Post by bradshaw on Feb 19, 2017 20:03:45 GMT -5
diamondD and williamiorg..... Combine your last posts. In stepping into IHMSA silhouette, T/C revamped a bit of it’s prior emphasis on varmint shooting. The steel shooter needs a heavier bullet with a point on it, in short a rifle bullet. Even the little, skinny-brass .32-20 puts its paw on a rifle bullet for slipping into the chamber of a single shot pistol out to topple steel. Thus, Warren Center, Ken French and others at Thompson/Center chose the .308-inch groove for the bull 10-inch Contender barrel.
Chambers are cut, as William testifies, to allow the .32-20 case neck to release a .312” bullet without pinch. To pinch a bullet in the chamber makes your gentle gunpowder angry. T/C was thinking “silhouette” on this one, specifically Field Pistol Silhouette. P.O. Ackley may have more experimenting on neck tension in the chamber than anyone else who wrote about it. Ackley found that to keep pressure inbound, the neck must have room to release the bullet.
Frank Scotto, a machinist and the first president of IHMSA to be elected after Elgin Gates died, got a close look at gun drilling & chamber reaming of Contender barrels at T/C. As well as shooting silhouette Scotto built IHMSA Unlimited pistols. He thought it a wonder that T/C’s shot at all. Suffice to say, many barrels of excellent accuracy came out of Rochester, NH, attested by the mountain of trophies collected with Contenders when “PRODUCTION” meant no non-factory parts[/u]. It was inevitable that .312 bullets would find their way into “.30-20” Contender barrels.
Unlike a tip-open single shot, for which cartridge length is limited only by chamber throat & leade (with enough neck to grip the bullet), a lever action is an action type sensitive to COL (Cartridge Overall Length). A lever action embodies traditional practicality, not specialization. Thus, traditional bullets. On top of which the tube magazine obviates pointed bullets. A .312” groove for the .32-20 represents lever action practicality.
David Bradshaw
Chambers are cut, as William testifies, to allow the .32-20 case neck to release a .312” bullet without pinch. To pinch a bullet in the chamber makes your gentle gunpowder angry. T/C was thinking “silhouette” on this one, specifically Field Pistol Silhouette. P.O. Ackley may have more experimenting on neck tension in the chamber than anyone else who wrote about it. Ackley found that to keep pressure inbound, the neck must have room to release the bullet.
Frank Scotto, a machinist and the first president of IHMSA to be elected after Elgin Gates died, got a close look at gun drilling & chamber reaming of Contender barrels at T/C. As well as shooting silhouette Scotto built IHMSA Unlimited pistols. He thought it a wonder that T/C’s shot at all. Suffice to say, many barrels of excellent accuracy came out of Rochester, NH, attested by the mountain of trophies collected with Contenders when “PRODUCTION” meant no non-factory parts[/u]. It was inevitable that .312 bullets would find their way into “.30-20” Contender barrels.
Unlike a tip-open single shot, for which cartridge length is limited only by chamber throat & leade (with enough neck to grip the bullet), a lever action is an action type sensitive to COL (Cartridge Overall Length). A lever action embodies traditional practicality, not specialization. Thus, traditional bullets. On top of which the tube magazine obviates pointed bullets. A .312” groove for the .32-20 represents lever action practicality.
David Bradshaw