Sight for Contender carbine

[lnewby]

 I just purchased a Contender carbine. It has a 21" barrel in 7-30 Waters, easy open frame and rynite stock and forend. This thing is compact and light. It will be ideal for my wife. With that light barrel I'm guessing it will be a so-so shooter. It is missing the rear sight and I'm not sure what to look for. I see them for sale occasionally but need some help. Is this the same rear sight that is used on 14" or10" barrel? I'm sure some of you know all about carbines, if you would teach me , I would be very thankful.        lnewby

[Doublebass73]

I always switch my Contender barrel rear sights to Williams peep sights which use the two rear holes. I can tell you that those holes are the same on both 10" barrels and carbine barrels so my guess is they are the same for the factory rear sights. Check out the Williams peep sights, I like those best for iron sights on any gun and they work very well on Contenders.

[Camp Cook]

I mount my scopes onto my Contender carbine barrels with Stranton or Match Grade Machine scope bases & Leupold QRW quick detachable scope rings.
 
I use two basic options for rear sights when I remove the scope.
 
1)  I mount an XS Sights low Weaver backup ghost ring sight onto the rear of the scope base I did have to grind off a slight bit on the bottom of the rear of the sight to clear the slelector on the hammer but it only took a couple of minutes to do I then just rubbed a little cold bluing on aand it was good as new.
 
2)  Most of my barrels have the factory square notch rear sight mounted so I just mount my scopes bases behind the rear sight with high enough rings for the objective lense of the scope will clear the high point of the rear sight I use med height rings for 40mm scopes.
 
Here is an example of #2 this barrel is chambered in 375JDJ the second pic the barrel is chambered in 45-70 I'll have to dig around and see if I have a pic of the ghost ring sight mounted.
 

 

 
I sometimes just mount the rear sight in this case I removed the scope base and mounted the factory iron sight into the rear two holes of the barrel.
 
This is my son when he was 3 1/2 with his 16.5" barreled 22LR he's now turning 5 in less than 2 weeks so can handle the rifle a bit better.
 

 
This is one of the barrels I mount the ghost ring sight onto the rear of the base you can imagine just remove the scope and mount the ghost ring sight.
 

 
Here is a link to XS Sights h ttp://xssights.com/index.php?nID=sights&cID=Sights&pID=sights&sID=rifle scroll down to the bottom of the page for the backup ghost ring sights.
 
If you are not looking at mounting a scope Skinner also makes a peep/ghost ring sight specifically for the Contenders h ttp://www.skinnersights.com/thompson_center_19.html

[Sourdough]

I carry a Contender Carbine in .223, with youth stock, on the handlebars of my snowmachine.  Being out in the cold and snowy air as I ride I don't want to use a scope.  I use the Williams peep sight.  The peep sight is the only way to go in my book.  At 63 I can no longer see well enough to use a standard sight.  Unable to focus on three planes at the same time.  As people age they lose that ability.  A peep sight works just fine for us.  With the short youth stock and an 18" barrel, it does not stick out beyond the windshield enough to be hit by brush.  I often carry this same carbine on the handlebars of my 4-wheeler during the summer. 

When my son was 10 and we started him in the 4-H shooting program, he used my contender in .22RF.  Hence the youth stock.  When his Mom got the .22RF barrel the owner of the Contender Cache put peep sights on it, saying kids shot better with peep sights.  My son shot great and got many awards.  I used that barrel and liked the sights, so I put a peep on my .223 carbine barrel.   


 

[SkinnerSights]

Check out...  http://www.skinnersights.com/thompson_center_19.html