Wonderful 1 shot: Thompson/Center's G2 Contender

Guns Magazine, May, 2008 by John Taffin

When it comes to manufacturing firearms or pickup trucks or any mechanical devices two words guaranteed to send shivers up the spine are "new" and "improved." Usually these words actually translate into manufacturers finding a shortcut in production and then selling it as something new and improved.

This is simply a fact of life and manufacturers can't exist if they do not keep looking for ways to lower costs and produce more goods. One manufacturer, Thompson/Center actually did improve their then 33-year-old Contender. Fortunately for shooters, the G2 really is a new and improved design, which addresses at least two shortcomings of the original. Before we go into that, let's back up and see how we got here.

In 1967 Thompson used the ingenious design of a single-shot pistol by Warren Center to introduce the Thompson/Center Contender. The 1960s were still ruled by revolvers and T/C took a big chance stepping out into foreign territory. The

Contender is a break-open pistol with an easy changing barrel system, which allows barrels of several chamberings to be used on the same frame. Switching barrels is very simple and only requires the removal of the forearm and a hinge pin through the frame. The sights stay on the barrel so once a barrel is sighted in, whether with iron sights or a scope, the zero is maintained as the barrel is removed and returned to the frame.

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It is obvious Thompson/Center did not fully realize what a wonderful single-shot pistol they had created. The first calibers offered were actually .22 Long Rifle and .38 Special which tells me either they didn't know what their design would handle or perhaps they felt they better start with very low-recoiling cartridges. When they did move up powerwise, they used the same skinny barrel and a grip, which did an extremely poor job of reducing felt recoil. Shooting a full-house .44 Magnum in such a set up resulted in brutal felt recoil. Thompson/ Center did two things to address this problem. First, they hired well-known stock maker and handgun hunter, Steve Herrett of Herrett's Stocks to design a proper stock--which he did--in spades. Secondly, to help reduce recoil, the skinny barrel was replaced by a 10" bull barrel. The .44 Magnum was now manageable.

In the early 1970s, two movements were occurring which would be natural settings for the T/C Contender. One of these was long-range silhouetting and the 10" T/C Contender became the number one pistol used in the Production Class. T/C soon added a Super 14 barrel for use in the Unlimited Class. At this time I was oblivious to single shot pistols with my only interest really being in big-bore revolvers. In tact, when I started shooting long-range silhouettes, I only shot in the Revolver Class. That was about to change. The second movement was many handgunners discovering handgun hunting and finding a scoped Contender to be the perfect choice for this relatively new endeavor.

Christmas 30-years ago had a great affect on my shooting of handguns. Diamond Dot was going to give me a gun for Christmas--of this I was sure --however, I didn't really know what she would choose. My hope was for a big-bore sixgun, maybe a .44 Special. or a .45 Colt, or even a .44 Magnum. When she handed me the box on Christmas morning I knew it was too large and too heavy to be a sixgun but I hoped she had just disguised it. She hadn't! As I opened the box I had to put on a real happy face when I saw what was to be my first Contender. I'll give her this, she had chosen well. It was a Super 14 chambered in .30-30, but what in the world was I supposed to do with it? Now any sane man knows better than to tell his wife she bought the wrong Christmas present. So I did the only thing possible: I bought a couple boxes of cartridges and went to the silhouette range to see what this strange looking "handgun" could really do.

Hooked

It did not take me long to get hooked. In fact, it was before I got through my first box of cartridges. I sighted in off the bench for 200 yards and then got down into the Creedmoor position to shoot at a bolted-down ram target. The first five shots could be covered with my hand and my immediate thought was why in the world had it taken me so long to "discover" the Thompson/Center Contender? Diamond Dot had definitely chosen well. That Super 14 became my only Unlimited Class gun and I added a

second Contender, a 10" .357 Magnum, for use in Production Class. Over the next decade I would shoot many revolvers, however these two Contenders were never replaced.

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In addition to opening up a whole new world of handgun competition, the Contender also put me in touch with

SSK Industries and J.D. Jones, who was offering all types of custom barrels for the Contender. Over the past nearly 30 years I have done a lot of hunting with SSK custom chambered barrels on the Contender. My two favorites, the two I took to Africa in 1994, are the 6.5 JDJ and the .375 JDJ. One or the other of these cartridges will handle every hunting situation. Thompson/Center now realizes the value of the .375 JDJ and is offering production barrels and factory ammunition. If they only added the 6.5 JDJ they would have all hunting situations covered with only two chamberings.