The Encore is a very nice gun. I have owned mine for 3 years and loved it right out of the box. You get to really know a gun after you spend time with it and shoot it at the range several hours. I was happy at first with mine, but wanted more out of it. Sure it shot accurate, and in fact better then most at the range. But I decided to start tweaking. The T/C engineers design guns to be massed produced and they need to do it cheap enough to make it affordable for people that want to buy it.

I felt that with some modifications the Encore could shoot better. ANYONE that says the hinge pin is fine like it is just has NO CLUE. When you open your gun and the barrel just drops open and you can feel side to side slop then you will have issues with consistency and accuracy. The hinge pin that came with my Encore could be pushed out with my bare hands. I solved this problem by machining my own Stainless pin that is over sized. Now when you open the barrel it doesnt "Flop" open... its much smoother and more precise. There are several sources on the internet to get hinge pin replacement and modifications.

The next thing I did to my encore was to switch to the .25 ACP. Why?... because I love tweaking and if there is a better mouse trap then I am going to find it. Like many that HAVE done this conversion will tell you... its very simple and worthwhile. I can shoot all day with very very little residue. There is no comparison between the .25 ACP and the factory installed 209 shot primer that comes with the gun. I have yet to read from anyone that has done this conversion say they wished they didnt. I am sure some are out there... but I have heard nothing but praise from people on this board.

After doing these 2 things to my guy my accuracy was better.

My next step was to send out the trigger and have it modified. When I first shot my Encore I didnt notice anything wrong with the trigger, but over time I could tell that it was just down right stiff and it had a lot of creep which would make me pull shots and shoot fliers. As soon as I pulled the trigger I would know if it was a good shot or not. Even on a bench rest I could feel myself "yanking" shots because of the trigger. So I sent it out to Mike Bellm. My Encore had close to a 5 pound (FIVE) trigger pull. and you could feel the "creep" in the trigger as you pulled to shoot... it was terrible. After sending it out... I now have a trigger that is 2.5 pounds with ZERO creep. wow.... how huge was this?.... I would guess before 1 out of 5 shots was bad because of the trigger... now that has been eliminated. When I say bad, I dont mean horrible... I mean it could be 3/4"-2"+ off more then normal. Overall accuracy is amazing in comparison to before because even the shots I had that were good were still off a little and I see that now.

The last thing I have done to my Encore was to have the barrel machined. I had the QLA (Quick Load Accurizer) at the end of the barrel machined off. When the barrel is machined and rifled the QLA is done in a completely different step and for some reason they dont align the QLA and the rifling. Why?... who knows. With the QLA being cut off center with the centerline of the bore, it can allow gasses to slip around one side or another of the bullet or sabot and cause bullet upset, hence unacceptable accuracy. I had David White of D&T Gunworks do this machining and recrowning of my barrel. He will also drill and retap your ramrod so it doesnt extend too far. The QLA on my barrel was only about 1/2" so it isnt a lot shorter. I also had David modify my scope base...why?... because when shooting 150gr (mag loads), and if you do it often... your base WILL come loose with the 4 factory screws. They will become stripped out also, so making the base a 6 screw base eliminates that problem.

There are guys... yes even in this posting that say NONE of this stuff is needed... and they are RIGHT. None of it is. But if you are like me and want to make a good thing better then you will try doing some of these things. I am 100% confident that I can shoot 5 shots at 100 yards tighter then ANYONE with a stock Encore. In fact I will go 1 step farther and say my Encore will out shoot 99.9% of ALL muzzeloaders out there. Yeah thats Bold talk... but I feel I can back it up.

Once you get all the kinks worked out and find a load and a bullet that shoot out of your gun... you can feel confident also. Bullet in a Bullet?.... oh yeah.

Now if I could just get my Renegade to shoot 1/2 as good as my Encore I would be happy with that. But I am working on that too!