I went into my local gun store(Moe Hardware in Black River Falls, WI cheaper than WalMart btw) today and traded my Contender for an Encore SS Lam. M/L. I stood there like an idiot picking up the Savage M/L II and then the Encore and back and forth... Finally I decided the advantage of changing calibers was worth the extra $75 so I took the Encore. Now that I've made the plunge without checking first, how accurate are the Encore centerfire rifle barrels. I'm thinking I "need" a .204 Ruger and a .25-06.

Thanks Again,
Rich

The top left target is from last trip. It was my first group of reloads from the 7mm-08. The upper right target is my best group from the .223 shot with cheapo ultramax 52 gr hp.
The rest are various .223 loads shot at the range today. The 10 ring flyer in the lower right actually goes with the target above it. All groups today were sub MOA @100 yds. I love both of my factory barrels. People say you may end up with a bad one, but I hope not.

I saw on Gunbroker.com someone has the 28" Pro Hunter in 25-06 stainless for about $50 more than a regular barrel. They are supposed to be guaranteed accurate. That's probably what I'm going to get as soon as the toy fund has recovered.

If they guarantee it to be accurate I guess you can't go wrong. My 223 is a 26" heavy contour and the 7mm is a 24" standard taper. 26" seems like the perfect length for me. Even with a 28" barrel your rig will probably be no longer than a 24" bolt gun.

My SS/Comp Encore 15" .308 Win pistol version
is on the trading block. It made a trip back to T/C
due to shooting patterns, not groups. They
re-crowned it, and now it shoots 1.5 MOA, and
that is in their spec, according to T/C. It is not
within my accuracy spec. I have a Savage Striker,
with a 14" barrel, in .308 Win, that is a sub-MOA
accurate pistol. The T/C never came close to that.
After I purchased the Encore, I found out that
there are all kinds of issues with swapping
barrels, that require oversized pins, and
barrel hangers, etc. to get each barrel to shoot
well, if it can. After finding out how easy it
is to do a Savage barrel swap, I now use Savage
rifles, and pistols, for this multiple calibers,
on a single action concept. My T/C experience
was very frustrating.

Squeeze