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Been hard to find nice weather for a trip to the range of late, but today wasn't too bad. Got a couple of single shot projects done and was pleased with the results.

First project was ditching the red dot on the Ruger No 3 single shot in 45-70 and switching to a scout scope setup that was a bit experimental. I've been using a Skinner dovetail barrel mount for the red dot which provides a short section of weaver rail for a small red dot, but thought it might also work for mounting a 2x pistol scope out on the barrel if I used only one ring. Yeah, one ring might be iffy given the recoil of the 45-70, but the mount itself is bedded right into the rear sight dovetail, so it's probably more secure than a standard mount that is bolted to the barrel. Here it is.


So far, so good after one box of 45-70 as far as the scope staying put. I do much prefer the scope on the Ruger both for looks and performance. Once I got it dialed in, pretty easy to pour those big 405 grain bullets into the 3" bull at 50 yards.



Next up was the surprise. This is my TC Encore pistol with a 15" factory Encore 22 LR barrel I bought over the summer. It wears a Simmons 2.5-7x pistol scope. The bipod is a Harris.


Now, the Encore has no firing pin selector, so you can't switch back and forth between rimfire and center fire barrels as per the Contender by moving a selector. Nope, when TC brought out the Encore in 1996, it was strictly centerfire, only. So how can you shoot a rimfire barrel on an Encore?

Over the course of the years, shortly before TC was bought out by S&W, TC came up with an ingenious way to shoot rimfire barrels on the Encore. Their solution was to make the barrel in two pieces. The back half of the barrel was drilled a bit off center compared to the usual Encore centerfire barrels so that the Encore firing pin would hit the rim of a 22 LR (or 17 HMR or 22 mag). The front half of the barrel was then attached with the bore perfectly centered, just like any other barrel.


Now this particular barrel has been something of a project since I bought it. Right away, I had trouble when trying to extract better quality match ammo because the chamber was too rough. Okay, I polished the chamber and problem solved. This was to be just a practice barrel for shooting the Encore, anyway. I had no expectations of it being a match barrel as per the actual match barrels you can buy for the Contender. Finally took it to the range for a serious accuracy test. Was not prepared for this, though. Best group, here, but the others were all still right at half inch or less. Very consistent shooter with no pesky flyers.


That puts this barrel right there with my very expensive Anschutz rifles, so, yeah, a very nice surprise for a barrel that took some TLC to get running. I do love my single shots, both rifle and pistol.

I like the way you mounted the scope on the 45-70 single shot! Wonder how that would look on my High Wall 45-70? Great shooting with that beast too!

Thanks, forty. I've used 2x pistol scopes as scout scopes on other rifles. They work very well as scout scopes. Since I added that leather recoil pad, I really had to use a pistol scope with the extra long eye relief. The add on recoil pad really added a lot of length to the stock. Even just using trap door loads, that little rifle really slaps my shoulder. Not sure I'd even want to use a rifle scope even if I could mount one of the No. 3.

Nice shooting NCG and again Im amazed at your on going shooting with the beast. 357 in a rifle is about all I care to shoot anymore.

Nice shooting with both there NCG, I like your nice little surprise there, that's cool.
Also an interesting fact about the two piece barrels.

RP

Thanks, guys. Yeah, I must be a little crazy to still be shooting the big boomers, but I do enjoy the challenge and, of course, the tradition of shooting a 45-70 is pretty special.

Gotta do whatcha love.
The only 45-70 I ever shot was the FIL's Marlin.
But it was plagued with the dreaded jam, so it went down the road.
I now own a pair of 444s, those are big boomers enough for this ole fella.

RP

I used to shoot the triple 4, too, both in a Marlin and even in an Encore pistol. The 444 is a great cartridge. Deserves to be much more popular. Would have been, too, if Marlin hadn't decided to add the 45-70 to their lever guns after introducing the 444.

NCG I'm surprised that scope doesn't want to teeter totter with a single point mount but from the looks of your target it's obviously not doing that. Good shooting!

Nice surprise on the rimfire. Can you explain the barrel offset again? My pea brain isn’t grasping it.

Great shooting, as always... and I like the creative way they allowed the Encore to shoot rimfire. Good information a good trip to the range.

Thanks, Marine. Specialty pistols have always been, well, ... a specialty of mine. Really have to redefine the word "pistol" with these things in so many ways.

Gene, here's a couple of pics which really are worth more than a thousand words. At least I hope so because no one is going to read a post of a thousand words.

Here's two barrels. The one on the right is a standard Encore centerfire barrel, in this case, my 44 mag. Note that the chamber is perfectly centered in the barrel. On the left is the 22 LR rimfire barrel with its two piece construction you can even see at the chamber end. Note how the chamber is offset in the barrel so that the Encore firing pin hits the cartridge rim.


Here's a side view of the 22 LR barrel, also showing the two piece construction.

Thanks Joanie, that makes sense to me know.

Darn nice shooting and two very impressive firearms NCG. Thanks for sharing. The barrel work on the Encore really is someting.

Thanks, Rifletom. In the last couple of decades before TC was bought out by S&W, TC built their own barrel making shop and could do barrel jobs like that rimfire. In fact, S&W bought out TC specifically for their barrel making shop.

Unfortunately for the good folks at TC in Rochester, N.H., S&W did the typical buyout and fired all the TC employees and moved everything to Springfield, Ma. Had an online friend who lived just down the road from the TC facility and said the old TC outfit was outstanding. No one took better care of their customers than TC. Really hurt the town when TC closed.

It's often the case that when the main industry in a small town leaves. The town we live in is an official Ghost Town in Oklahoma. It was a boomtown, fueled by oil and gas drilling in it's heyday, but then the politicians in Oklahoma decided to make Oklahoma some "Big Money" by "taxing the heck out of the oil bidness." (Or so I'm told.) Not only did they tax the products they produced, but they taxed the search and drilling operations to the point that the big oil said, "Texas and Louisiana have plenty of oil, as well as Alaska and other locations. We don't need to get robbed by the state we are bringing money into." They left. They took all their workers, and jobs. The stores that sold their equipment and supplies died. Hotels died. The everyday businesses that supplied the workers... died. The small town we live outside of, had a gas station, bed and breakfast, hotel, diner, country store... meeting hall, administration building... You know... it was a town. Now... it has ... a population of 300. No trace of the gas station and the rest. The admin building feel in last year and is still there, a pile of rubble and a few standing walls. The only government building still in use is the post office. It's a small wooden building about the size of a backyard storage shed, with LIMITED service.

MANY of the towns in Oklahoma suffered the same fate. I might not have all the facts right, I'm a latecomer to the party.... but when the Oil and Gas business was run out of the state by greed, it suffered. There are still operational pumps around the state, looking like those weather bird things my grandmothers had on the window sill, constantly dipping their heads in the colored water. You see them in pastures, in front yards even. But the exploration is not what it was and Oil and Gas doesn't rule.

So true. The other problem with oil and gas for small towns is the boom and bust cycle. The town changes dramatically when the cycle switches.