T/C shooters reply!

NMgunner

New member
Hey all you t/c guys, I have a t/c encore in .25-06 and it shoots ok not near as good as I'd like. What loads should I experiment with. Also, I have been thinking about getting a .22-250 barrel and was wondering how well it is capable of shooting or I should ask how well are you guys that have this setup shooting and do you reccomend getting this barrel for my t/c or just getting a new gun? By the way what loads are you guys using for best success with the .22-250 t/c encore? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif
 
I have an Encore with the .50 cal muzzleloader barrell. I also have a .223 barrel/varmint fore-end. The .223 shoots great with cheap "surplus" ammo but if I had to do it over again I would have just bought a new gun. I had to buy the new fore-end, a new scope, rings, and bases..... for all that trouble I wish I had something else.
Like I said the gun shoots great but if the .50 cal doesn't start shooting better I'm going to sell the whole package. I've had it for 3 years and I just can't find a consistent bullet/load combo. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused1.gif

sorry I couldn't help with info about the 22-250 in the TC

my .2 cents
 
To some it's not worth the trouble, to others is great, like me. I will happily buy new mounts ring and scope when I get my 308 barrel, and any other caliber I decide I might want will have it's own mount, rings and scope as well. Cant help ya with 22-250, but I can say judging by the way my 223 shoots, you will be happy.

t/c223encore.
 
Hey fellow Okie!I've got a 22-250 Encore and it is a tack driving dude /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grinning-smiley-003.gif.Every critter I posted on here last year was dropped,and I do mean Dropped with it.I've tried several hand loads but so far,and this is fine with me,my best groups are with the white box Winchester.I'm very pleased with it and my 50 cal. black powder .WHere you from?
 
Love my encore 22-2250 (tack driver all day long). I look at it this way, its nice to have a toy in the safe but i rather buy t/c barrells . Taks up less room in my safe, cheaper to get barrell than a descent rifle, change barrells in 30 seconds. Most favorite gun.
 
T/C Encore/Contender seems to be one of those cases
where there is very little middle ground. Some love
them, and some have been disappointed with them.
I am in the "disappointed" group. I have a SS/Comp
Encore, in a pistol version, with a 15" .308 Win barrel.
The gun shot horrible, with everything I tried. I called
T/C, and asked what ammo they used to test these
barrels, and even went out and bought that factory ammo.
I HATE factory ammo, but being desperate, I bought some,
and that shot like crap(5 MOA), too. So the barrel went
back to T/C, and they recrowned the barrel, and sent
me a test target, with a slightly over 1 MOA group on
paper. I guess anything under 1.5 MOA was good by them.
I test fired some factory duplicate ammo I had, and
it shot about 1.5 MOA, so I figured I could do better
with tuning loads for the gun. I probably could, but
I have lost interest in the Encore, since my original
goal was to have a gun that I could get into new
chambering, for less money than a new bolt gun,
and to maybe replace a heavy recoiling Savage
Striker, also in .308 Win. The Savage is sub MOA,
but the recoil, with my current hot loads, requires
3 scope rings to hold the Burris scope tight. At any rate,
since then I have discovered how easy it is to swap
barrels, and bolt faces, in a Savage, it doesn't
make sense to have to fool around with getting
barrels, and pins, and frames, to love one another
to get to 1 MOA. Then add the cost of scopes, scope
rings, and mounts, to the fairly high price of Encore
barrels, and this project, for me is a looser.

So my T/C Encore sits in my gun room, waiting until
I decide what I want to get in a Savage "project" gun,
where I will use the Encore as a trade.

My brother loves his Encore, and he took an extremely
nice whitetail buck with it last year, so there is one
for the Encore fans group. He has a blued/wood
version, so he might end up with mine, for the trade-in
price, that the gunshop will offer me. I won't
miss this one, when it heads down the road.

Squeeze
 
I have a T/C Encore stainless heavy barrel 22-250 and a 7mm Rem Mag custom shop stainless barrel both are 24 inches and shoot sweeeeeeeet! I am having the 22-250 fluted next week but other than that I would not change a thing. If you are concerned buy a 22 hornet barrel and have it rechambered for the 22-250. I did have to put a spring upgrade because the chamber on the 22-250 barrel is a little long for Winchester bullets got some misfires. If you reload thats not a problem. Remington and Federal bullets shoot fine.
 
Aren't the cost of scopes, mounts, rings etc. the same no matter what gun you buy....they would have little of nothing to do with which gun you put them on.

TCs and any other single shot rifles are not for everybody....they can require some tinkering....there are many of us that own just for that reason. I would include myself in that group. I own TC rifles that are capable of bench quality groups and precision shooting out to well beyond 400 yds. At times I have paid a heavy price to get that....other times it came at the low price of a factory barrel. This is not unlike any other brand or type of rifle.
I handload everything and on any given weekend at the farm will shoot hundreds of rounds thru several different barrels...in fact my personal arsenal for varmints is made up entirely of TC rifles. They will always keep up with ....and often exceed the accuracy of my sons bolt rifles (Savages)no problem.
 
What would be wrong with buying quick release bases and rings? That way you could buy one high quality scope instead of a number of lesser quality scopes. Put the appropriate bases on all your barrels and even other guns if ya want.
 
with a scope for each barrel you only gotta sight in once. And besides, nothin wrong wih more gun stuff /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grinning-smiley-003.gif

t/c223encore.
 
I have the 50 cal. muzzleloader and a 7 mag barrel for my encore and love them both. I have done the trigger to get a 3 1/2 lb pull. And have started playing with different loads and o.a.l. adjustments, as SKB said if you like to tinker this is a good gun to do it with. I didn't have to do any adjustments, shot great out of the box. But its a nice feeling when you get a 3 bullets to touch at 100 yards.
If you are looking for a lot of info on encores and contenders go to www.bellmtcs.com this guy knows his stuff!
 
NM,

The 25-06 Encore barrels are known to be finicky. I'm not sure anyone ever discovered why but there are a LOT of people that have had trouble with them and then again some said they had no trouble at all.

Try the 22-250 or just about any other caliber and I bet your problems disappear.

I have had over 30 Encore barrels and have never had one of them shoot worse than MOA accuracy but every gun maker can make boo-boo's... Even the best and most expensive. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused1.gif

$bob$
 
I have the blued 26" 25-06 barrel and I am shooting a 0.44 inch 100 yard group with 51.0 grains of H4831 and CCI BR-2 primers. Bullets are Sierra 100 grain flat base which is ALL I USE in the 25-06, regardless if I am hunting PD's or Elk.

The best I have shot so far with my Stainless 26" 22-250 is 0.501 inch 100 yard groups using Varget powder.

Keep in mind that I have spent very little time working up loads, so I expect both the 25-06 and 22-250 groups to get much smaller when I find the time to "dial them in".
 
have you checked head space? hinge pin fit? have you free floated the barrel with spacers/O rings/washers? do you snug the rear screw first when reinstalling the fore arm? when you're on the bench do you keep the front bag right in front of the trigger guard?...

these are all things that can affect accuracy in an Encore... I've been playing with T/C products for close to 30 years now and have had good and some a bit questionable, but all can be made to shoot acceptable... at present I have 2 Encore actions, 5 stock sets and 9 barrels in 8 different calibers... and a Contender frame that I want to dedicate to some sort of 17 cal centerfire as a fur gun...

if you have your action dialed in with a good tight pin, a decent trigger and a good 22-250 barrel, Brother you got one killing machine... my 26" heavy barrel has a 1-12" twist and shoots anything from 45gr V-Max to 64gr Winchester Power points with seriously deadly accuracy... I'd guess that's the twist they use in all their heavy 22-250's so on that note you'll be a step ahead of many of the other manufacturers 22-250's, as most of them use a 1-14" twist and normally will not shoot well with even a 60gr bullet...

here's a couple links that specialize in T/C's a lot of good info...
http://www.bellmtcs.com/forum/index.php?s=b10c459a89433addc8b22cb7acf31d2a

http://www.precisionrifleworks.net/

hope this bit of info helps, they're not as difficult as some people make them out to be, a really fun gun to work with... my favorite barrel even before the 22-250 is a 22 K-Hornet 26" custom shop bull barrel, shoots one hole all day long... good luck with that 25-06 and jump on that 22-250, they're quite the shooters...
 
I concur with Leroy as well...had to fire-form for headspace on my barrels to get everything set right. I have not changed to a tighter hinge pin yet but I do float my barrel. If you don't mind doing a little tinkering, you can turn most any Encore into a lean, mean shooting machine.
 
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Bloodtrail, i wonder what the problem is. My 50 cal i like to call my muzzle loading sniper rifle is an unbelieveable shooter. 130 gr pyrodex pellots and i think 240 gr powerbelts. I also 243 for it. Shoots great. The only reason i wish i would have bought a different rifle would be for more than 1 shot.
 
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