every now and then someone will ask us why the 7" Howdah

I think there were 50 of them made. And each was numbered of the 50. I think every one of them were sold to Misfits here on the site. One of the guys might be talked into selling his.

the one Lee used on his shorty Howdahs was a custom one.Here is the standard black forend that works on the 7" Howdah. Here is the forend on a 6.5" barrel.

On some of our early shorty barrels we called our Pirate barrels. Some folks ask why the Pirate name. Look at the resemblance.

We actually started making the real short barrels in our shop in Santa Fe in 1985. We made sets of 4 or 5 barrels and one or 2 frames. Most were in high polished nickel (no stainless back then).

up until this last year or two we normally kept a couple dozen barrels in stock all the time. With the shortage of parts and the parts not fitting the frames it is almost impossible to do this. Hopefully it will get back to where all barrels fit...maybe.

Two of my personal shorty Pirate barrels, the 41 GNR with a 9" barrel and my stainless 356 GNR with the 8" barrel.

We have done a lot of Pirate barrels and now the Howdah barrels, both in the G-2, regular Contender and the Encore.

We have even done a short run of special Encores with color case frames and some has real ivory forend cap and grip cap.

Back in the mid 80s we had a special run of Contenders with a solid gold lion on the side of the frame and gold plated hammer and trigger. Several gun magazines did playmate of the month spreads on those guns.

The times they are a'changing

that normally comes with the Contender. That is what in on there. It even fits a 6" Howdah. The long rubber forend that is on my personal guns is the forend for the G-2. That one is too long for the Howdah but does fit our 8 and 9" Pirate guns.