my dad and i are thinking about splitting the price of and encore pistol and we were going to try to figure out which caliber would suit us best. the caliber i had in mind was a 7mm-08 and his was a 243. both would be a very good choice imo but i was wondering which ya'll thought would work best for ranges out to 150 or so yards on large ky deer. i don't want something with very much recoil and i'm pretty sure he doesn't either. so i was wondering if any of ya'll had any experience with these cartridges in the encore pistol.

I don't have any experience with these calibers in an Encore yet. I was going to get the stainless Encore pistol in 7-08 a little over a year ago but my gun shop could not get the stainless pistol frame, so I got a Ruger 300 WSM. The .243 would have less recoil and be better for varmint should you choose to hunt them also. The 7mm-08 would be a better choice if deer is the only thing you will be shooting, but it will also have more recoil. You may want to look at the .260 Rem. It falls between the .243 and 7-08. It has less recoil than the 7-08 and you can still shoot 120gr or 130gr bullets for deeror go as low as 95gr for varmint. If I was going to get one now it would probably be the .260 rem.

Good luck on your decision.

that's a good idea. i'll have to look into the 260. the only thing i'm wondering about is the availability of ammo for a 260. i don't know. now you've given me even more to think about. now i have 3 choices to tell my dad about.

Ammo availability for the .260 is pretty good. They might not carry it at K-Mart, but Cabela's has a number of factory loads in the 120 and 140 gr. bullet weights.

I have the Encore in the 15" 7mm-08,the recoil isn't bad at all...

PaJack,
Do you know how the recoil iscompared to the 14"30-30 contender barrel? How long isyour 7-08 barrel, and is it ported?

Recoil is about the same as the 30-30,my barrel is 15" and is not ported...

I have one in .260 and it is a custom shop 15" heavy barrel and it is ported. I tell ya this is the sweetest shooting thing I have ever shot. Before then the only thing I had shot was a Contender Super 14 in .30 Herret and it has a good bit of jump. So, when I went to shoot the .260 I did not know what to expect so I had a death grip on it. When it went off I was like ..."that's it?!?!?!. There is absolutely NO muzzle jump and only a slight push straight back into your hand. I think anybody looking to buy an Encore pistol barrel in a high powered rifle caliber is missing out if they don't get the muzzle brake. It can be installed on a new barrel order at Fox Ridge Outfitters which is T/C's custom shop for $49. And that my freinds is an absolute steal.

Here's the thread with pics of mine.

http://forum.hunting.net/asppg/tm.as...1&key=󻌾

that's a super nice gun mike. that would be the kinda thing i would want. do you have a scope mounted on it now? i'll have to show my dad that pick and let him read the forum and see what he thinks. thanks everyone for your input.

Yeah, the scope is mounted on it now. I have the Nikon Monarch 2.8 - 8 x 28 on it. It's a darn nice scope. I'll post pics when we get back from vacation.