Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Single Shots New Contender?

I tried a search and couldn't find anything, so I thought I would mention it.

A gunsmith friend of mine who is friends with J.D. and Brian at SSK mentioned to me that they had recently been bought out by Lehigh Defense. Apparently, they are bringing back the original Contender, calling it the SSK-50. The frames are listed as on pre-order through Haus of Arms, and from the photos, appear to be a reboot of the G1 frames, of which I am a huge fan. I am not much of a handgun hunter, but I love Contender Carbines, so I think I am going to pick one up. At $275, I was pleasantly surprised. It's hard to find a good used frame for that anymore.

I may just use this is an excuse to have SSK fix me up with a 21" Contender Carbine barrel chambered in 6.5JDJ to go with it.

Here's the link in case anyone else is interested.

https://www.hausofarms.com/SSK-50-FRAMES_p_2661.html

It looks like I'll want one of those.....

$275? I'm in for a few. Some of my originals have a lot of miles on them. Probably be better off to sell some of the old ones and upgrade.

I almost fell in your trap, but a quick trip to Whittaker's site for a 6.5 Grendel Mini saved me, I think?

Well, for the time being anyway. Those frames look very nice, and the concept of a nifty little .25/20 or something of the sort is pretty compelling. Maybe one of Dan's liitle wonders.

I ran a 6.5 JDJ once, but now that mgm is building 6.5 grendel barrels (G2 only they say) I see no reason to mess with the JDJ, YMMV.

I think this would be a great Christmas gift for my 4 year old son.

Being it’s not a G2, are there any muzzleloader options available? That would be the one thing holding me back.

I was also thinking of a 32H&R, with a skinner sight or some type of precision aperture. I think it would make for a great little trapping/small game/woods loafing rifle, accurate, powerful, and extremely lightweight, under five pounds. The little 32 has always intrigued me, little lead use for the cast bullets and tiny amounts of powder.

A beautiful thing.

32 H&R Mag and 25-20 are both calibers I would really enjoy in a carbine.

So who all makes Contender barrels these days?

If I'm not mistaken, any Contender barrel will fit any Contender. The main difference in the G2 is internal and grip angle. I shoot IHMSA with guys that use G2 frames and swap barrels as needed.

All mine are MGM.

i have both of those in carbines, accurate & fun plinking in that setup.

My 25/20 is a 20" tapered barrel by SSK, the .32mag is an 18" taper by MGM. i pack those around a bit when out running trail cams, etc...and also another barrel in 32/20 as well. My .32mag is a true .32, while my 32/20 has a .308 bore.

never know when a target of opportunity will pop up...always seeing skunks, coons, armadillos, 'yotes, and hogs. Federal 85gr factory loads averaged just under 1300fps in my barrel, good accuracy. But, handloads were a good bit more peppy...7.0gr AA7 with the old style (pre-XTP) 85gr hornady HP showed 1600fps.
7.0gr Ramshot Enforcer gave good accuracy also with the Sierra 90 JHC; cant seem to find my notes on speed with that combo

.32mag:, with the old style hornady HP's...several dozen critters whacked so far with that combo. I've still got about 10 boxes of those old HP's left...XTP's do shoot just as well though, so when those are all gone i'll make the switch to those.



in general, most published pistol-barrel-data loads from the various load manuals averaged 1300-ish or a tad more when fired from the carbine. For squirrels & stuff, 3gr Hodgdon Universal with a 98 gr full wadcutter was about as noisy as a .22LR subsonic & clocked 1025fps. Those are fun, and they make a very audible WHAP when they hit a squirrel way up in a tree.



and, 10 shots at 50 yards with the Sierra 90's...

That's good stuff, right there. Do you have any issues finding 25-20 brass?

What would you think about a 5.7x28 in a carbine barrel?

OSU.....i've had the 25/20 for quite a few years so i haven't had to search lately for brass lately.......i had understood that Winchester did a small run of brass recently but i never saw any.

I do shoot a 5.7x28 carbine barrel also, kind of an "almost-but-not-quite-hornet".... 45/46 gr bullets at about 2500/2600-ish.

Only downside to the 5.7 is that brass is a bit tedious to work, primer pockets often need reamed or swaged, and that small case capacity is somewhat sensitive to variations in thrown powder charges if using a powder that doesnt meter consistently. Because of that, i have lately been using AA#7 which does flow well. Upside, i've noticed at local gun shows they practically give that 5.7 brass away; i bought once fired stuff for $40 a thousand , i guess not many people want to mess with it.

I've never fired 5.7 factory loads, dunno how they perform at carbine speeds.

At about-22-mag power levels , i sometimes take it squirrel hunting using handloads with the speer flat nosed 46gr bullets (218bee bullet), downloaded a tad bit to about 2250fps. For moderate muzzle blast loads, 5.4gr power pistol with Nosler 40gr Varmageddon HP's also yielded about 2250, and about as noisy as CCI mini-mags in my 22LR.

Do you guys ever have problems with brass stretching in goofy ways due to the design of the contender? It would be neat to get one in .30-30 with a couple scopes in Talleys in order to easily switch between loads. Then you could easily have small game/plinking loads and deer loads all at once. This would be especially great for kids I know.

QD mounts should allow you to switch scopes without too much drama. I use Warne QD's and it keeps my zero. I suspect Talley, Burris and Leupold would do the same.

Not a Contender but in an Encore I sized brass so that the action would just barely shut, kind of had to snap it. No issues w brass stretching that I could tell.

i mostly neck-size also on the various bottleneck cartridges in my 'tenders. When forming 30herrett, 357herrett, 30reece, 25classic, and the other oddball stuff i shoot i also set dies so as to require a good snap to close the action on a fresh case during
the initial fire-forming.

On some calibers i hunt with a bit (25/35ackley, 6.5x30/30ackley, & 30/30 ackley) a .375win FL sizer die works nicely to size case bodies down as needed without setting back the shoulder.

I have several barrels, all of which save for one are older T/C Carbine tubes. Most shoot pretty well, more than sufficient for hunting use. The 22lr "match" chamber shoots as well as my other .22's, as to say, well under 1/2" at 25 yards.

I have one MGM tube, a .357 Magnum stainless bull barrel. It shoots damn well with 158 XTP hollow points, under an inch at 100 yards. I put it together for Ohio Whitetails when they passed straight wall pistol caliber rifles a few years back.




What Fyrepower said. I have a 7x30 Waters, and after the initial fireforming, I neck size only, and have pretty good brass life with the Federal 30-30 brass I'm using. My 357 Magnum tube doesn't stretch the brass anymore than running them in a revolver.



That's a good looking Contender. Is that the 18" 32 barrel? I think you pushed me over the edge, I may order one right after Christmas. Not to sound petty, but how did you do the camo patter on the stock? I love that. Looks great!

J23...that one is an 18" barrel...i wanted light & quick swinging. I originally had it topped with hi-viz fiber optic type sights; later went to low powered scopes on most barrels like that.

I got bored with black tupperware stocksets, so sanded them a tad bit, then cleaned surfaces with Berryman's B12 Carb Cleaner to degrease. ...for paint i used outdoor paint i got at hobby lobby that was supposed to be for stuff like outdoor patio furniture & made a brush to blot it on using a wad of roll gauze i frayed.... i blot lightly & just slap it on there. Done about 6 sets of them so far, seems to be holding up OK. Only wear i've noticed was where one of those that had a wider bull barrel forend is tight in the gunrack of the 4 wheeler the paint has rubbed off some, need to go back & touch that up.

I recall the paint was cheap, around $2-$3 a small bottle. i just dabbed it on, and sometimes mixed a few colors to get different shades... after drying i sprayed lightly with clear sealer...a few pix of the home-brewed paint jobs.

Proly get one as a belated Xmas present to myself.
Currently down to one Contender, older version.
Bought cheap, evidently had trigger job, as it bumps off easy and trigger pull is light.
Would prefer it a bit heavier.

Have not taken it apart to see what needs modified.
Wonder if I need just a spring change or notch deepened somewhere.

I like your paint job. Hard to mess those up too badly. If you don't like the way it looks, just start over.

Those stocks look great!! What a huge difference over the black tupperware.

I have one with the black plastic, and three with walnut. Two are the older G1 factory walnut with the factory pencil thin 21" barrels, and one is a newer G2 wood.

I dont like the new G2 stock.. way too bulky for the handy little G1 frame. So I put it on the bull barreled .357.

I was just looking at MGM, specing out a 32H&R barrel. Not sure if I should stay with the factory 21" length or have it cut to 18". SS or CM. I'll definately go with the medium contour. The options are endless. I think that's why I like Contenders so much.

I like the factory plastic but used a G2 forend and added a cheekpiece made of kydex. The G2 forend had #8 shot and epoxy added to hollows for more weight fwd. Was kinda twitchy w super 16 bbl

Got a email yesterday, they’re gonna ship April 3rd now..

+1

I signed up for one, but the date has slipped to May, I believe. Hope this isn't vaporware. I opted to pay by M.O. when it's ready because of that. If it slips again, I'll bail.

FyrepowrX

Beautiful job on the stock set, better than what's available commercially.

Steve.........