[jmarriott]

I don't look at my T/C contender as a hunting handgun, except that's were it fits in Indiana game law. It is a handcannon or mini-rifle to me. I use a .35 rem for deer and .223 for groundhogs. I also have the carbine rifle kit with a match grade .22 LR barrel I like for coon hunts. I got alot of odd barrels I have collected that shoud get shot more often but that is the curse and blessing of the single shot contender. You can get as many barrels sizes and setups as the pocketbook can afford.

Contenders are not easy to shoot offhand with 14 inch barrels without a bit of help. I use a bi-pod mounted on the barrel right before the front sight with the legs folded into the frame to help get off shots ofhand. I press forward with the bipod hand and pull back with the frame hand and it really steadys things up for me. The 10 inch barrels can be shot offhand rather well.

I don't think the encore is needed for a pistol only as I don't want to shoot a 270 or 30-06 in a pistol myself. But the encore can be used for everything shotgun, rifle, pistol, and blackpowder round from the same frame. The only thing the Encore won't do is shoot rimfire rounds but someone makes a kit for that by now.

I like the old style contender better than the new G2 because of the sweet crisp trigger. I bet most of the gun stores have a contender in the used dept with something to get started with that would be deer huntable. Only shooting alot of over pressure handloads would make a frame go bad on a contender so most used ones would work out well. I did buy a 45-70 barrel once that I think someone shot alot of blackpowder rounds out of and i could not get it to group well but all the others will outshoot the revolver/auto conterparts round for round.

I like the large frame Smith and wesson 44 mags for deer also but never use it to hunt anymore. I also used an AMT longslide 45 once for hogs on one of those pay hunts and really liked it but they don't let us hunt deer with any normal auto round in Indiana. Savage now makes the striker pistol and I have not shot one but I am sure it would be OK. My first pistol for hunting was a smith 686 in 357 8 inch barrel and it work well within limits. I am not a fan of single action pistols myself so that eliminates most of the ruger line for me.