I've been ask to make a comment on this post and would be glad to do so. I have been dealing with Thompson Center products for over 30 years. They always have and always will provide us all with high quality rifles.

However, in the past few years, CVA has become very focused on producing products to compete with the upper end TC rifles, and are doing just that. In fact, they have surpassed them in some way's: accuracy, right out of the box is only one.

Let me get one thing out of the way right off the bat, NO company has ever paid MAX not one red cent for anything I've written or any video I've produced. As of the past 30 days, we have stopped all retail sales of any product other than our own, other than the trigger job kits we sell, because we want to keep this exact type of comment from being said about MAX. So, we do not make any profit from selling Bergara barrels or any other prouduct as far as that goes at this time. But, after all of our testing, we do highly recommend them as a better choice over the TC barrels.

MAX will always maintain an indepindant research status, always. As far as choosing TC or Bergara for you Encore, here is what we have found. Bore scopes are not around every corner, but I have had use of one for the purpose of comparing TC to Bergara. As far as the inside of the barrels being tool mark free and smooth, which is what your looking for, the Bergara by far surpasses the TC barrel. This is what allows Bergara equiped rifles, of any brand to out perform other barrels. Don't just take my word for it, look who helped Bergara design these barrels, yes THE Ed Shiling. That should say it all. While shooting professionly in the Marine Corps, we shot Douglas barrels. When we got beat, it was most always by someone shooting Shiling barreled rifles, that's a fact.

Looking further down this thread, I saw someone saying "this guy is full of ...." about the groups we are getting from our testing, I belive they were talking about this "guy" as being me, maybe not. Well, there are a combination of things that make sub-one inch groups possible, it's not just the bullets. For every load we publish that will shoot or provide sub-one inch grops, we're not able to publish 10 that will not. So I guess you could say' give or take a few, we publish 1 out of every 10 loads we test and they are sub-one inch group capable.

In closing this post I will leave you all with this: you will get better out-of-the-box accuracy with a Bergara barrel than a TC. The TC needs more break-in time or lapping before being able to provide sub one groups right out of the box, in most cases. This is what my extinsive testing has proven.

Russell Lynch
Muzzleloader Accuracy Xperts
www.maxmuzzleloader.com