?? on T/C Contender..

[Duelist]

Like OlongJohnson said, they are hard to find relative to the region. I could have MGM make me one in whatever twist rate I wanted for $425. I might go that route eventually if I can't buy or trade for one locally.

The 10" .223 barrel is a hoot to shoot. Felt recoil reminded me of running stout .357s through a K frame but with less wrist twisting, if that description makes any sense. It is however, obnoxiously loud. I doubled up with plugs and muffs. Fifty yard accuracy was much better than I expected. I ran twenty rounds through the gun getting a feel for it and figuring out the sights. The final seven were deer killers with just over a 3" group off a bench using iron sights.

Attachment 64716

Using a red dot or an optic would tighten that group up as would using a higher quality ammunition. Fifty yards is pretty much the max I'd care to use .223 from a 10" barrel to kill anything besides paper. The entire setup is pretty svelte for a rifle caliber pistol.

Attachment 64717

Every single time I talk myself down from buying one of these, somebody posts a thread, and then someone posts a picture, and then I’m thinking about it again.

I so don’t need one. But dang, a .22 Hornet 10” would be so cool.

[ralph]

Unless you bought it new or have the box with the serial number showing how it was configured as it left the T/C factory, there is no way to be sure. T/C sold the frames in five forms: 1) part of complete pistols, 2) part of complete carbines, and 3) in packages with a handgun stock and forearm and no barrel, and 4) in packages with a buttstock, forearm, and no barrel, and 5) just the action. The serial numbers were numeric with no distinction for carbine versus pistol.

Luckily, I have the original box, mine came from the factory with a 16" bbl and pistol stocks.. As far as I can tell (from the receipt taped to the box, it was made in '95, it also has a catalog from the era, (catalog #20) and it says on the box, that it's a "super 16" As I said in my last post, with the stock on, it meets the criteria for a rifle, In the catalog, both of the barrels I have, were sold as both pistol, and carbine barrels..

[OlongJohnson]

My understanding is that Contenders follow the same rules as ARs regarding first assembly and going back and forth.

Well, since I wrote it all out earlier, I might as well post what I was talking about here, too. Find and replace "AR" with "Contender," and it remains applicable:

My understanding is that if a firearm is first assembled as a pistol, then it can be reassembled as a rifle, and re-reassembled as a pistol as often and as many times as desired.

So if an AR was assembled the very first time as an unambiguous, early-00s style pistol with a round receiver extension and nothing more on it than maybe a foam sleeve, it is eligible to be returned to a legal pistol configuration for all time. It can be made into a standard rifle without filing any special paperwork, or made into an SBR or AOW with a stamp. And you can go back and forth. You just have to be careful of the path you take transiting between states so you don't as an intermediate state assemble a configuration for which you have not acquired a stamp. As in, if you have a stamp for an SBR, don't let it be an AOW when changing from rifle to SBR or pistol.

However, if a firearm is first assembled as a rifle, then it is always a rifle. If a stamp is acquired, it can be reassembled as an SBR, because that is a subcategory of rifle, but it can never be a pistol.

So if this notice starts being used to make determinations that braced pistols are actually SBRs, then they will be and will have always been rifles in the eyes of BATFE.

However, if they were first assembled as unambiguous pistols with non-braced round receiver extensions, and the brace added later, then they could be converted back to pistols. I suppose that in that case, if a stamp was acquired and if the particular brace you used was one that worked with a round tube, rather than a "carbine" extension, you could go back and forth between pistol and SBR configuration simply by removing or reattaching the brace. It seems likely that BATFE will argue that a carbine RE is "objectively" intended to be used with a shouldering device, but it would be much harder for them to argue that a round tube without any additional device attached is "objectively" a stock.

I wouldn't want to go back and forth between configurations by changing the receiver extension, as that means messing with castle nut stakes every time you make a change, and likely a new castle nut and receiver end plate.

As always,

IANAL, and my posts here are never legal advice.