I am lookin at purchasing a TC Encore w.460 15" barrel. I am looking to buy another barrel to practice with, instead of the recoil and expence of the .460, what would be a good round. My first thought was a .223, give me good range and some recoil and it's easy on the wallet and is readily available.
I guess I want something I can practice hunting situations out to 150-200yds and become skilled with my new encore, then graduate up to the larger rounds.
I figure if I get the same length of barrel and a heavy barrel like the .460 has that should help to become proficient.
Let me know your opinions,

thanks

223 sounds like a of of fun to me

A smaller bore will add to the weight of a barrel, unless you get a faster taper or flute it, so to keep the handling the same you may want to shorten a 223 a little. I agree it is a great practice round, surplus stuff is readily cheap (unless a Democrat election year) and brass lasts.

You can scale back your practice range and shoot half scale with a 22LR or 9mm or 45acp too. Smaller targets look like just bigger ones at the correct range and scope setting.

Understudys are a good idea. The .223 should give you good performance. We're killing groundhogs out past 400 yards with our .223s on the Contender platform; Encore should work just as handily.

Have a 15" 460 encore barrel standard taper with a muzzle brake. didnt have one at first but after shooting a fair amount decided to. Also do you reload? if so i load my 460 with trail boss and cast bullets and recoil i mild. It is probably milder than my 7mm-08 barrel. With the light loads it is really fun to shoot and still practicing witht he same set up. The only problem is with full house loads point of impact changes. when shooting the lighter loads i put up two targets and hold center on the bottom one and hit the top one. no big deal to me though.

siyakadog,

Like encore460, I use 12-13 grains of Trail Boss in my 460s, with a 250 grain cast or Rainier / Berry's total copper jacket bullets for an average vel. of 1,000 to 1,100 fps. The recoil is mild, as is the report. Additionally, I load it in 460 brass, about 85% loading density, so no problem with double charging ( usual precautions apply ), std primer. also, cleaning is easy, if I used 45 Colt or 454 Cassul brass, cleaning would be more of chore. I can shoot 100 to 150 rounds at a time with no fatigue, and generally 1-hole five shot groups at 50 yards and 1 to 1 1/2" groups at 100 yards. The load data was developed on Quickload. This actually makes a great whitetail load.

Doc