An interesting thought occurred to me last night. I started hunting with handguns back in the 1980s, and very quickly fell in love with the Thompson-Center Contender. I started off hunting with TCs chambered for factory rounds, like the .35 Remington and .223 Remington, mostly in 14" barreled guns. A few years later, I started working with wildcat cartridges, like the 6.5 TCU. These guns served me well, and gave me a number of hunting adventures across the western US, especially for mule deer in the rocky canyons of the Snake River in eastern Washington. A few years later, I got into what might be called my "high performance phase", looking to flatten trajectories, and extend the range of my hunting handguns as much as possible with cartridges like the 6.5 JDJ, the 7-30 Waters, and the .308 Winchester (in the OT-SSP). I even went and designed my own wildcat cartridge (the .338 GEF). These guns served me extremely well, and accompanied me on hunts for pronghorn antelope in Wyoming, elk in the high country of central Utah, javelina in dry, dusty border-country of southern Arizona, and prairie dogs in central Montana. I've had some great hunts with these guns!
In recent years however, I have sensed a change in my hunting practices. I am no longer interested in making 300 yard shots. I am more interested in hunting heavy timber or stalking in for a close-range shot. Hence I have gotten more interested in compact handguns that can be shot offhand easily and brought on target quickly and precisely. And (of course), I am more interested in hunting with cast bullets. This has led me to all but forget about my 14" Contender barrels, and focus more attention on the more compact 10" barrels with low power scopes (middle-aged eyes with bifocals just don't work very well with open sights under low-light conditions in the black timber of the northwest). I didn't set out to do anything systematic here, but last night I realized that my last 3 Contender projects were all 10" barrels all set up specifically for hunting with cast hollow points, in .30, .35, and .40 caliber -- the .30-30 (160-190 grain cast HPs), the .357 Hartley (200-280 grain cast HPs), and the .40-50 Sharps Straight (240-310 grain cast HPs) -- all at 1400-1700 fps. These guns are all designed to be 100-125 yard sledgehammers that can be called upon in heavy timber to make a fast and accurate shot, and drop the game animal quickly and humanely, with a bullet that I cast myself.
Have any of you gone through a similar evolution?
In recent years however, I have sensed a change in my hunting practices. I am no longer interested in making 300 yard shots. I am more interested in hunting heavy timber or stalking in for a close-range shot. Hence I have gotten more interested in compact handguns that can be shot offhand easily and brought on target quickly and precisely. And (of course), I am more interested in hunting with cast bullets. This has led me to all but forget about my 14" Contender barrels, and focus more attention on the more compact 10" barrels with low power scopes (middle-aged eyes with bifocals just don't work very well with open sights under low-light conditions in the black timber of the northwest). I didn't set out to do anything systematic here, but last night I realized that my last 3 Contender projects were all 10" barrels all set up specifically for hunting with cast hollow points, in .30, .35, and .40 caliber -- the .30-30 (160-190 grain cast HPs), the .357 Hartley (200-280 grain cast HPs), and the .40-50 Sharps Straight (240-310 grain cast HPs) -- all at 1400-1700 fps. These guns are all designed to be 100-125 yard sledgehammers that can be called upon in heavy timber to make a fast and accurate shot, and drop the game animal quickly and humanely, with a bullet that I cast myself.
Have any of you gone through a similar evolution?
