BHunter32

When i first saw the title of the thread - i figured it was going to be an eay answer for me. I would always suggest loose powder to pellets. IMO there are a lot more advantages to loose than pellets...

But, if you are just getting into this activity the quickest and easiest way to get started are pellets and power belts - neither of which I would use in real life hunting. The big thing is to get a feel for the activity and actually shooting.

The Encore is one of the better guns out there, it has some quirks that you will easily work through and others on here will have some suggestions to that. I can not help you with the specifics because I do use an Encore series rifle.

The Win 209 primers shold work well for you if your rifle will close on the primer. Some Encores will not as the primer is a bit to long, but that really is not a problem because ather primers are available that are shorter.

If you decide to go with loose powder I would suggest BH-209 even though it is way expensive it is the easiet way to get started with loose and wil save you some other head aches other than you will have to clean the breech plug with some regularity. I prefer and use T7 loose but then you may have to deal with another problem in your bore called the 'crud ring' and in most cases is not a big deal if you most patch between shots at the range.

What ever you decide - good luck and come back for any other questions you might have.