Encore Scope Base Holes Run Through to Bore!!!!

[whitfang]

I've been working on buying a complete stainless Encore Prohunter with 12Ga rifled slug barrel,  actually went and picked it up from a gun dealer.  A quick examination showed the bore was pretty clean, hammer/trigger worked ok, no external damage.  How much wear could a slug barrel have on it?  Forgot my reading glasses, but noticed what looked like lint in the barrel.  This barrel had a scope base mounted on it already.

Imagine my surprise when I was cleaning it, and found that the scope base holes were poked thru to the bore!!!!

Called T/C and the Customer Service rep (Kathy?) said to send it back in for an exchange.  Then she thought a little more and said I had to be the original owner and the barrel could not have been altered by anyone.  She did say "Do NOT fire this gun!"

I called the gun dealer and he said to mail the barrel back to him and he would replace it. I mailed the barrel to him Tues 1/22.

My question is: How did this happen? 

T/C recommends a special base to mount a scope on the slug barrel - a scope base with T/C part# 9949.  A warning on the Midsouth website (for the 12ga barrel) says:

          ONLY USE PART NUMBER 030-9949 FOR A BASE TO MOUNT A SCOPE- ALL OTHER BASES SCREWS
          ARE TOO LONG FOR THE RECEIVER!!!!!

I'm wondering if somebody could have tried to mount a standard weaver base and torqued the screws enough to poke clean through to the bore???  Could the metal have been that thin? 

Could someone have tried to drill the holes deeper to make the standard screws fit? 

Could it have come from the factory like this?

[30-06man]

Called T/C and the Customer Service rep (Kathy?) said to send it back in for an exchange.  Then she thought a little more and said I had to be the original owner and the barrel could not have been altered by anyone.  She did say "Do NOT fire this gun!"

I have bought one used barrel and sent it back with no problems. They did know I was not the original owner. That was about 4 years ago. That is the first I have heard of this.

Now as far as the barrel it sounds like it was a defect and T/C should handle it.

[Keith L]

"I'm wondering if somebody could have tried to mount a standard weaver base and torqued the screws enough to poke clean through to the bore???  Could the metal have been that thin? 

Could someone have tried to drill the holes deeper to make the standard screws fit? 

Could it have come from the factory like this?"

The answer is yes.  Good thing the dealer is going to stand by it.  Let us know what the replacement looks like.

[30-06man]

If someone drilled holes though it like that then they are lacking some common sense. If I were you I would check out all of my guns before I buy them even if they are new.

[Lone Star]

While I would certainly not recommend firing such a barrel, I'm not certain that anything terrible would happen.  The maximum pressure for a 12ga. is abount 13,000 psi, and the size of a typical mounting screw is no greater than about 0.10".  This means that the amount of force applied to the screw by the chamber pressure is just 100 pounds.  I would think that the screw would hold that amount of weight.....but I would never try it personally.   



.

[30-06man]

I don't think it would hold to that type of weight.  I would not try it. Ill leave that up to the stupid guys on guns and ammo.

[sweetwyominghome]

While I have no clue as to the point at which your barrel may have been damaged -- be it by factory, gunsmith or previous owner -- I do know that this has been discovered on at least 3 NEW factory TC tubes as I have personally seen them.

One of the barrels was a 30-30; at the moment, I do not recall what the other 2 were chambered in.

TC immediately exchanged them -- no questions asked. So it is something their customer service department has encountered before.

[whitfang]

It did occur to me that the barrel could be shot with the screw mounting holes in it. 

But then, picture what it would be like for a screw to get blasted out of it's hole. Flame and gas behind it,  under high pressure.  That's not pretty. 

It would work on your mind, too.  You'd end up shooting it like Elmer Fudd -  with your eyes closed and your face turned away from the barrel.

I would think T/C would want these barrels out of circulation, no matter who did the damage.  If somebody did surgery on an eyeball with this barrel,  T/C would certainly be named in a big money lawsuit. 

And WOW!  THREE factory barrels drilled through!  I wonder how T/C drills these holes?  I always pictured an expensive computer controlled drill setup with precision to .0001 of an inch, automatically set for each type of barrel.  And Quality Control that would check for errors like this.  But maybe it's just some poor trainee with a high school drill press doing it by feel.

[Graybeard]

I think you should picture instead a guy or maybe gal using a drill press and best guess as to depth instead. From the stories I've heard from folks who've visited the factory that sounds a lot more likely.

[DropTheHammer]

This exact same thing happened to me early last year, I had just got my pro hunter and then purchased a used 12Ga slug barrel with (weaver base)  mounted scope from GunBroker or some other auction site.  After purchasing, when the barrel was on its way, I discovered that all the Encore 12ga shotgun barrels required a special longer scope mounting base that distributes the attachment among 3 sets of shallower screw holes because of the diminished barrel wall thickness.  ( The third set of screw holes  are forward, under the rear sight. ) http://www.eabco.com/cgi-bin/shopper.exe?preadd=action&key=207-9949



Anyway, as soon as i got the barrel, i looked down the bore and could see 4 dimples where the standard long screws protruded into the bore.  I figured no problem, I could call up T/C and get the barrel replaced.  Got the same answer as above, apparently alot of folks put the standard bases on shotgun barrels and 'ruin them'.  They would not accept the barrel since it was pre-owned/damaged, and offered me a new / replacement one at 20% discount.  I got ahold of the seller and he took it back and he thankfully stood behind it and refunded my money.

I don't know how well the need for the special base on Encore 12Ga barrels is documented, but it seems to be a very widespread issue.  I would think T/C would alter the mount base screw hole pattern to "key it" to the specialized base and prevent folks from putting on the standard weaver / etc..

Here's what i saw on acceptance inspection...

[whitfang]

Yep, that is exactly what I saw when I looked down the breech end of the barrel.  In fact, when I sent the damaged barrel back to the dealer, it still had the standard 4 screw scope base mounted on it.

Just today I got my 6 screw T/C #9949 Scope Mount Base for Encore 12gauge from Midsouth Shooter Supply.  It is 8 inches long, with 6 holes.  The standard weaver mount for Encores is about 4.5 inches long, with 4 holes.

Maybe we should start a new thread to inform others of this problem?  Hopefully,  before they make a $300+ mistake and ruin a brand new Encore 12 gauge barrel, that T/C will NOT replace under warranty.

Are those dimples going to affect accuracy?  At the very least, I think they will chew up a plastic sabot quite a bit!

   

[whitfang]

I have to say that I was wrong when I made up the title for this post.   The holes must not run through to the bore - they are just dimpled into the bore like your picture shows.  I've got eyes like Marty Feldman.

 

[30-06man]

I have to say that I was wrong when I made up the title for this post.   The holes must not run through to the bore - they are just dimpled into the bore like your picture shows.  I've got eyes like Marty Feldman.

 

Might as well make it something like a FAQ and make it a sticky. Run it past the mod