Are Contenders a dying pastime?

nksmfamjp said:
To me, theses are a great pistol that I haven't paid enough attention to since the 90's! Someone on here caught my eye with a 30 Herrett and now I've bought 3 barrels this week!

30 Herrett
17 HMR
7-30 Waters

I'm going nuts! I already have a 375 JDJ!

My concern is where will I find stuff. Barrels and frames will be floating around forever. Gunsmiths that work on them seem to be kind of limited. ….and then dies for all these crazy calibers!

To top it off, I read that the Specialty Pistol Forum is closing…..

I still remember ordering my first from JD Jones. It was a 375 JDJ. He was great to speak with on the phone. We talked about everything from gun to scope to scope mount to holster to shot distance on game. Between that and his book, I was in love. I still look at that book! I killed a couple deer with it out to 200 yards! My dad and I were just hunters. We didn't really comprehend how much recoil that was or how far we were shooting. We were amazed how it hit.

I got my first pistol buck with a Ruger SA 10.5" Super Blackhawk. I took that shot at 125 yards with total confidence because we shot it a lot at 100 yards. It was a perfect shot, but the deer went down like an archery shot which I wasn't used to then. I got close and finished the buck off. Still, I don't think I could make that shot today. I was about 17 at the time.

I forget all the gunwriters of the time, but I was a huge consumer of JD Jones and similar people influencing the gun world into long range handguning.

Thanks for reading!
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I for one did not know there was a Speciality Pistol Forum but, Welcome anyway Glad to have all of the expertise in one place!! just love the Contender,have one in a .221 fireball and of course others!
 
Yeah, broke my teeth into reloading with the 30 Herrett, then the 357 Herrett about 40 plus years ago. My wife bought me the 30 Herrett for my birthday. Both were 14" bull and I still have them. Got them out for the first time in 30 years and man the ammo I had loaded up from back then was still spot on awesome. The 30 has a Bushnell 1.5/3.5 ER scope and the 357 is open sights. They are dang accurate, fun to shoot and will take whitetails with ease out to 200. I'm thinking about reviving them both and trying some of the newer high BC bullets and seeing what I can do with them.
 
TexSavage said:
Yeah, broke my teeth into reloading with the 30 Herrett, then the 357 Herrett about 40 plus years ago. My wife bought me the 30 Herrett for my birthday. Both were 14" bull and I still have them. Got them out for the first time in 30 years and man the ammo I had loaded up from back then was still spot on awesome. The 30 has a Bushnell 1.5/3.5 ER scope and the 357 is open sights. They are dang accurate, fun to shoot and will take whitetails with ease out to 200. I'm thinking about reviving them both and trying some of the newer high BC bullets and seeing what I can do with them.
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Sure would like to hear range reports from that. I have a desire for a 14" 30 herrett for some reason. Dont need one….but……lol.
 
I went to the gun show in Rapid City, SD this past weekend and was surprised how many Contender barrels there were available. I currently only have an Encore so no luck there. There were a bunch of obscure and rare calibers on sale from several vendors. I did notice that someone was buying them up as they had disappeared by the time I made my way through for a second pass.
 
Well maybe not in the past. This thread peaked my interest once more. So much so, 28 years ago I had Bullberry make me a sweet 16" bull barrel encore with really nice wood. It was so slick. Sold it after I started shooting long range. So I thought last night, you know I'm calling Bullberry tomorrow and I'm going to get them to make me another one. Well crap........when did they go out of business????? I tried to go to their website 5 times thinking it was a mistake.

So question to the TC guys......who's the go to for making custom TC encore rifles?????
 

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