it was windy, we were just lucky nothing caught on fire that day. Have had some bad ones around here. Burned thousands of acres and came within about 300 yards of our shooting bench!

I took the factory brake off of mine and with the shorter barrel (23.5" compared tomy brothers 26" SS model) it chronos only about 80 fps less. Surprised me. I figured it would have been more.
Tried several powders and bullets andpowder loads. Mine seems to be moreparticular to what we feed her.
My buddy wants to bed theaction and keep working on it.I am not sure it is necessary as it already is at or above my capabilities, but then again it would involve more shooting so whythe heck not??? Those targets were with 200 gr. Ballistic Tips. Shot 250 and 225 through it mostly. An interesting side story is that weoccasionally shoot bar stock steel of varying thicknessjust to see what it does. The Accubonds and the Swift Aframesdo the most damage, but the BallisticTips and the corelokts are almost indistinguishable from them. In a piece of 1 1/8 inch piece at a 100 yards, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference asall four will almost shoot completely through it, bulging theback side all.My preconceived notions aboutthe penetrating powerof the ballistic tips changeda that day.

Thinking of gettinga bigger caliber formy Encore, either the .375 or the .416R. Not thatI would ever need it, but I enjoy shooting and mainly because I don't already one.Not sure of the felt recoil of the muzzleloader in scientific terms, but load that boy up with 150 grains of powderwith a 444 gr projectile and I can't help but say........."Did she buck"???
I knowmy elkrifle is somewhere around the 44ft/lbsrange, all I can say is that the black powder feels every bit of that.But man whata blast to shoot! Open sights too thanks tothe Colorado DOW's wonderful regs!
.50 cal bullet is sure a manly looking item as well!

Thanks again to all the fine contributors to this and the black powder posts. There are those of us who appreciate it.