These pictures show how I did a little home tooling on a factory Encore muzzleloading forend to fit my Encore handgun barrel. This modification still allows me to use the forend on my muzzleloader. The fit along the barrel is very even and it is "free floating". It cost less than $5 for the modification. After paying big bucks for a custom made fiberglass forend for another barrel I had to try something else.

I must add that the barrel came with a "hanger" bar with one hole already prethreaded, I presume to fit a "factory" forend. I'm not sure if this would work on a Bulberry hanger - this is a Virgin Valley hanger. Here's how I did it:

I started by removing the hanger bar, inserting a stainless threaded post from Home Depot (not sure what they call these). Also purchased two stainless threaded screws to fit the hanger bar and threaded post:


Here's another view, showing (from left to right) the threaded hole on the hanger bar, the hanger bar forward screw and the "threaded post" inserted into the hanger bar hole.


Another view showing the whole rig.


Here's the hanger bar on top, the forend on the bottom. I had to line up and drill two holes into the forend and insert the hex screws.


Once that was done, I had to open up the barrel channel a bit. Use a piece of sandpaper of appropriate grit and wrap it around a socket-wrench socket to fit. Run it up and down the channel evenly until the barrel fits. Once it fits, stainless washers had to be added as spacers.


Here's the bottom view close-up.


Here's the bottom view showing the factory holes (for the muzzleloader) and the screws in the handgun holes.


The finished product - Encore 6mmBR w/15" barrel