I have no experience with encores and my step dad just bought one. He received a gift certificate from boise cascade when he retired and he set him self up to go fly fishing and now handgun hunting. My question is about recoil, he has shot my 475s a little and my contender in 375JDJ, the barrel he ordered with the frame is a 30-06 with his thinking being that he is already set up to reload for his old winchester mod 70 in the same caliber. I did give him a 223 encore barrel a while back when he started thinking about this, I got the barrel in a trade and figured it would make a good plinking barrel for him. I think he's starting to worry some about recoil so what do you guys think?

I don't like the grip shape. I had one in 7mm-08 that i had on loan. I was thinking of buying one and a friend gave me his to shoot. The grip was a little too wide at the top so my thumb was taking all the recoil. It shot well but i just couldn't take it.

I never liked the feel of the Encore grip either and I tried both the wood and rubber grips, I had about given up on the Encore until the Pachmayr grips were released for it, now I'm really starting to like it....much better grip shape and moves my hand a bit closer to the trigger, very pleasent to shoot now, I'm shooting the 30-06, 338-06 without brakes and also 15" 375H&H IMP ....this one does have the "SSK ARRESTOR" brake.

I have one in 30-06 and the recoil isn't bad at all. There's some muzzle flip, but nothing that hurts me or my hand. This gun has a 2-7 Burris and is NOT ported.
I use the wood grip as it fits my hand better; I don't like the feel of the rubber grip and for me it's alot less comfortable to shoot with. I haven't tried the Pachmyer grip yet. I'd say give it a try and let him figure it out. He may love it.

I have the Stainless Encore with Rubber grips and 308 win barrel. Shooting 168 gr factory ammo in it is not half the punishment out of my Reeder 475. The 06 shouldn't be much different...kral

Thanks guys, thats what I was interested in. My step dad gets into stuff like this so we can do more things together and have more in common but I wanted to make sure he hadn't bit off too much to start with. He handled my 475's ok, although I don't think he enjoyed them much so I'm glad to hear that this should be more pleasant to shoot, again thanks for input.

i have the 7mm-08 and the 308 with rubber grips and it is a little hard on my hands but like any thing you have to get use to it. he should be ok.

I have 15 inch 30-06 barrel with open sights. Picked it up at a real good price and have only shot factory ammo. Probably 40 times. Was pleasantly surprised by how managable the recoil was. But I have shot 45-70 and 375 jdj alot so it was light to me.

Doug

I have a 15" pro hunter barrel on my encore. I use it for practice and I will use the .375 JDJ for Elk this year. I have gone to the pachmyer grip as well. I like it a lot!
the 30-06 is a great caliber but not without some muzzle flip.
It will take him some getting used to but I think he will enjoy it.wear fingerless gloves!
I have a nice bandelero holster for sale if he is going to hunt with it.
Stevenm2@hotmail.com

A buddy has a 15" SST Encore in .284 Winchester. It wears the factory T/C Walnut Grip. We are shooting 140gr. Nosler Ballistic Tips at 2665 FPS and the recoil isn't bad at all. I would think the recoil of the .30-06 would be real similar.

Larry