I was shooting my encore today and it locked up on a spent casing, I was going to take it all apart and see if I could get it to open. What do y'all think and why did it lock up? I've never had it do it before.

Depends on what you mean by locked up. Will the take down lever not move at all or lever move as it should and the barrel not break down?.Pierced primer and firing pin stuck, hot load, or mechanical breakage.

Junebug, the break down lever works as it should but the barrel won't unlock

I think I would try dropping a cleaning rod down the barrel with the lever help in the open position and see if it free's the stuck case.You don't have much mechanical advantage and a sort of weak extractor on the Encore so sometimes a jar to the case helps.If all else fails then tear it down to see what you can find.The extractors bend pretty easily sometimes with a stuck case but can be straightened.

At any rate it might be the result of excessive pressure so be sure and check your loads.

Ok I'll try that junebug. Gregg my loads are near max but haven't had any issue like this before. Also I'm not getting any pressure signs

Posting this just in case somebody else has the same issue. The reason the gun was locked up and wouldn't open was 2 things the war on one of the locking bolts was wore down causing one of the ears on the frame to miss it and go to the side. I tig welded and added a little material to the ear and now it is fixed

Glad you got it fixed. Wonder what caused the accelerated wear? improperly heat treated part, or too small to begin with?

Hm, that's odd. At least it was a relatively easy fix.

Yea I'm not really sure but its been going on for a while the ear was polished up pretty good