I settled on 45.0gr H4350 which is a grain and a half over the Hornady book max, but it shoots beautifully with no pressure issues.
Were you using the rifle data or handgun data? I've noticed they tend to reduce the maximums shown for the same bullet weight/powder combination somewhat when showing loads for Encore handguns compared to their rifle data. I can understand why they'd do that for, say, the 45-70 Contender data, but it seems a little excessive to do that for the Encore data.
