Making TC Contender & Encore barrels the better way

Why shoul you use a stub to make your TC Contender  and Encore barrels? 

1. You are not welding directly on the barrel.
2. Threading the barrel against a stub stiffens the breech of the barrel just like on a bolt action rifle
3. It is a fast and easy way to service the TC Contender and Encore shooters who are always looking for a new barrel to try
4. It is fast
5. It takes little more than a decent metal lathe and finishing equipment to turn out quality barrels
6. It is a great way to use those take off barrels that you have in corner of your shop.
7. We do all the hard work for you, if you can cut threads on a barrel you can quickly make TC Barrels.
8. You can make money, and if you do I do to.

The Story behind using stubs:

When I first began shooting the TC Contender in about 1991 I was bothered by how the hinge bar was welded to the actual barrel.  No one else in my shooting group seemed to be worried about it and I was not doing any gun work at the time so that is how we shot them.  I must say factory and custom barrels worked fine.  Spin foreward several years and I found my self not only support the 5MM Craig cartirdge but the rifles that shot it too.  Mike Craig had a carbine built for one of his TC Contender frames and we found what an interesting combination this was.

I then built a 5MM Craig barrel for an Encore action and I TIG welded the hinge on to the barrel.  When I reamed the chamber I was able to feel the change in the  barrel that radiated out from bore to the welds.  It bother me but I did not know what to do to change it

Later when corresponding with a couple of other TC Gunsmiths, I found that they also looked for a way not to weld on the actual barrel.  Their solution was to buy old Contender or Encore Barrels and to cut the Hinge portion off, bore it out and thread in a new barrel.  This was a brilliant idea but I am too cheap to buy a barrel and cut it off just for a stub.  For the past four years we have been developing the procesess necessary to manufacturer new stubs.

This illistration shows what I am talking about.  In the top drawing you can see how the welding heats the barrel all the way to the bore with the surface being melted to fusion tempature.  On the stub the same thing happens but the barrel is not affected because it is not threaded into the stub yet.  The bottom drawing shows how a barrel is machined to fit insde the stub.  Any gunsmith that can rebarrel a bolt action rifle can now do high quality aTC barrel very quickly.

On this page I outline the basic steps to making a brrel with a stub.  Complete instructions come with the Basic Stub Kit and are more complete than these steps shown but these are the basice steps that you follow.

Step 1:   Optain a stub from us.  Here iare several views of stubs  for the TC Contender.  The Encore stubs are the same only bigger.

Several views of TC contender Stubs.  they are already drilled and tapped for scope mounts.  The through pin holes are for easy to drive out 1/10th rolled pins.  this makes it easy to setup the first time and easy for the shooter to keep clean.

Our stubs tubes are all machined on our CNC lathe and the Hinge block is machined on our CNC Mill.  they are TIG welded together in a jig to hold them in correct placement.

Step two: Prepare your barrel like this, we use a 5/8x18 thread on the inside of the stub with two smooth shoulders that you must machine correctly to gaine the most from your barrel stub.

Step three:  screw the two together:

Step Four:  Face Off the barrel and the stub to fit the TC Action, this is the critical step as itr sets your headspacing too.  One very nice thing about using stubs is the flexibility to recover from cutting a little too much off the end of the barrel.  With a tradional hinge block you would loose 2" of your barrel if you made this mistake.  with the stub you can unthread the stub, move the shoulders back a 1/10 of an inch and do it over.  there are limits to this fix but it sure can save your bacon on a barrel.

Fitting the barrel to the action action There are several methods in our instructions that speed this process up.

I use red Dykem because it was on sale the day I bought a quart, but notice how I am scraping the face when trying to close it.  In the instructions that come with the stubs are faster methods of cutting the stub and barrel to fit your action.  You should have not more than 0.004" between the end of your barrel and the breech of the action.

Step Five: Fit the barrel to your action

Here I am using a factory barrel to take the measurement from the hinge pin to the face of the barrel.  In a factory or production barrel you will find that there is more gap allowed than in a custom barrel.

I measue the new barrel and calculate how much I have to take off.  Because some Contender frames have been stretched with heavy loads the measurements will vary some.

Using a dial indicator on a Might Might magnetic base allows me to precisely face the end of the barrel to the right length.

I coat the stub with a fairly heavy coat of Dykem fitting lacquer.  Mine is red because that was what was on sale the day I bought a quart several years ago.

Check for rubs on the weld site the fit to the top of the frame and the face of the barrel

Fitting the barrel to the frame and trying to close it will scrape the Dykem off as is shown here.  From this point your lathe cuts should all be very light.  It is real easy to cut the barrel too short.  You are working with the actual headspacing at this point so proceed with caution.

One major benefit in using stubs over welding on the barrel is that if You do cut too short you can unthread the stub, move the shoulders on the forwar a little and spin the stub back on.  here you have a choice, If you want a really nice looking rifle you will discard that short stub and replace it, A small gap of 0.010 on the stub face will not hurt the function of the barrel, as long as the barrel fice is correct.  Stubs are cheap than barrel blanks.  I don't recommend cutting the barrel to length until you have the barrel fitted to the action.

Step Six:  When you think that your barrel is fitted correctly with the center of the bore lining up with the firing pin and the barrel is parallel with the top of the frame  you should fit the Locking bolts to the barrel and then fit the whole thing to the action.

Fit each Locking bolt to the stub groove, they should be very close and only a few strokes with a fine file will allow them to slide right in.  We redesigne the hinge to accept 0.1" diameter pins to make it easy to drive in an out and to take apart to clean.  I cover my vise jaws with copper sheet to protect the barrel from vise damage.

Step Seven:    Once the barrel is fitted and will lock securely with the locking bolts in the frame, now it is time to cut the extractor slot.  Of all the challenges in making a Contender or Encore barrel the Extractor slot is one of the most challenging.  If you have a Bridgeport type Knee Mill you can swing the head over so it sits at an angle to the table and rig a vice to hold your barrel vertically to make this 0.09" deep cut from the center of the bore to the extractor slot in the stub.  Not having that type of mill in my shop really left me at a disavantage.  Even my CNC mills would not allow that type of cut.  Pistol barrels of 12 to 14 inches weren't too hard but still a challenge.  What we needed was a way to cut the slot with the Lathe.  I looked at Lathe Mills but could not find one that would fit my 12x37" lathe and looked sturdy enough to hold the barrel.  There was also the need to securely hold to  barrel in aligment with the center of the three jaw chuck if I was going to use the lathe to turn an end mill.  What we eventually manufanctured was a tool holder that fit on the Phase II  quick change tool ing system that I use.

The Eagle View Arms Contender Barrel vise

Cutting the ezxtractor groove.  Of all the challenges in making TC Barrels the extractor groove may be one of the largest for the small shop.  Using a knee mill with a rotating head is the easest way to cut this groove but I don't have one.  I tried several methods of cutting them on the vertical CNC mill and that was not good.  What we need was a way to do it with the lathe.  We have developed the tooling that fits on your Quick Change tool post to allow anyone with a lathe to easily cut these grooves.

Here I am using a carbide endmill and the Stub Lathe Vise to cut the Extractor Slot

To hold the 3/16" carbide end mil I use a ER 16 collect adaptor inserting it to the three jaw chuck on the lathe.

This shows the barrel adaptor attached to the Phase II QCTP also works as a mar reseistant wrench when screwing the stub on the barrel.

A new unfinished extractor should fit smoothly but snuggly into the slot that you cut, like this and then with fine files and stones finished to work freely.

Once you have these steps done then the barrel should be  Chambered and finished like any other barrel you the best of your tasts and skill abiliity.

I will ad more to this page soon.

Lowell