I've been shooting for more than 20 years, and I've owned a goodly number of rifles during that time. I never had a custom rifle built just for me -- until this one. A lot of thought went into it, and it was a hugely educational project for me. Learning new things is what makes a hobby fun, of course.

I've been a fan of air rifles for some years, and I particularly enjoyed shooting the classic, single-shot, barrel-cocking rifles like my Theoben Classic. I liked the accuracy, the simplicity, and being able to shoot quietly -- without having to scrounge up a pair of ear plugs or disturb the peace all around me. Also. . . Though I live outside of city limits, a large nursing home was built just about 250 yards from my back door, not far from the empty lot where I have set up my 100-yard range. Common courtesy suggests that I shouldn't go banging away with my 45-70 rifle there every day.

Could I get a firearm with the same qualities that I admired from my air rifles, but more power? After a few false starts, I eventually settled on having a T/C Contender carbine built in 300 Whisper caliber, with a silencer. This turned out to be a complicated project, with many different people and businesses working on different parts of the gun, and sometimes I felt like I was engaging in an R&D program rather than simply having a gun made. From the time I submitted my first order to get the ball rolling, until the gun was "mostly finished" was about 16 months, and that still left a couple of minor issues to work on.

Here's a peek at what the rifle and silencer looked like early on, shortly after I picked it up from John's Guns:

At that time I still was stuck with the ultra-light (and completely inadequate) factory stock and fore-end, the silencer had no finish, and I was still figuring out what sights I wanted to put on it. Incidentally, the gun suffered misfires at first, and the action was so stiff that I had serious difficulty operating the gun and actually bruised my fingers on the lever. I suspect the addition of Black-T may have tightened it up. A quick return trip to SSK got that fixed, and it was worked quite nicely since then.

The receiver is from Thompson/Center Arms, and is a special "flat side" receiver without the usual roll-engraved decorations that most Contenders have. The barrel, scope base and silencer were all provided and put together by SSK Industries, then the gun (but not the silencer) was finished by W.E. Birdsong & Assoc. with their famous Black-T coating, which is a very tough and attractive combination of PTFE and graphite. The silencer was left "white" for a while, but I eventually had it finished with DuraCoat by Lauer Weaponry to match the rest of the gun.

Transferring the silencer to me was handled by John Tibbets (of John's Guns), who I found to be a friendly and businesslike fellow in all respects. Meanwhile, a set of 300/221 reloading dies came from Redding, and some factory ammo from Cor-Bon. With the rifle in my hands, I started testing and working on loads for it.

At about the same time, I placed an order with Mr. Denzel Roberts for a custom stock. He informed me that it would take about five months. Though it seemed like a long wait, the stock was actually ready in four months. It's a thumbhole stock made from a composite with thick layers of walnut and maple. It completely transformed the looks and handling of the gun. Most importantly, it counterbalanced the prodigious weight of the silencer. Though the finished gun is heavier than I had planned, it's still compact and handles well. Here's a close-up of the buttstock:

The stock proved to be a trouble point for this rifle. Much as I love the look and feel of it, I couldn't help noticing a few wavy lines and tool marks. The rifle wasn't shooting as accurately as I thought it should, and had a tendency to string shots vertically. Suspicion fell upon the stock. My local gunsmith here shimmed the rear stock until it quit moving around, then started fiddling with the fore-end. He didn't have much luck with that, and I began to wonder if I had an expensive "lemon" on my hands. Finally we decided to glass-bed it. That solved the problems and got the rifle shooting nicely.

The whole sighting system is from Leupold. For subsonic shooting I picked the great old Leupold Vari-X 3-9x33mm E.F.R. that I've used for so many years on my air rifles. For supersonic shooting I bought a new Leupold VX-II 3-9x40mm. These are mounted using Leupold QRW rings, so that I can switch between them in a matter of seconds without having to re-zero the gun. I found sighting in with subsonic loads at 100 yards was difficult because of the elevation problem: it took up all the vertical adjustment of my scope. Fortunately, I was able to get the rings modified by Mr. Tim McMurray of MAC-1 Airguns, who has done this sort of work for me before. I had him cut 25 MOA of compensation into one set of rings, and 15 MOA into the other set. This allowed me to easily zero the subsonic loads at 100 yards and the supersonic loads at 200 yards, respectively.

I thought of the old story about too many cooks spoiling the broth, but I think I managed to dodge that problem in the end. A lot of talented people worked on different components of this gun, and the outcome matched my high expectations. Also, I was pleased to note that every part of this gun was made in the USA -- not something I had set as a goal in the beginning, but it happily worked out that way.

This is a highly versatile weapon. With reduced loads and lead bullets, the cost per shot can come down into the same range as 22 rimfire and is useful for many of the same tasks: plinking, quiet pest control, and hunting small game at moderate range. With supersonic loads it can be used on game up to the size of coyotes, white-tailed deer and possibly wild hogs. Those are the biggest wild animals found in my neck of the woods -- and I'm not in the habit of making hunting trips to Wyoming or Africa, so I rarely ever need a real "big game" rifle in the traditional sense. In fact... Between my FX Tarantula air rifle and this 300 Whisper Contender, the great majority of my needs for a rifle are covered.

The Cor-Bon supersonic factory loads performed well in my rifle, at least in terms of accuracy, but their terminal effect was questionable -- the bullets were clearly designed to expand and be effective at 2500+ ft/sec rather than 1800 or 1900 ft/sec. I started loading Nosler Ballistic Tip bullets and the problem was solved.

The factory subsonic loads were even more disappointing. They made a particularly loud SNAP when fired, accuracy was poor, and terminal effects were like stabbing with an icepick. As a result, I've spent several months and expended about 800 rounds on load development to create my own subsonic loads. A huge problem was the lack of heavy bullets that would expand at such low velocity. I needed heavy rifle bullets built more like pistol bullets, but nobody is making those commercially.

My highest performing subsonic load uses a Sierra 240-grain bullet, which I then modify with a CONVERT-A-BALL die, followed by a Forster Universal Hollowpointer, which gives it a large hollow point. This develops about 1015 ft/sec. It's an expensive bullet and the modifications are labor-intensive. Despite being subsonic, it still makes an audible "snap" when fired that's sometimes annoying. Yet, this is the best combination of accuracy, energy, and terminal effects that I've achieved in a subsonic load.

Because those home-made hollowpoints are so expensive and time-consuming to make, I put together a more economical subsonic load for commonplace shooting. From Midway I bought a bunch of bulk 180-grain BTSP bullets that came pretty cheap. I can load them into the case backwards, so they travel with the flat base leading, and they perform fairly well.

With regard to subsonic shooting: The trajectory is obviously a limitation, but I expected that. Something that caught me by surprise is the tendency of these heavy, slow-moving bullets to ricochet unless they hit a really positive backstop. While walking around the farm and plinking with it, I was disconcerted by the tendency of a bullet to go spinning and whining off into the distance after nearly every shot. This calls for a bit of extra caution when using it around people, livestock, vehicles or buildings.

With regard to supersonic shooting: The terminal effect seems decent, though not overly spectacular, with 125 gr. Nosler ballistic tips moving around 2150 ft/sec. It is possible to push them a bit faster, but this is basically in the velocity and trajectory ballpark of a 22 Magnum. It's not a super long-range cartridge. I also observed that the bullet flight noise (or sonic boom) varies greatly depending on what objects are nearby to reflect the shock wave back toward me. Standing in an open, grassy field, it's pleasant to shoot. Resting it on my truck's toolbox with a sandbag made me want earplugs. On average, the effect seems to fall somewhere between unsuppressed 22LR and 22 Magnum rifles.

Things I would do differently if I had it all to start over? There are a few things, yes. Although it's neat that the 300 Whisper can handle both subsonic and supersonic shooting, I think I would have been better served by getting two specialized rifles: a 44 Magnum for subsonic shooting and perhaps a 223 Remington for supersonic. It's easy to get 44-caliber bullets that perform well at subsonic velocity. Meanwhile the 223 would have flatter trajectory and longer reach. Another sore point is the weight of the silencer: with the scope mounted, this rifle comes in just a hair under 9 pounds. With a more conventional muzzle can and a lighter stock, I could have knocked two pounds off that.

I'm fortunate that the great state of Texas is enlightened enough not to forbid owning a silencer, as some other states do. Going through the paperwork and paying the $200 tax is a hassle -- but no worse than many other bureaucratic hassles of our age, and it shouldn't deter so many people from owning these wonderful, very nifty devices. Compared to the overall cost of this gun and the amount of time and waiting that went into having it built, the transfer process on the silencer was a relatively minor part.

This particular silencer is a heavy-duty (and heavy weight) design that was reviewed favorably in the book Silencer Design and History Vol. 2. It's all stainless steel and it's designed to handle full-auto fire, which makes it seriously overbuilt for my single-shot Contender. It never needs to be disassembled for maintenance, only sometimes soaked in appropriate solvents such as mineral spirits. According to SSK, they have one that's had 40,000 rounds put through it without disassembly, and it's still going strong. This unit is built to last many years.

A particularly neat aspect of this silencer is the two-point mount, also sometimes referred to as a "telescopic" design. The silencer itself is 12 inches long, but it partly surrounds the gun barrel, so that the muzzle is in the middle of the silencer and it only adds 6 inches to the overall length of the gun. This is why I'm able to have a silenced rifle only 37 inches long, or about three inches shorter than my SKS. Another big advantage of this design is that it keeps the silencer aligned with the barrel even if it accidentally starts to come unscrewed from the barrel threads. With other silencers that thread directly onto the end of a rifle barrel, there's the chance that it may become misaligned, then bullets could strike the baffles inside and tear things up.

How quiet is it? That depends on how I load it. The hotter the ammo, the more noise it makes. With my most reduced loads, the loudest sound is the bullet thumping into the target downrange. With my more powerful subsonic loads, it makes a distinctive "snap" but still doesn't sound like a gunshot. When using supersonic loads, the sound is less than an un-suppressed 22 Magnum rifle.

This barrel was made for me by SSK and uses the same silencer as the 300 Whisper barrel. The new caliber is 17 Mach IV, which is a wildcat cartridge based on a 221 Fireball necked down to 17. My theory was, I could get a much flatter trajectory than was possible with the 300 Whisper, along with slightly less flight noise than the supersonic 30 caliber bullet. The disadvantage is that it can't be used on larger game, like deer. Coyotes would be about the biggest the 17 can handle.

The new barrel is 20 inches long, as compared with 16.5 inches for the older one. Unlike the old one, the new barrel is not ported near the muzzle. That means the whole expansion chamber in the rear half of the silencer is no longer used. I found the muzzle report sounds like a fairly loud "chuff", but in normal shooting the sound is drowned out by the supersonic flight noise of the bullet -- a very sharp "crack".

In this photo, you can see that the barrel is still white. I'm planning to have it finished this coming summer with Duracoat. You can also see the new scope I put on: a Weaver V-16 (4-16X, 42mm). It's the first scope I've ever owned that would go higher than 9X, and it should be good for reaching way out there.

So, how does it shoot? This is the great part of the story. . . The first time I took it to the range, it shot three 1/2-inch groups in a row from 100 yards. I never had a rifle before that would shoot 1 MOA before, to say nothing of 1/2 MOA. And remember, this is with the first load I tried in the gun. With a bit of load development and tinkering, it may do even better.

Comments are welcome, as I always love chatting with other gun cranks. You can return to my home page and find my e-mail address there.