I am curious if anyone has any experience with the 20" PH ML barrels for and Encore? I bought my son a 28" PH ML barrel and love it, but I am drawn to shorter barrels and thought it might be fun to try. What would the draw backs to short ML barrels if any?

I don't have a ML barrel, but do have a 20 incher for my turkey gun (standard encore). Really like it for turkeys. Very compact, would make and excellent gun for still hunting a woods. Short barrel might reduce some velocity. Also, you are taking quite a bit if weight from the gun, so be prepared for serious recoil. However, the PH comes with Limbsavers. My turkey gun could only be shot 3 or 4 times before I wanted to quit. I placed a Limbsaver pad on my receiver and now I can shoot all day. That pad "kicks butt", I know, play on words. But I stand by that purchase.

Well,
It isn't on an Encore, but a T/C Black Diamond.
The barrel on this gun is 19 inches long. We cut the barrel and stock down so it would better fit my sons.
While I do think that with large powder charges one might run into problems with unburnt powder and inconsistant velocities, with lighter loads there are no problems.

We only load 75 grains of 777 and a 250 grain hornady XTP. This load and this short barrel gives excellent accuracy to 100 yards and has a very mild recoil. The boys have shot 3 deer with this gun in the past two years and every shot has been a full passthrough w/ good bullet expansion and good tissue damage.

With the right load, I don't see any problem with a 20 inch barrel.

Hank