Frank Kendrick was a T/C dealer and gunsmith in the 70s and later in Houston, Texas. He pioneered the idea of a Contender carbine long before the factory started offering them and his success was a major reason the factory got in the business. I have two of his barrels. One is in .256 Win Mag on a frame he also built the stock for. It is a stepped barrel. The other is a .223 straight taper. It is on a different frame someone else did the stock and forearm for in fancy walnut. Both shoot well, but the .223 is really great. The first load I tried went into less than an inch and I've never done further load development - just keep shooting that one. I corresponded with Mr. Kendrick when I bought the .256 carbine a good many years ago. He was still in business then, and I'd guess this may have been around 1990. I bought the second carbine only about a year ago and wanted to learn a bit about it, so I looked him up on
www.411.com and called him. He's retired, or mostly so, and is a very nice and helpful guy. In either the correspondence or phone call I believe he told me that most of his barrel blanks were Wilson. Hope this information is useful to you. If you decide you don't want the barrel, I'd appreciate knowing where it is. If it's in the right caliber, I might be interested. Email me at drf@umr.edu if you decide to pass on the barrel(s).
RonF
