Thompson Center Arms
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Thompson Center Arms is an American firearms company based in Rochester, New Hampshire. The company is best known for its line of interchangeable barrel single-shot pistols, and it's muzzleloading rifles, though they have recently added a line of semiautomatic rimfire rifles.
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[edit] Break-open pistols
T/C's success came with the emergence of long range handgun hunting and target shooting. Their break-open, single-shot design brought rifle-like accuracy and power in a handgun, which was a new concept at the time.
[edit] The Contender
The Contender pistol was a break-open single-shot pistol with a number of unique features that helped it become a huge success. The first feature was the way the barrel was attached to the frame. By removing the forend stock, a large pin was exposed; by pushing this pin out, the barrel could be removed. Since the sights and extractor went with the barrel, the frame itself had no cartridge specific features to it. A barrel of another caliber could be dropped in and pinned in place, the forend replaced, and the pistol would be ready to shoot with a different barrel and sights. This allowed easy changes of calibers, sights, and barrel lengths. The Contender frames even had two firing pins, and a selector on the exposed hammer that allowed the shooter to choose between the rimfire and centerfire firing pins.
The Contender also had an adjustable trigger, which allowed the shooter to change both the take-up and overtravel, and go from a fairly heavy trigger pull, suitable for carrying the pistol while hunting, to a "hair trigger" for long range target shooting (see accurize). It was even possible to fit a shoulder stock on the frame, and when combined with a 16" or longer barrel (see Thompson Center Arms and the Supreme Court below) turn the contender from a pistol to a rifle. Barrels were avaialable in lengths of 8, 10, 14, 16, and 21 inches.
The true key to the Contender's success was that, unlike most other firearms actions, the break-open design did not require the barrels to be specially fitted to the individual action. Any barrel made for the Contender could fit onto any frame, allowing the shooter to purchase additional calibers for a fraction of the cost of a complete firearm. Since the sights were mounted on the barrel, they stayed sighted in and would remain zeroed from change to change.
The range of calibers available for the Contender were fairly limited, stopping short of the .308 Winchester class cartridges. However, just about anything from .22 Long Rifle up to the .30-30 Winchester was accepable. That prompted a boom in wildcat cartridges suitable for the Contender, such as the .30 and .357 Herretts and the various TCU cartridges, mostly based on the widely available .30-30 and .223 Remington cases. The largest factory caliber offered for the Contender was the .45-70, which although a much larger case that the .308, was feasible because of the relatively low pressure to bolt face of the cartridge. Custom gunmakers also added to the selection, such as the J. D. Jones line of JDJ cartridges, based on the .444 Marlin. Other makers pushed beyond the limits the factory set out, and did chamber Contender barrels in lighter .308 class cartridges like .270 Winchester. The Contender would also fire .410 bore shotgun shells, either through the .45 Colt barrel or through a special 21 inch smoothbore shotgun barrel.
[edit] The Encore
The Encore was released in the late 1990s. The Encore uses a different trigger mechanism, designed to be safer than the original Contender's and to make the break-open action easier. The Encore uses a considerably larger and stronger frame than the Contender, and accordingly is found in a greater range of calibers, up to .375 H&H. The Encore barrel list also includes shotgun barrels in 20 and 12 gague, and muzzleloading barrels in .45 and .50 calibre and 12 gauge, using 209 primers. However, the Encore lacks the dual firing pin of the Contender, and so is not well suited for rimfire cartridges.
[edit] The Contender G2
The Contender was replaced by the Contender G2 soon after the Encore came out. The G2 is dimensionally the same as the Contender, but uses an Encore stye trigger group. Due to the change in trigger mechanism, the buttstocks and pistol grips are different and will not interchange between the original Contender and the G2. The G2 uses the same barrels and forends as the Contender[1] and so barrels will interchange, with the one exception to this being the G2 muzzleloading barrels, which will only fit the G2 frame.
[edit] Muzzleloading rifles
Thompson also is a big player in the muzzleloading field, both in Traditional and In-Line arenas. The Encore makes for truly a 21st Century muzzleloader and can interchange with centerfire barrels. The Omega line is also meeting commercial success, although it is confined to use as a muzzleloader. Their traditional line changes almost annually. They did have a bad habit of releasing a model and producing it for 3 to 5 years and dropping it. Even still, they sold a great number of percussion and flintlock rifles in a wide variety of bore diameters. Some of their better known models are the Renegade, the Hawken, the Big Boar, and the White Mountain.
[edit] Thompson Center Arms and the Supreme Court
In the case of United States v. Thompson/Center Arms Co., the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the company's favor by deciding that the rifle conversion kit that Thompson sold with their pistols did not constitute a short-barreled rifle under the National Firearms Act of 1934.
This decision clarified the meaning of the term "make" in the National Firearms Act by stating that the pistol had to have a barrel less than 16 inches long with a stock directly attached to it to constitute a short-barrelled rifle under the National Firearms Act.
[edit] External links
- Thompson/Center Arms corporate website
- Bullberry Barrel Works, specializing in Contender, G2, and Encore barrels
