Posted November 16, 2017 5:26 pm by Comments

By Craig Boddington

ThompsonCenterContender

Let’s start with a riddle: What commercial firearm can be a handgun, a carbine, a full-­up long rifle … or a shotgun? And what commercial firearm can be a muzzleloader, centerfire or rimfire … and easily changed to one of several dozen cartridges? I submit there is just one, the Thompson/Center (T/C) Contender. During the past half-­century, this firearm has progressed from Contender to Encore to G2 Contender. It’s still faithful to Warren Center’s design and is still offered in a myriad of variations with almost innumerable interchangeable barrels. If there’s a more versatile platform, I simply don’t know what it might be.

Beginnings In 1945, Kenneth W. Thompson started a machine shop in his garage in Long Island, New York. In time it became the K.W. Thompson Tool Company Inc., with slow but steady growth over the next two decades. The company was not a firearms manufacturer, but they were making parts for several gun companies. Ken Thompson and his management team felt they needed their own branded product. In 1965, veteran (and genius) firearms engineer Warren Center joined the company, by then relocated to Rochester, New Hampshire. Center was a gun guy, a private custom gunmaker who had also …Read the Rest

Source:: Guns and Ammo

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