I've done a couple searches on the web and the subject turns up empty. I find it hard to believe that no one has ever tried to make up their own barrel for a contender. Is there something I am not realizing here? I have to admit that I haven't examined a barrel closely to see if there would be any fabrication problems, but can anyone enlighten me or point me in the right direction to someone who has or at least tried?

TIA

Mark

This has been discussed on some of the single shot forums, in fact it might have been on the AR single shot forum, but if so, it was a couple years back, and I don't know if the thread was archived.

The big challenge of the contender barrel is welding on the lug, with a good weld that won't come off, but not so much heat that it warps the barrel. You might want to contact Mike Bellm, as he discussed it several times, and went into some details on the welding requirements.

If you are content with cartridges based of the .223, 5.56X50R, and 357 mag/max, then there is another route. Pick up a used barrel, cut it off to ~3", and bore it out to thread in barrels. Someone had e-mailed me how he went about this, and I might still have the e-mail.

I've done two the way PaulH described.I got an inexpensive barrel,cut it just ahead of the block and threaded it.I made one in 223 and another in 22KHornet.The machine work was pretty stright forward,I didn't encounter any problems.All and all it was a fun project and I was satisfied with the results.