New Owner: Does a hammer safety means it's a G2 Contender?

[whitfang]

Just bought my first two Contender pistols and I have some questions:

One is a blue 10inch 30-30 bull barrel with Pachmeyer grip and forend.  It's serial #3029xx.  It has a hammer safety, which I did not know existed on Contenders.
Does the hammer safety mean it is a G2 Contender?

The other one is a 10inch blued 45Colt octagonal barrel with walnut grip and forend.  Serial #392xx.  This one was so new/tight that the action is very stiff.  My gunsmith says it will loosen up with use.

From this forum, I understand that G2 will accept prior generation Contender barrels,  but not the grips.  How is interchangeability with the forends?

What other surprises does the Contender have?
For instance, I didn't know about having to use the trigger guard to reset the trigger on early models.  Let me know if they have a tool kit hidden in the grip or something!

[DEACONLLB]

The contender frames are flat sided where as the G2 has a bump out on the top edge of frame the G2 has no engraving where as all the contenders has the cat with the exception of a very few. some of the contenders had the hammer safty. the G2 has a leaver on top of hammer to switch from center fire to rim and you do not have to open frame to re cock to fire. All older contender barrels will interchange with the G2 but the Butt stock will not. The fore end will interchange but you may have to open the end up near the back of forend to clear the bump out on the G2 frame some of the later forend are rounded and will clear.
Hope this helps some

Deaconllb

[P.A. Myers]

45colt barrels are not too common.

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