Well I discovered tonight that old style Contender with the 10" .41 Mag. barrel I got recently has a wiggle in the fit between the barrel and frame while closed. At first I thought it was a loose grip, but determined its definately the fit between barrel/frame.
Now heres the strange thing...if I put the .41 barrel on my other old style frame and close it, there is zero wiggle, fits rock solid and opens up fine.
Now an even stranger thing...my .35 Rem and .375 Win barrel fit rock solid while closed with no wiggle on the frame the .41 originally came on. They both open up fine also. What the heck?
The .41 Mag barrel has the solid locking lug (not split) and the barrel lug does not have the small step on the bottom of it like the newer barrels.
I even tried switching the pivot pins between the frames with no difference...the .41 still wiggled on its original frame. Makes no sense...the other two barrels fit/function just fine on the .41's frame, and the .41 fits/functions fine on the other old style frame.