30 Badger Contender

[tek4260]

I had a friend stub Remington 700 30-06 barrel into a 357 Contender barrel to make a neato little rifle.

Here is a pic of the case just for grins



and the chosen bullet, the cheap Lee soup can



Loaded round



And what will be the rifle when my stock and forend arrive



WGRS rear and 700 front sight



From a distance you can't see the seam where it is stubbed



You can see it here



And the writing on the Remington 700 barrel will be hidden by the forearm.



All in all a cheap and easy rook rifle. Should be fun for the kids and the big kids too!

And here are some pics from the guy who made the barrel for me

Parts for the project....



Donor barrel for stub...before.



After with 30-06 donor barrel insert.



Stub finished with threads and donor insert barrel ready to go in.



Stub assembled with insert polished and ready.



Drilled &Tapped for front sight...



assembled with sights... loose fit together



Set into my frame for an overall look see...



The barrel looks blued partially...optical delusion.

And here is my pic of it after the stock arrived



And a comparison between my daughter and sons Red Ryder BB guns. The regular sized one and the little bitty one



So far I have shot the little Lee soupcan at 1350 with 5.5gr of Unique, 1500 with 12gr of I4227, and 1950fps with 14gr of H110. I don't think it will have any problems reaching 2100fps with H110 loaded up to full density.

[okie44]

Looks good TEK! Good replacement for nonexistent rimfire.

[tek4260]

Thanks Okie!

I really am surprised by how versatile the little round is. I think it can be run right on the heels of a standard 30-30.

[okie44]

Wonder if the RCBS 168 would work

[coldcase1984]

Rook? That's a deer rifle!

[tek4260]

I'll probably try it on deer. It's only a lil 38 Special case necked down to 30 caliber in a 30 Mauser die. Cheap brass and simplicity in forming and loading. No special dies and no trimming.

[awp101]

That's VERY cool! It would probably make a nice project for a Martini Cadet as well. Does the Badger have it's own chamber reamer or do you use the .30 Mauser?

[tek4260]

It is its own caliber. Not the same as a 30 Mauser. The 30 Mauser is bigger at the base. You simply use the 30 Mauser dies to reload it. If you ever need to resize the body of the case you use a 38 sizer. No one has ever had to use it from what I can tell. I did size my once fired 38 cases before forming them in case any had been shot in a revolver with oversize chambers. On the new brass I simply formed them.

[awp101]

Got it, thanks! I think the Contender would be a much easier conversion platform than the Cadet. Maybe a BSA .22 rechambered and the barrel rebored...

[tek4260]

I added a cheap scope to see what it would do without having it impared with open sights.

15gr of H110 yielded 2013fps and I shot the following 5 shot group at 50 yards. A dime will cover it.



I am sure it will do better but having to come up off the bags to reload a single shot has never given me a good group. You can see that I struggle to get my hold the same by the fact that there are 2 in one, 2 in one, and then the last shot out of the others. But despite that I'm tickled with it and at 2000fps it should work for deer.

[tek4260]

Also, with it being so short, I had to modify my bags to keep pressure off the barrel. In the beginning I was getting some stringing and realized the bag was resting half on the forarm and half on the barrel.

[okie44]

15 gr near a full case?

[tek4260]

Yea it is close with the bullet seated a bit below flush with the neck. I'll do some more chrono testing later and might bring it up to 16 or 17gr. I need a few minutes in the evening to run about 20 across the chrono and see what the spread is. If it is in the single digits, I'll leave it at 15.

[tek4260]

I never did add any more powder as the deviation was less than 10fps for 5 rounds. I took it to the camp this weekend and shot one round at 100 to check what the drop would be. I had sighted it in earlier in the month at 25 and shot a group at 50. Sighted dead on a 25, with low rings, yielded this POI at 100



Pretty much the same as all the other rifles I have with low rings that are sighted dead on at 25

I took it to the stand and had a doe come out at 107 yards facing me, head down feeding. I was slightly above her, so I shot mid neck and you can see the exit in the photo. Bang flop, just like with a big rifle. With the angle, I was slightly off to one side of the spine. It is amazing to me to see how well it did considering the miniscule round.

[dougader]

Wow, that all came together fast! Nice doe, and nice rifle!