Okay, to expand on the previous post and answer the revolver vs hand rifle thing, "handgun" is subjective and the definition is up to you. While I used to think the contender was more a hand rifle, in my eyes now days, it is the ultimate hunting handgun system. It is still compact in a shoulder holster, still shoots like a handgun, and to me looks like a pistol, not a rifle sans butt stock. This is just my personal tastes, not rule of law, and others will disagree and call the Savage the cat's meow, but I just don't care much for rifle bolt actions with no stock, ain't a handgun to me. Again, this is subjective, no rule, just my tastes in handguns. If I'm going to hunt with a bolt action rifle, I'm going to keep the butt stock on it.
Revolvers in good calibers like .45 Colt and .44 magnum are fine to 100 yards and I've found that in my experience, it's danged hard to get a steady enough hold in the field to push ranges much beyond 100 yards anyway with a handgun. Out west, shooting over a day pack might give me more sand bag solid holds, but here in the eastern part of Texas, the grasses and terrain eliminate the possibility of getting that close to the ground. Actually, I'm shooting out of tripod stands or box blinds, usually.
That said, I still prefer the TC Contender switch barrel system. I go for 10-12 inch barrels for portability because they're more like a handgun. I shun the super 14s. They're beginning to resemble hand rifles with that length. Again, personal tastes only. The super 14 gets better exterior ballistics from a rifle cartridge, but I'd rather be shooting a shorter barrel gun. I currently have a 10" .45 Colt/.410 which when the choke is off is 7". That gun, with a scope, shoots about 7 moa, adequate for broad side shots to 100 yards if not stellar. A FANTASTIC shooting revolver will shoot about 4 moa, so this is not much off a good revolver. The chamber free bore is the culprit here, but with irons on it, it makes a very compact, powerful handgun afield. For serious deer/hog hunting (biggest game I chase) I have a 2x scoped .30-30 12" hunter barrel with built in compensator which really works to tame recoil. The .45 Colt will let you know it fired, quite stiff recoil with heavy loads. The .30-30 hunter barrel is about like shooting a medium frame .38 with light loads, amazing, but WEAR HEARING PROTECTION with it. I found that out the hard way afield.:banghead: It's not bad in the open, but in a box blind it can ring your bells. Handloaded with 150 Nosler Ballistic tip or Barnes 140 X bullet, this gun shoots about 1.5 MOA and is powerful enough to be good to 200 yards. It's throwing down nearly 1000 ft lbs at 200 yards, so 100 yards is NO problem and it's surgically accurate. My other hunting barrel is a superbly accurate .22 Rimfire with 2x scope. These three barrels will get anything I need doing done in hunting. I'd not mind adding a .223 barrel, but I don't hunt varmints and the .30-30 will do fine on coyotes. I'd like a .45-70, but again, the .30-30 with Barnes bullets is fine for Hogs. I read and article about the .45-70 once that called it a 150 yard sledge hammer.
I cannot argue that point! I've been thinking of selling my IHMSA barrel (don't shoot IHMSA anymore) in 7mm TCU with its IHMSA sight and buying a .45-70 barrel. I could let the brass and dies go with it, too, should give me a good start on a .45-70 barrel and scope.
To me, a TC Contender or Encore with multiple barrels for multiple tasks is about as good as handgun hunting gets. I don't bother with my revolvers when I'm hunting anymore, one shot, one kill.
