Best caliber(s) for a single shot?

T

TruthTellers

New member
I've seen a few posts on forums the past couple months of people dumping revolvers for single shots for the accuracy and quality. I can understand that, I too have had accuracy and quality issues on new revolvers. I've thought about a single shot pistol for years, usually in a rifle caliber tho like .308, but that doesn't exactly sound like a fun gun to shoot more than 10 rounds.

Not saying I need this to be low recoil, but not .308 levels from a 3.5 lb pistol.

So, what caliber(s) would be best for a single shot like the Thompson Center? .45 Colt seems popular, but I feel .454 would be better. I believe there are some .357 Maximum barrels out there, that sounds like a great round for a single shot.

I can go with pretty much anything, but I don't have much interest in .41 or .44 Mags or any rimfire.
 
I've got a 7mm-08 Encore pistol. Recoil is quite manageable with normal factory ammo. It is even better with the Hornady Lite ammo. Even with the lite ammo, it is still a respectable 100+ yd deer platform.
 
My favorite....if you can find one and if you are willing to load your own: 30 Herrett.
Otherwise...the .30-30 Win or the .30-30 AI.
Full power .44s and .45s shot from a Contender are scope breakers. I do not mind .44s from a Ruger SBH but they are no fun from a 10" Contender.
Pete
 
Here's the big question: Best for what? Plinking, squirrels, woodchucks, prairie dogs, brown bear? The question isn't very specific. I've had three TC Contenders and numerous barrels for them. Each one did different things. Not all single shot pistols are "accurate" under all conditions. Try shooting a Contender off hand and then a bolt action single shot. Two different animals. The bigger, heavier single shot handguns pretty much only work shooting off a rest. Might as well carry a rifle. One size doesn't fit all. What kind of accuracy are you looking for? I've got several revolvers that will shoot an inch at 50 yards off bags, and if I can do my part I can shoot deer with them out to a hundred. Comparing single shot handguns to revolvers is comparing apples to oranges.
 
I've shot TCs in 460 S&W, 7mm-08, and 223. Didn't find the 460 or 7mm "fun". But I also don't care much for the TC single shot ergonomics in general.

Based on my limited experience with SS handguns and long guns, I do prefer a rimmed cartridge. They just seem better suited to a single shot firearm.
 
I have pistol barrels for my G2 TC Contender from 22 LR to 45-70.
My choice so far for deer is 7-30 Waters. But like almost all choices for a Contender, handloading is a must for the best accuracy, and performance.
The 7-30 choice may change as I work more with a couple other TC Contender classics. 30 Harrett, and 357 Harret.
The 10" 45-70 barrel is pretty much reserved to intimidate people at the range, and possible use if I am trapped in a phone booth by a Sasquatch!

Based on my limited experience with SS handguns and long guns, I do prefer a rimmed cartridge. They just seem better suited to a single shot firearm.
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The key to shooting rimless rounds in a single shot pistol is again handloading. Once you have fireformed the case to the chamber, only neck size so the shoulder of the bottle neck isn't pushed back.
 
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A good buddy has a TC and over the years picked up several interesting barrels .
We both reload so if he didn't have dies for a new barrel then usually I would .
I'm going to list the rounds I enjoyed shooting the most :
22 Hornet
32-20 WCF
38 spcl / 357 magnum
41 magnum
.410 shotgun
45 Colt
30-30 Winchester
All of our shooting was done with cast bullets ( except the Hornet ) at paper targets , tin cans and plinking .

He even went hunting for hogs with the 30-30 but never actually got to shoot any that day...hogs learn to avoid people during hunting season.
Gary
 
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NoSecondBest said:
Here's the big question: Best for what? Plinking, squirrels, woodchucks, prairie dogs, brown bear? The question isn't very specific. I've had three TC Contenders and numerous barrels for them. Each one did different things. Not all single shot pistols are "accurate" under all conditions. Try shooting a Contender off hand and then a bolt action single shot. Two different animals. The bigger, heavier single shot handguns pretty much only work shooting off a rest. Might as well carry a rifle. One size doesn't fit all. What kind of accuracy are you looking for? I've got several revolvers that will shoot an inch at 50 yards off bags, and if I can do my part I can shoot deer with them out to a hundred. Comparing single shot handguns to revolvers is comparing apples to oranges.
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Good question, I wasn't being very specific.

I guess what I'm looking for is something that is powerful and accurate, cheap to shoot and reload, fun for plinking, but also effective for hunting applications.

Above all, something that would be fun to shoot and cool to own.
 
I shot 7/TCU for years, and it was an effective round in competition as far as accuracy and had lots of potential for other uses. It was very effective in a 10" or 14" barrel and not bad recoil.
 
The 6.5 Grendel does well in this format. Have to get custom made barrels, but great shooter without trying to rip your arm off. Accurate and plenty of punch for deer. After seeing/trying one, I am tempted.
 
I've shot almost sixty deer with the .357mag in several different handguns. Most were shot with revolvers, but probably nine or ten were shot with TC Contenders using .357mag, 7tcu, and 30-30. All in all, I think the best caliber for a hunting single shot handgun is the .357mag. The reason? No problem getting ammo, reloading ammo, it will also shoot 38spl if you're so inclined. I've never lost even one deer shot with that cartridge, and some of the deer shot with it were quite large. It's pleasant to shoot and economical. For plinking loads, the light 38spl type loads are a lot of fun to shoot and recoil is negligible. As an added bonus with the TC, you can add more barrels in rimfire up through some much larger calibers. If you find the TC Contender isn't exactly what you want because you want to shoot some really big boomers, get the TC Encore. You can shoot all the stuff the Contender shoots as well as things like the 308, 7mm mag, and things of that sort.
 
I guess what I'm looking for is something that is powerful and accurate, cheap to shoot and reload, fun for plinking, but also effective for hunting applications.
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.45-70 !! :D

I spent about 35 years ignoring the Contender, because it was "only" a single shot. Then, one day I handled one, and wow, what a sweet trigger it had!!

Since then I have gotten a couple of frames and barrels in
.22LR
.22 Hornet
.222 Rem
9mm Luger
.357 Mag
.44 Mag
.45 Colt
.45 Colt/.410
.45 Win Mag

.30-30
.45-70

Also have a Rem XP-100 in .221 Fireball.

I do recommend getting Pachmayr rubber grips for shooting heavier recoiling calibers. Also be aware that despite the size of the Contender, it is lighter than a S&W N frame, and so recoil has a much different feel. :rolleyes:

I you think you know how to shoot a pistol, get a Contender with a .22LR barrel (10" is good) shoot offhand, and it will teach you how much you don't know. :D

A 10" octagon (pencil) barrel .44 Mag will try to achieve low earth orbit! First time I shot that one with full house loads, I said a bad word out loud (and rather loundly) at the range! :eek:

By contrast the heavy barrel 14" .45-70 (with lots of little holes in the front end) is a solid slam in your hand, but doesn't jump UP as much as the .44 Mag.

HOWEVER, neither is for the beginner. (unless you handload and will load "down" to start with).

One young friend, after watching me shoot several rounds, tried my .45-70, and while he did a fair job locking his wrists, his elbows weren't and he wacked himself a good one in the nose with the red dot sight. Bled a bit, too! ;) He did hit the target, and after we got the bleeding (and the laughing) stopped, he asked for another. Hit with that one, too, and ONLY hit the target, that time, :D

My 9mm barrel is a 6" and looks short on the Contender, rather "piratey" (ArrrH!! Repel boarders! ARRR!)
also shoot groups smaller than every semi auto 9mm I've run across, have won a few bets with it. (I bet my 9mm will group better than yours! )

Forget speed, forget follow up shots, focus on one PERFECTLY placed shot. They'll do their part, the rest is up to you.

I, personally don't favor the .308 or larger in my pistols, simply too much wasted powder for what you get.

its a whole different level of shooting and tis easy to go for "too much gun" to start off with. This is one of the benefits to the Contender / Encore pistols, multiple calibers with a barrel swap. Start with something "light" like a regular pistol round (.357 is a fine choice) and get some experience, then decide if moving up to a rifle class round is something you want to do.
 
Good question, I wasn't being very specific.

I guess what I'm looking for is something that is powerful and accurate, cheap to shoot and reload, fun for plinking, but also effective for hunting applications.

Above all, something that would be fun to shoot and cool to own.
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TC Contender or Encore = all of the above.
But be warned, as you may have noticed by several of the previous posts, buying the easily changed barrels is habit forming!
My list:
22 LR 14" Match
22 Hornet
223 Remington
7-30 Waters
357 Magnum
357 Harrett
35 Remington
44 Magnum
45-70
 
The cartridge is not the only selection criteria and if I were selecting a handgun, I'm quite certain that a limited availability for production variants of the model type I selected would narrow my choices considerably.

Whether a single-shot pistol or rifle, I think it should have a rimmed cartridge or at least belted. Rims and belts are better and easier to headspace on rather than necks and mouths, and as long as there is no magazine to feed from, I can't think of a reason not to prefer a rim or belt.

Bottle-neck, over-bore cartridges can achieve a high velocity, flat trajectory, long-range and good terminal effect, but typically only with quite a bit of barrel length. If it's going to be under 10" barrel length, straight-wall or tapered cartridges might be just as good. The lower velocity of such guns usually calls for 35 or larger caliber, ~150 gr. or heavier bullets and the practical range is limited to ~150 yards or less. Many people tend to favor 40 caliber and over with bullets over 200 grains. It's not hard for these short guns to throw heavy lead, but it's quite impractical for it to throw any weight supersonic much past a couple hundred yards. For example, even a 50 grain 5.56x45 from a 6" barrel is transonic just a little after 200 yards. So it makes sense to either go long, or go heavy.

The .30-30 could be a good candidate, especially with long, heavy, low-drag bullets that aren't normally loaded in this cartridge for the sake of tubular magazines. But the .30-30's powder capacity is a limiting factor. The .30-40 Krag or .303 British might be better, but the recoil must become quite stout. The .32 Winchester Special (necked-up .30-30) has an advantage in bullet weight, but there's far fewer bullets in that caliber.

Once you get into .35, .40, .44 caliber and up, the magnum handgun cartridges make more sense than any rifle cartridge. I personally like the design philosophy behind the .500 Linebaugh and .480 Ruger, but there's more market momentum behind the S&W magnums at this point. I don't think you can go wrong with .44 Magnum, but at this point I don't have anything new to say.
 
But the .30-30's powder capacity is a limiting factor. The .30-40 Krag or .303 British might be better,
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Actually its not the CASE powder capacity that is the limiting factor as much as the barrel length and case capacity together.

With single shot pistols in rifle calibers you are looking a typically 15" barrels and under. 14" and even 10" are pretty common and while you can burn more powder most of us feel it is a waste, as you are seriously into the area of diminishing returns.

Especially in the shorter barrels. So, yes while the Krag or .303 Brit run more powder than the .30-30 very little velocity gain is realized in the pistol barrel.

It took me a long time to understand why Remington created the ,.221 Fireball, for a long time I just figured they did it for something else to sell us, and why not just run the .222 or even .223 from their XP-100 pistol???

When it finally dawned on me, it was a "duh..!" moment. It was the 10" barrel!!! The .221 Fireball case holds all the usable powder in that barrel length. The larger .222Rem case burns 10% (or more) powder and reaches the SAME velocity with 45 & 50gr bullets.

I suspect using a Krag or Brit case over a .30-30 would have similar results.

It's a matter of efficiency vs. practical results. Burning 10-15% more powder and getting the same velocity, or a 2-5% increase just isn't efficient.

Now, moving further up to something like a .308 (in an Encore) you do get enough of a velocity gain (with the longer barrel 14-15") to actually be useful, but you are burning significantly more powder (perhaps 50gr vs 30), and a large portion of it is literally going to waste.

Maybe that doesn't matter to you. But it does to some of us.
 
The powder burn rate matters too. The efficiency of rifle powders in a short (10") barrel is abysmal, but there are slow magnum 'handgun' powders that can be used instead. Powders like Lil'Gun, CFE BLK, even H110. Those won't necessarily produce the highest velocity possible, but they can be more efficient than an extruded rifle powder. These powders require less case capacity to reach maximum chamber pressures, but I concede they won't necessarily achieve the highest velocities.

The problem with the .30-30 I mentioned is the case capacity when using heavy bullets. Because high velocities will not be achieved with short barrels, heavier bullets are called for to have a terminal effect to make it a suitable substitute for a magnum handgun (presumably for hunting medium game). Those heavier bullets (>200gr.) leave even less powder space.

The chief disadvantage of the longer Krag or Brit cases is the longer receiver, action and magazines they require, and these things are just not applicable to a single-shot.

The 303 has the same case capacity as 308. Assuming we're not talking about re-using an antique receiver but chambering a modern handgun, there's no difference in pressure limits. The Krag has a little more capacity than the other two and again, the pressure limit is arcane and wouldn't apply to a modern action.

I don't mean to emphatically advocate the Krag or Brit. They are clearly better single-shot rifle cartridges than they would be good handgun cartridges. If the barrel is truly short, the cartridges that make the most sense as a substitute for a big bore revolver are the same big-bore magnum handgun cartridges but used in a single-shot.
 
Assuming we're not talking about re-using an antique receiver but chambering a modern handgun, there's no difference in pressure limits.
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I think this is a yes and no thing. Yes, in what a "modern" action can take (depending on the action design) and NO, because you will be violating the "holy SAAMI pressure limits" if you do it.

And that gives a lot of people the creepy-crawlies.

Lets assume you have a 50K psi safe action. Fine. Now run that 30-30 up to 50Kpsi or the Krag, or the Bit, or.... yes indeed you'll get a significant increase in velocity if you do that. NOW, chop that increase back because you're using a 14" or even a 10" barrel and see what you get. You get a LOT of wasted powder.

I'm not trying to make a case for the efficiency of the .30-30, either. Its not very efficient in short barrels.

Take a look at the .30 Herrett. Made from a shortened "blown out" .30-30, in a 10" barrel it gets 300fps or so more velocity than the .30-30 and does so burning about 10% LESS powder.

heavier bullets are called for to have a terminal effect to make it a suitable substitute for a magnum handgun (presumably for hunting medium game). Those heavier bullets (>200gr.) leave even less powder space.
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I don't see this as a hard and fast rule. Particularly the part about heavier bullets leaving less powder space. Remember the kind of gun we are talking about here, a single shot pistol. You are not limited to what will fit and feed from the magazine. You are not limited to a SAAMI approved max COAL. The limiting factor is where the bullet touches the rifling, and that being the case, it is entirely possible (with a suitably made barrel) to seat heavy bullets "long" and thereby not reducing the powder space. Also, there is the matter of pressure, if you can jack the pressure up (SAFELY) over SAAMI spec, then that heavy bullet again does not suffer from reduced performance.

Assuming you actually NEED that heavy bullet in the first place. That is a matter of personal desire for a specific performance, and a whole lot of dead deer over the last few centuries have been taken with "lesser" performing loads, including flintlocks with round balls.

The one place where rifle rounds like the .30-30 have an advantage over big bore pistol rounds from equal length barrels is their trajectory.
 
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