I've got a contender carbine in .30-30. My son and I loved it until misfires began to increase. It's had a habit of misfiring via light primer strike. This is with factory ammo. 3 in a row almost cost my boy a nice buck this fall. Shot fine after that.

I said enough is enough and sent it to the factory for service. It will arrive at the factory early this week. Would anyone like to guess what the cause of the light primer strikes will be? I can post the answer when I get the rifle back.

The frame has a cougar on it. I can't remember any other details to help you date it.

Could be a minor headspace issue. Had simliar issues with my 35 remington barrel on my contender. Some brass fits the chamber sloppy. There is enough slop that the force of the firing pin is reduced by the whole case moving as the firing pin strikes. Could be a ammo issue or a chamber issue. Or combination chamber could be max spec ammo could be min spec.Solution is to fireform brass to your chamber and just neck size. In the case of the 30/30 you will end up headspacing off the shoulder instead of the rim. Should solve all the issues.

What Mike says has merit! There is also another potential problem on the T/C Contender. The older barrels have a 2 pc bolt and the newer ones have a 1 pc. If the barrel was fitted to the frame by the factory, then there usually is no problem. However when one tries to use a barrel other than the one that came with the gun... Sometimes problems arise.

The other potential problem, is that the design has a safety mechanism incorporated into the design. If the barrel is not fully locked up, then the gun will NOT fire! Sometimes you will see light primer strikes...

This problem is easy to see. Merely close the action on an empty chamber and cock and squeeze the trigger. Look at the hammer and see if it is against the frame (Look at the gun sideways) If the gun is not properly locked in battery, the hammer will have about an 1/8" gap between the hammer and the firing pin. A good habit to get into, is to smartly close the action! This will minimize the lock-up problem. This is especially true of older frames (Pre Easy-open... Serial #s below 192,000... Or maybe it's 191,000, memory is a bit fuzzy...) Another way to tell if a frame is an easy-open is to look at the frame with the fore-end off. An older frame will have the trigger guard hinge pin at the front of the trigger guard. An easy-open frame, will have the hinge pin in the middle of the trigger guard.

T/C contenders are great guns, but like anything else, they DO have their quirks... Hope this helps...

GH

I spoke with the gunsmith that worked on my contender yesterday. He took a multi pronged approach. He cleaned and polished(I think) the firing pin block. He said the spring was fine. He replaced the hammer and the hammer spring. 10 rounds test fired.

I told him that it may have fired 10 times before, and then misfired 3. It was an inconsistent problem. I hope the multi fix cures it.

I just realized that I made a mistake on the bolts! It is the OLDER barrels that have the 1-pc bolt, and the NEWER ones have the two piece.

At any rate, what your 'smith did, will likely fix the problem..

http://www.bellmtcs.com/store/

Do your home work, it is headspace, and there are a number of approaches to correct it, Mike Bellm has taken the time to describe it in detail.

I did my homework and had read that site thoroughly. Although I didn't offer my guess, it was firing pin block.


"With the Contenders
it may be simply that the lockup is too tight, preventing the hammer block from dropping freely as is often the case. However, excess headspace and inadequate hammer spring tension are also problems common to the Contender."

The factory smith diagnosed it as weak spring, but he also cleaned up the firing pin block. He also replaced the hammer. Not sure why on that one. He addressed 2 of the 3 common problems mentioned on the site you referenced. The only one he didn't address is headspace as far as I can tell. With the multiple "treatments" I'm not sure we'll know what the problem was. He was pretty confident it was a weak hammer spring though. Although, if it works like he says it does, and he didn't address headspace, then I guess it wasn't headspace.

Correct me if my logic is flawed.