boss has just set up a 25 tcu on a remington mod 7 with a 20 inch barrel. We find that a charge of ADI 2206H behind a 85 nosler bt works brilliantly. This powder you will find under the hogdon brand - give it a try maybe?
You may be suprised how well it will go.
Muz

Thanks Muz!!!

I'll give it a try!!

Barrel arrived and it looks wonderful. I did need to modify the hanger bar from Bullberry to work with the TC forearm.

It went together tonight as a 6lb 3 oz rig with a Weaver 6x scoope installed. I shot 12 rounds downrange after dinner and they were quite mild.

Pet loads appreciated!!

Not sure how this happened, but I used 25.0 gr of IMR 4895 and a 115 Speer HP to fireform and got 1 1/2" groups at 50 yards...nothing to talk about.

Since the measure was set on 25.0 grs, I loaded the fireformed cases with 20 rounds of 115 gr Speer HP and 20 rounds of 120 gr Sierra Pro Hunter. I moved to 100 yards with the 115gr HPs and the first group was under a dime!! 2nd and 3rd were covered by a quarter and the 4th was four shots in one hole and a "flyer" opened it to an 1". The 120 shot to almost the same point of impact and were all under an inch too. I still need to run some thru the chrony, but I may be done with load development...hate when that happens!!

I'm pretty impressed with the 7mm TCU!! It leaves the same dent in my steel plate as the 7.62x39 Wolf HPs which kill deer really well. Can't wait for November because of the rut, gun season and cooler weather!!

I have one of the older 21 inch 7-tcu carbine barrels. The load I have been useing is the old hornady ssp 120gr bullet over 27.0gr of H-322 and CCI 400 primers. I average 2470fps with this load, and get about 1 inch groups. I have not worked very much with load development with this gun, as this same load shoots very well in my 10 inch and 14 inch 7-tcu barrels. I find the 7-tcu to be a great 100yd deer carbine that is easy to cary, fast to shoot, and with the speeds attainable, bullet performance is just where you want it to be. Have fun with your new find!!

I'll have to try those H322 loads, I'm only getting about 2220 out of the IMR 4895 loads I'm using, but I'm using 3" less barrel too. The 115 Gr HP's work really well on fox and should be about the same as the 120 SSP bullets. Can't wait for gun season!!