Does anyone have experience with the H&R rifles? How´s the accuracy and finish? I´m playing with the Ultra Hunter Thumphole .45-70 or the Varmint Thumphole .223Rem. Buy or save my money?
First, I would have a Encore, but the cheaper in Germany are the H&R rifles.

Martin

I have a bunch of Ultras including the 223 and 45-70 Ultra Hunter, they shoot excellent, older .223 models had auto ejector barrels with 1:12" twist, newer models since about 2007 have manual extractors with 1:9" twist. My .223 likes the Winchester White box 45gr JHP, shoots so good I don't handload for it, well under 1", sometimes half that on my good days! The 45-70 shoots Win silver box 300gr into about 1¼", and handloaded Barnes 300gr TSX-FBs at a little over 2300fps using their data for H4198 into less than an inch, both at 100yds.

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With the handi rifles, to me, its a crap shoot. My son has hunted with nothing but H&R/NEF rifles/shotguns, since he was 10[he's 27 now]. His gun battery consists of a Tracker II 20 ga. slug gun, for deer, a .44 mag handi for deer, a 20 ga. pardner for birds, squirrels, rabbits, etc, and a .30-06 for big game. He took the 06 to africa, and killed 7 head of plains game with it.

That being said, he had an H&R ultra hunter, 30-06, that he used on bear in Idaho. We had nothing but trouble with that gun, from the gitgo. Stuck cases, chamber reamed, still issues. Then 4 days before we left for africa, it broke again. Luckily my buddy had the same set up in a handi rifle, and my son took it, and got along fine. Matter a fact, he bought it from my buddy, when he got back home.

Sometimes they take some tweaking, and sometimes they are great out of the box. From the reading I have done,as well as personal experience, the rimmed/lower pressure cartridges, such as the .45-70, or .30-30, tend to have less problems, overall, than the higher pressure cartridges.

Having said all that, I'd get the .45-70, you can load it from mild to as much as you can stand. Even if you have to tweak it, it will cost less than the Encore. JMHO.


Mad Dog

I have an ultra varmit in .223 and it is a real tack driver,had more gunsmith clean up the trigger and put it at 3.5 lbs , that made a big difference