I have an Encore and a Nikon Omega BDC 250 scope for it. The reticles match up as advertised. The scope died pretty early in it's life, maybe 40 rounds through, but long story short it was repaired by Nikon, and the reticle works.

I am interested if others have used different ranging reticles on their muzzleloaders, and which ones worked well, and simply! I have a new Savage ML'er and am trying to decide on it's final scope, I've got a Simmons Pro Hunter on it with a plain plex reticle for now.

I too am deciding what scope to put on my new smokestick. A friend of mine has the Nikon ML scope and he loves it. He said it is pretty close to right on at the further distances.

I was looking at the new one from Leupold it's 3x9x40 and called the superslam or something like that....Jim Shockey endorsed

I already have a 4x Nikon Monarch on my Knight and love it so I realy dont need to change but change is human.

What killed your scope?

Ted, Nikon never allowed what killled the scope, I can tell you it was babied big time, and other than being on the rifle, it didn't take any hard licks or anything, rifle never dropped or anything like that.

I was about ready to trade my Encore PH, because I just couldn't get it to duplicate 2007's performance at all. I finally tried a Barnes all copper saboted bullet, at 250 gr. and it shot like a house a fire. Go figure....The BDC scope just got put back onto the Encore, and I'll see how she does, I will tell you that Nikon's 'work ticket' showed they did a LOT of stuff to that scope, I'm kind of surprised that they didn't just send me new scope. It worked dead on in 2007 all the way out to 250 yards, I was very impressed--The BDC scope is set up for 3 50gr pellets of 777 or Pyrodex, and 250 gr bullet. They may even specify the TC shockwave 250 bullet. I shot the combo of 3 Pyrodex pellets and the Hornady LnL 250 gr. bullet in '07, and it shot spot on with the reticle, and damn accurately.

This year I changed to 777 and the same bullet, and no joy, I wasted about 40 loads before I confirmed I had scope issues, but even with a new scope, the gun would not group as well as before--I tried the pyrodex again, and it didn't change back to the previous accuracy.....

so that's how I ended up trying the Barnes bullets. I've bought a load of them now, and will continue to be bench testing this rig.

I also have a Savage ML-10 II, and am looking for the best scope option for it. I will deinitely look at that Leupy scope.

Thanks--Don