Anyone have an Encore 44 Mag pistol barrel?

[teddy12b]

Anyone have an Encore 44 Mag pistol barrel?  If so, how do you like it?  Did you keep the open sights or put a scope on it?  I'm considering getting one because of the 12" barrels longer sight radius.  Maybe I'll be able to hit the target with a longer barrel.     I just want to see what others think of theirs before I'd buy one though.

[MePlat]

How good a shot are you to begin with?  I you are mediocre and are wanting the longer sight radius to try and cure that you are barking up the wrong tree.
Sight alignment and trigger control are the two most important things in shooting.  A longer barrel is no cure for that. If that is what you are expecting than you are deceiving yourself.
You will find that if a person can shoot they can shoot.  If they can't they can't and need practice to cure that.

[teddy12b]

How well I shoot all depends really on what's in my hands.  I have a ruger mark III and a Springfield XD 45 that at 25 yards I think I can hold my own with anyone who wants a friendly competition.  With my super blackhawk at the same distance I can hit a paper plate on a good day at the same distance.  That SBH has a pretty long radius already being a 7.5" barrel.  Undoubtedly I need to practice more (I keep telling my wife that too).  I was just thinking the longer barrel might be a cure for me.

[MePlat]

I don't know if your shooting from the bench,  offhand or what but let me give you something to shoot for.  At 25 yards you should be able to hold them (we all get a shot out now and then) in 3 inches or less at 25 yards,   6 inches or less at 50, and 12 inches or less at 100 yards off hand no support at all shooting with both hands.  This with any reasonable barrel length 4,  45/8,  5,  51/2, 6,  61/2 etc..
I have done considerable better than 12 inches at 100 with a 3 inch 45 ACP S&W revolver.  More than one time too which I would then consider luck.
Get  a local "GOOD" pistol shot to coach you and practice using the basic fundamentals of shooting and you will be better off.
By "GOOD" I don't mean the local range loud mouth but someone that has proven he is good by the shooting he has done with his gun not his mouth.

[teddy12b]

The kind of shooting I do for pistols is always standing using two hands.  If 3" @ 25 yards is decent for standing up then I'm not too far away from that.  I'd say I'm closer to 4" - 6" at 25, but I probably just need to practice some more.  I'll try to keep my eyes open for somebody like you described at the range.  I haven't come across too many guys that shoot as well as they talk though.

[swampthing]

At 3.75-4lbs, the 12" .44mag encore is pretty steady in my hands. Gripping the thing gets tricky, as the trigger guard can slam my knuckle if I'm not careful. Once I figured out how to hold on, hitting clay pigeons is no problem @ 50yds, also 6" paper plates at 100.
Off a rest it will shoot under an inch with factory fiber optic sights and my handloads. Red dots can make things a lot easier as you just keep both eyes open and hold steady, no focusing required, adds weight though.    

[swampthing]

I would not balk at a .357mag either, in closed breach barrels velocity is up there a good amount. Recoil is a lot less especially if you can't reload for the .44mag.

[MePlat]

BTW<  It isn't what you can do on a good day that counts or a lucky day but what you can do on the average is what determines how good you are.

[teddy12b]

Well, yesterday was a bad day for sure with my SBH, but I talked to my gunsmith over lunch and he can do a trigger job pretty easily & inexpensively.  I've heard those help out "some".  I'll get that done and then I'll give the encore barrel some more thought after I see how the SBH does.  I just wish I could try one out before buying the barrel.

[swampthing]

The best thing I put on my ruger was a One Ragged Hole peep sight from www.oneraggedhole.com makes shooting a lot easier and they're cheap.
                                    I would put that SBH's barrel on a soft rest, just so it touches it lightly enough to steady the firearm. I let my trigger hand be relaxed 25% and the other hand grasp over it with 75% rest of the gripping. Elbows 50% "loose," the gun will "roll" under recoil.  I would also wear ear plugs AND muffs, this take out a few variables to lousy groups from flinching and "pulling shots.''  Shoot for groups to see how accurate the load you are using really is, no sense spending money on something else if the load you are using won't group well from a rest. 50 yards should be far enough. Federal "cast core" 300g loads typically shoot great, but the bore must have all traces of copper removed first. Speer 270g Gold Dot HP's also work well in most Rugers.
 
 

[Blunderbus]

Actually, sight radius does make a difference for me with the Encore barrels, particularly when shooting offhand. The front blade width of my 12-inch .44 magnum barrel really fills up the slot on my rear sight, so much so that I find it more difficult to see it to center it, particularly against a darker background. The front sight of my 15-inch 6.8 Rem barrel, on the other hand, seems to be just about right.  From a bench rest, the .44 front sight isn't as much of a problem. But I didn't get that barrel for bench resting.

A fiber optic front sight might be the answer, but I'd really prefer a gold bead.  And if anyone on this thread knows where I can find one or the other, I'd appreciate the heads-up.

Otherwise, I may end up putting a red dot on the .44 barrel.

The Encore frame is overbuilt for the .44 mag (and 6.8, for that matter). But I like overbuilt. And the extra weight softens recoil.

[MePlat]

The subject of sight radius come up from time to time as an aid to better shooting over practice.     A quick cure for poor shooting etc.  This does not happen mechanically but mentally just as a placebo pill will work on patients that complain when the doctor knows there is nothing wrong with them  If that is the case than the longer barrel is a help even if it really isn't.
Let me give an example.  If we take a 12 inch encore barrel for the test subject we know that the sight radius is 10.750 inches.  If we take a sight misalignment of  .010"  on that sight radius and we could move the front sight back to half that raidus 5.375" we would have a .005" misalignment not more but less. We we took a 5.375 inch sight radius and misaligned the sights .010" inch then on a 10.750 sight radius the misalignment would be .020" inch.  this can be figured in minutes of an angle if one doen't believe it.  Look in the Machinist Handbook on figuring angles and distances.  The figures don't lie.
Where the help comes in for some people is they have been told by someone they look up to or think of as an expert that a longer barrel is better and they believe it.  Then it become a mental help to them just as  a placebo pill is to the aforementioned patient.
The shooter tries harder to do better their confidence is up and waa laa they shoot better but it is not because of the longer sight radius but because of the placebo effect of the longer sight radius causing them to try harder.
Help is help even if it is just in our minds and not really in the equipment.  Just make sure your the type that is easy to swallow the hype concerning longer sight radius and accurate field shooting.

[HAMMERHEAD]

My Encore came with a 12" .44 Rem Mag barrel.
I cut it to 9" and remounted the front sight. Now the balance is much better and it looks more like a handgun than a wrist rifle.
I also have a custom (MGM) 9" .357 mag barrel with a Trijicon Reflex sight on it.
I haven't hunted with either. Mine is a silhouette gun and just a plinker.
Once you get over 9 or 10 inches in sight radius, I don't think there's much gain. I know I was immediately more accurate offhand after I cut the barrel back to 9". Probably just from balance.
That 12" barrel was just too muzzle heavy for me.
I had a scope on it for a while to test accuracy, but offhand I was pretty pathetic with it.
The Reflex sight is light enough to shoot well offhand.

[Dusty Miller]

OH!  What I wouldn't give to be able to hold my groups to 3" at 25 yds!!  That'd give me plenty of bragg'n rights down at our range!

[MePlat]

Dusty Miller wrote:   "OH!  What I wouldn't give to be able to hold my groups to 3" at 25 yds!!  That'd give me plenty of bragg'n rights down at our range!"

I don't know whether you were poking fun at what I said or were serious but I asked Elmer Keith many many years ago what a man would have to do group wise for six shots at 100 yards shooting standing using a 2 hand hold shooting the "Keith Load" in a 4 inch M29 before he would call them good.  Answer was:  "He should keep them in a foot circle."  I have used that as my criteria for judging what good is.  If it is or was good for Mr. Keith than it is good enough for me.   Someone else may have a different point of view but I have seen the 50 shot wonders proclaim they can his softball sized targets at 100 yards offhand after shooting maybe 50 to 100 rounds of ammo in their first handgun.  Trouble is one never sees them doing it though.
Wednesday morn I was getting ready to leave the range and for fun shot a 6 shot group at 100 yards offhand with my Ruger BH 45 Colt 4 5/8"  with a 300 gr LBT LFN-GC at roughly 850 fps and shot 5 of the 6 into 6 3/4" with a dropped shot "4th shot" that opened the group up to just over 10 inches.
I went home.

[irold]

Ted.....This is probably gonna open up a Hornets nest..but here goes !  Anybody that can consistently hit a 10 inch target at 100yds, off hand, with a handgun....truthfully....either they live at the range, or they're telling a little white fib.   I've been hunting with a contender/encore, both with open sights and scoped since the mid seventies, and ..if I expect to make a killing shot at 100 yds, I'd better have a rest !  And no matter what some will tell you , the longer the site radius the easier it is to shoot accurately.  If your like me, I get to the range 2-3 times a month, shot, maybe, 2-3 hundred rounds per session.  That's with several handguns, I'm probably pretty average as far as the amount of practice goes...after all , I have a family that needs me at home too. I'd say "know your limits", if your shooting ability is stretched at 75 yds, so be it ! That's your limit!  Just my 2 cents worth.   And , just for the record, at 50 yards, offhand with my 44, 12" encore I shoot a 4-6 inch group....its topped with a Bushnell Trophy reddot...Good Luck Teddy, you have to decipher some of the information on these forums

[MePlat]

You know its a shame that when one tries to tell the truth they are branded as a liar.  I try to tell the truth and be as accurate as I can be in tell anyone anything about shooting, guns, etc.. 
If most of the shooters quit relying on a crutch such as barrel lenght, shooting from the bench, the dark of the moon, the position of the stars etc. and started just believing in sight alignment and trigger control most would be better off.  But thats the way we are aren't we always looking for that cure all or magic gun to make us the deadeye dick we want to be instead of doing what it takes and that is shooting with proper sight alignment and trigger control.

But what do I know I am just a liar and don't even know what a gun is.