Should I have gotten the prohunter barrel?

[Alaskasmoker]

I just dropped a wad of cash for a stainles thumbhole hardwoods pro hunter encore. They were out of the 50 cal barrels or I would have gotten the pro hunter one right then.

Any way I got home and had a chance to cool off the wallet. I started to order a pro hunter barrel, then I tried to justify the 80 dollar price difference. I couldnt. Flutes? could care less. A couple of extra inches on the length? Not a big concern. Speed breech? heck ya I want that. I hate unscrewing my siezed up plug. And I think they have a rotating extractor too right?

Im really in a hate/love relationship with this pro hunter. I have always wanted a encore. Finally made the leap, but man this thing just keeps racking up the bill. My trigger finger turns white before the trigger breaks. 20.00 spring from Bellm on the way. I really liked the peep sight on the omega x7, that was 30 bucks, its on the way. I paid the extra 8 bucks or whatever for the pro hunter forend even though I got the regular encore barrel.

I guess I had to make a sacrifice somewhere, I aint made out of money, I figured the barrel was the best choice to skimp on.

 

[Nimrodder]

You can buy a swing extractor for a regular Encore barrel at Cabela's. I had one on mine and it worked great. To avoid the stuck breech plug I just swung the extractor over and loosened and retightened the plug every 5 or so shots. You can also put pink teflon tape on the threads of the plug. It makes removal alot easier.

 

[choc-dog]

It appears you are second guessing yourself on not getting the pro hunter barrel. The replacement 209 extractor that Cabelas sells is not the same
as what is on the pro hunter barrel. The pro hunter extractor rotates with-in the underlug and the Cabelas tip has a very small screw that allows it to rotate. T/C has had breakage on these extractors due to the very small screw not holding up.

The new breechplug is worth the $80.00 dollar difference even if you don't like the flutes. The new insert and twist breech plugs will be the new stardard as most ML manufactures will phase them into production
depending on "patent" issues.

The primary reason for the the new breech plug was to many were seizing and "Free" barrel replacement was getting expensive.

For us the shooters it is more convienent to avoid a potential problem than to have to deal with a siezed breech plug.

It happened to me an a extremely accurate .50 cal Encore barrel.
I sent the target along with the barrel to the T/C tech"s and they
passed the target around the shop. 3 shots into .711 - .452 = .259

Choc-dog