wildcat cartridge
A wildcat cartridge, often shortened to wildcat, is a custom cartridge for which ammunition and/or firearms are not mass-produced. These cartridges are often created in order to optimize a certain performance characteristic (such as the power, si ...
s, was developed by Wes Ugalde of
Fallon, Nevada
Fallon is a city in Churchill County in the U.S. state of Nevada. The population was 9,327 at time of the 2020 census. Fallon is the county seat of Churchill County and is located in the Lahontan Valley.
History
The community was first populat ...
, by necking up
.223 Remington
The .223 Remington (designated as the 223 Remington by the SAAMI and 223 Rem by the CIP) is a rimless, bottlenecked rifle cartridge. It was developed in 1957 by Remington Arms and Fairchild Industries for the U.S. Continental Army Command ...
brass to accept larger bullets. The cartridges were developed for the
Thompson Center Arms
Thompson/Center Arms was an American firearms company based in Springfield, Massachusetts. The company was best known for its line of interchangeable-barrel, single-shot pistols and rifles. Thompson/Center also manufactures muzzle-loading rifl ...
Contender
single shot
Single-shot firearms are firearms that hold only a single round of ammunition, and must be reloaded manually after every shot. The history of firearms began with single-shot designs, then multi-barreled designs appeared, and eventually many cent ...
metallic silhouette
Metallic silhouette shooting is a group of target shooting disciplines that involves shooting at steel targets representing game animals at varying distances, seeking to knock the metal target over. Metallic silhouette is shot with large bore ri ...
competition and handgun hunting.
History and motivation
The Contender pistol, with its
break action
Break action is a type of firearm action in which the barrel or barrels are hinged much like a door and rotate perpendicularly to the bore axis to expose the breech and allow loading and unloading of cartridges. A separate operation may be requir ...
, provides a very versatile platform for experimenting with cartridges, since all that is needed to change calibers is to change barrels. While not as strong as bolt action designs, such as the
Remington XP-100
The Remington XP-100 (from eXperimental Pistol number 100) is a bolt-action pistol produced by Remington Arms from 1963 to 1998. The XP-100 was one of the first handguns designed for long-range shooting, and introduced the .221 Fireball and 6×4 ...
, the Contender is capable of handling medium power cartridges, and many wildcats appeared based on cartridges such as the