Contender Re- Make

Since we first introduced Mike S. of O.T.T. fame with our test of the 17HMR Bbl. he has established himself and his company as a reputable and reliable source of barrels for the T/C Contenders and Encores. Having mastered the challenge of affordable, accurate barrels for this fine line of handgun/rifles Mike has expanded his line of expertise to include XP100s and Savage Strikers.
2005 is going to bring some interesting and innovative ideas to the shooting world and, you can bet your best barrel that we'll be posting it here as the information becomes available.

Now, being a shooter and handloader Mike is, by nature, resourceful. Always thinking and looking for a way to utilize components/equipment in a way to benefit the shooter.
It was in this frame of mind that Mike realized the market was flooded with the factory take off barrels of the famous Ruger 10-22. A lot of these barrels are brand new and can be obtained rather cheap. But what to do with them??

Well, true you can re barrel your old 10-22, tho these barrels will last the lifetime of the gun under normal shooting conditions.
Not being satisfied with this simple answer Mike retired to the machine shop and went to work. When he came back out he had an inexpensive Contender bbl in 22 mag. that shot as good if not better than the expensive match type barrels.

And the rest is recent history. Now you can have an easily and cheaply obtainable factory 10-22 take off barrel made into a Contender or Encore barrel in any configuration of rimfire round from 22 short to 22 magnum or in the lesser of the 22 centerfires EI; 22 Hornet, 218 Bee, 22 jet, etc.
NOTE: The Encore WZL Barrel requires NO adaptor to fire the rimfire ammunition.

After hounding on me for several months to get one of these and send it to him for a 'remodel' I finally found a brand new one for a very reasonable price and got it shipped off to OTT for a refit.

I already knew I wanted the 22 Hornet for this chambering. I figured it would be a nice addition along side of the 17 K Hornet I received last year.

After a bit of discussion we decided the Bbl. would be 17" long so I could use it with my carbine stock. Forend Spacing was set up so I could use the forends off my 14" Bbls. The Bbl. of course would be drilled and tapped for a standard Contender scope base.

What Mike does to these Bbls. is pretty basic (To Him Anyway!). First the sites get knocked out and the barrel turned to the proper diameter. Next he'll face the spud and turn a target dia. on the front which cuts the site boss off. Then the Bbl. is recrowned to the 11 degree target crown.
Moving to the rear. A lug is welded on to fit either the Contender or the Encore and the back is dressed in preparation for the next step which is the actual chambering. Once the chamber has been cut to your specifications it is then polished and the leade angle lapped. The barrel is then drilled and tapped for a scope base and, the forend dovetails cut out along with the extractor slot. Then the whole thing is blasted and finished.

My job is to take this barrel and shoot the bejeezes out of it to see how it fares shooting the larger dia. (.224) bullets thru a bore intended for a 22 LR.

The main concerns being....
1. First and foremost, Increased pressure on a rather thin, weak case.
2. Copper fouling out the bore due to the increased pressure with an oversized bullet? And, if so, how quick? And, to what extent?

While waiting for the Bbl. to show back up on this side of the world I did a little bit of studying.

I put a micrometer on 6 different brands of 22LR ammunition and got measurements from .222 for some really old W.W. to .225 for some modern day PMC everything inbetween ran .223-.224. The bore of the 10-22 Bbl. mic'd at .223
I came to the conclusion that using a modern 224 dia. bullet would pose no serious problems as long as I watched my powder charges and backed away from the maximum loads listed for the 22 Hornet.

As far as excessive fouling? Well we'd just have to wait 'til we got the Bbl. to find out about that.

I acquired a set of Lyman dies, got a good deal on a box of Rem. factory Hornet ammunition and, I have bullets, lots of bullets, 35, 45 and 50gr. in Sierra, Hornady and Nosler. I also have 52, 53, and 55gr. but, from what I'm hearing, the heavier bullets don't work well due to the twist on these Bbls. which is set at 1-16". Since we have so many tho we'll find out for ourselves.

I received my barrel on 2-12-05. Fit and finish was of the typical O.T.T. quality I have come to expect every time a package arrives from New Hampshire.

Due to a back injury my range time has been very limited. However, with a new O.T.T. barrel sitting on the bench I was feeling pretty good for the moment and figured a few shots would probably do me some good.
I mounted the bbl. up on my carbine frame, took my Nikon 4.5x14 Monarch scope, grabbed a target, my box of factory ammo and took off to the range.

Mounting up a B-Square base and the scope took but a moment. Setting a target out on the 50yd marker we popped five rounds off to zero in, (It started out WAY high). We then cleaned the Bbl. and moved out to the 100 yd. marker. The next 5 rounds went into an easy inch. Cleaning the Bbl. yet again, the next 5 went into a good 1/2 inch group and I figured I had another accurate bbl. from O.T.T.
It was tempting to shoot up the rest of the factory ammo but, we wanted to run a test over the chronograph. So back home to start loading ammo.

3-11-05
Two weeks into a 6 week recoup from back surgery and at the moment I Can't Even Pick Up A Contender! The weather has been in the 60-70 degree range with no rain, quite strange indeed for Orygun in Feb.-Mar. Not much I can do except walk, no bending or lifting period. My day is broken up into small walks around town, sitting in front of the computer or, laying on the couch or bed, depending on if I want to watch a movie or sleep. So far I have managed to keep my sanity. Since I knew I was going to be out of action for awhile I ordered up 100 pieces of Winchester brass. I slowly started prepping this brass, taking my time as I have plenty of it.

First I gave it a visual inspection and weighed each piece. Out of 100 pcs. I got an average weight of 51.3gr. Heaviest was 52.0gr. and the Lightest was 50.7gr. Now, I don't normally weigh out cases. However, since all I have is time I figured what the heck, lets see what we can see.

Next, I stripped the Lyman dies down and gave them a once-over and cleaning. I use Hoppes #9 for die cleaning followed by a shot of Slicker into the sizer die.
An RCBS Special 5 was set up for full length sizing, all cases were run thru and measured. The shortest came in at 1.392 and the longest at 1.398.
There were 10 cases measuring 1.392-1.393 these were culled. We'll use the weight of these cases to keep our average fair.
The bulk measured right at 1.395-1.396.
1.394 is going to be the trim length. This will square up the case mouths without taking a lot of brass off the top.

After tumbling the brass a bit I set up the Lyman Universal case trimmer and went to work.

Since I have nothing but time I went ahead and deburred the mouth of each case after trimming.
One thing I found out here is.....Turning the handle on a case trimmer uses some muscles in the back, some I haven't used in awhile apparently, because this was a slow (sore?) process...( LOL-LOL)

Once all the cases were trimmed I set up the RCBS Case Master to square up the primer pocket, debur the flashhole and brush it all out. Then....

I weighed all the case again to see what we had.....

Weighing these cases was a waste of time. After I finished prepping the brass we had an average weight of 51.2 gr.
Oh Well.

Since this first test was to establish some velocities and get an idea on how the different weight bullets were going to perform. I primed all the cases with CCI 450 Primers and used W296 for all loads. Using bullets from 35gr to 55 gr and load data from the Sierra Manual I assembled the following loads.

This was an interesting shoot. I had my money on the smaller bullets but, the groups just weren't there. The factory ammo failed to turn in groups as good as our 1st shoot. And, The 53gr and 55gr bullets.These two had the best and worst chronograph readings and both shot clear off the board, about a foot from my point of aim. The 50gr and 52gr didn't disappoint tho, turning in groups under an inch. Our Velocities with the 17" 10-22 bbl. were on par with the book. Sierra tested with a 24" Savage Model 340 for the following results...
40gr. 2700fps (10.6gr) compare to 2793fps (10.5gr)
45gr. 2600fps (10.0gr) compare to 2589fps (10.0gr)
50gr. 2400fps (9.7gr) compare to 2379fps (9.5gr)
52gr. 2300fps (9.5gr) compare to 2255fps (9.5gr)
53gr. 2300fps (9.5gr.) compare to 2380fps (9.5gr)
55gr. 2100fps (8.4gr.) compare to 2074fps (8.5gr)
And Hodgdons has the 35gr. Vmax listed at 2805 using 11.0gr of H110

Shooting the little Hornet is pleasant. Case extraction was easy and we didn't notice any signs of pressure with the exception of one Factory round. We noticed a louder report than was usual and upon inspection discovered the primer had been pierced. We fired a few more rounds with no problems and wrote that one round off.
With the velocities running the way they are I would say we've got SOME excess pressure but, whether that is from shooting jacketed bullets through a 22LR barrel or because we have nice tight chamber from OTT still remains a question. I would imagine if the barrel is allowed to get to much copper fouling in it that pressures would go up. We will definitely be paying attention as we play with different powders and increase our loads abit.
One thing for sure. A pound of powder will load a lot of Hornet ammo and, with over 1500 Sierra 50gr. bullets and lots of primers I think we will be able to at least attempt to shoot this barrel foul.