T/C Contender in .35 Krag

[rodentrancher]

I’ve been fiddling with my rebored .35 Krag pseudo-carbine for a while, and have developed a fondness for the .35 Krag cartridge.

I’ve also been working on another project, building a folding-stock “backpack rifle” from a T/C G2 Contender. Hmm…wonder if I could somehow get a .35 Krag Contender barrel?

So I called JES Reboring to see if he could rebore a .30-40 Contender barrel. Jesse said yes, but then added “30-40 Contender barrels exist, but they’re pretty hard to find. 30-30 barrels are a lot more common. I have a 30-40 chamber reamer – see if you can pick up a cheap used 30-30 barrel, I can rechamber it and then rebore it to .35 caliber for your .35 Krag barrel.”

So that’s what I did. My .35 Krag backpack rifle:

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Close up of the rebored barrel. The original .30-30 marking is lightly struck through, and “35 Krag” is marked closer to the breech end:

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Took it to the range last week, it shot pretty darned good. First group from the bench went 1.57” at 100 yards (200 gr. Sierra RN, 45.0 gr. AA 2495):

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[butlersrangers]

That is pretty wonderful performance for a compact 'backpack' rifle!

[rodentrancher]

That is pretty wonderful performance for a compact 'backpack' rifle!

I suspect the heavy bull barrel profile helps with accuracy, though it's not exactly ideal from a weight standpoint.

Turns out to be surprisingly hard to find anything but bull barrels for a Contender.

[waterman]

What is the twist of your rebored barrel?

[rodentrancher]

What is the twist of your rebored barrel?

1 in 14". Seems to work fine for the 200 gr bullets, I'll have to try some heavier bullets and see how they do.