Most gun companies have fairly okay websites. A little confusing and button-happy, but tolerable. Today, however, I had to do battle with one of the worst.
I've long been considering what should be the next thing I do with my T/C Encore. I have a barrel in .405 Winchester, as well as a 209x50 muzzleloading barrel. I've been considering getting a barrel in a small game cartridge, such as .22 Hornet (yes, yes, I know it's impractical, but I don't have one yet, which should be all the excuse I need.) I'm also considering two other rifle barrels: One in a pistol caliber such as .357 Magnum or .44 Magnum, and one in a smaller deer caliber; probably .243, but maybe 6.5x55, 6.8 SPC, or 7x57.
This means I would need to go to T/C's website to check on what calibers are currently available. The website is total eye candy, complete with flash animations and sounds for darn near every movement of your mouse pointer. Annoying. The "off" switch for all the dancing baloney is buried 'way down at the bottom, too. To add insult to injury, navigation is murky if you're looking for a specific tidbit of information, such as a list of what calibers are available in what barrel lengths, contours, and finishes. Apparently, unless it's hidden very well on the main site someplace, the only way to get this chart is to download the .pdf of the 2008 catalog; which is not a simple black-on-white document, either, oh no. The catalog is a 55-page monstrosity with photographic backgrounds for every page, and even with a decent computer and a DSL connection, it's like taking Lake Michigan through a drinking straw. On the index page the very last graphic to load was... can you guess? That's right, the page numbers. Nice work, that.
Thanks for nothin', T/C; your web site is teh suXX0rz. I guess I'll just have to hope to find something interesting at the gun show this weekend.
What a coincidence, I am in the middle of the same research and was having the same ideas about the T/C website, except that I had a feeling about that PDF catalog download and passed on it. I went to a local gunshop and got the hardcopy and fondled a few of the beauties my self;they are sweet!. My range buddies say it may be preferrable to find an older pre-G2Contender as it has an adjustable trigger that can be easily wind up being he best you ever had and the newer G2's don't. The ability to go from pistol to carbine in any caliber is just to versatile to ignore. The only downside is selling a GP100 to afford it, but I will never sell my 66 and 28 Smifs. And if your friends are like mine, you'll have all the barrels of calibers you can think of at your disposal. Good luck Tam and thanks for disclosing the whereabouts of that mute button on the T/C site. Oh...and prepare to catch the reloading bug.
ReplyDeleteI've got dies for every caliber I mentioned in the post except .22 Hornet and .243 Win. :)
ReplyDeleteThe factory stock trigger on my Encore is pretty impressive; I'm very pleased with it. But I obviously need to make friends with more folks who have Encores! :D
You could also select a barrel from
ReplyDeletehttp://www.eabco.com or
http://www.bullberry.com/
They seem to have a good selection.
Grendel
Another 1500 missed!!, I have classes all weekend!
ReplyDeleteMaybe in May........
You need to not have a calibre in order to have an excuse to buy it?
ReplyDeleteWhat's wrong with "I don't own that particular barrel"?
That way, you can just buy ALL of the barrels ... and not limit yourself to one of each calibre.
Yeah, the Hornet is outdated, a poor case design, inherently inaccurate... blah... blah...
ReplyDeleteHA! Just so much more gunriter cacophony!
My Hornet is outstanding little rifle (well, if a Model 70 can be considered "little") and shoots like a house afire.
Use Lil' Gun when ya go to reload for it. Magic stuff. And be sure to try the teensy weensy little Hornady 35gr VMax as well.
Don't forget to pick up another T/C self-disassembling takedown forend for the .405 barrel :) It's designed for those running sniper shots when you absolutely must have the rifle apart after that one shot...
ReplyDelete:-D
You might want to check out the Specialty Pistols website. Really helpful enthusiasts, and always lots of lovingly used barrels for sale in the classified forum.
ReplyDeletehttp://specialtypistols.infopop.cc/eve
Oh yeah, I made these groups at 600 yards with a stock trigger on my Encore pistol. Not bad for my first time ever shooting a handgun at long range. These are better guns than most folks think.
ReplyDeletehttp://tinyurl.com/3dmn2o
Oh yeah, I made these groups at 600 yards with a stock trigger and stock barrel on my Encore pistol. The only modification was a muzzle brake. Not bad for my first time ever shooting a handgun at long range (so the groups were the gun's fault, not mine). These are better guns than most folks think.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.softgreenglow.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2006/06/David%20at%20600%20set%202.jpg
Gah! sorry for the multiple comments.
ReplyDeleteYou can also try J.D. Jones at SSK Industries and see what he has available. Probably not much in the line of standard calibers now that I think about it, but interesting stuff none-the-less.
ReplyDeleteAll The Best,
Frank W. James
.22 Hornet is something of a pain in the ass. It's extremely sensitive to load variations, and the brass stretches readily. Personally, I'd look into either a K-Hornet or a .218 bee(I still want a Ruger #1 in .218)
ReplyDeleteAnd I second looking into Bullberry. They have a huge variety of calibers, including pistol length .50-110 and .458 Winchester barrels.
The catalog is 85 Megabytes large. That took a minute to download even on Fios.
ReplyDeleteAnd according to my system monitor application, my PDF Viewer used up 350 megabytes of memory to load that thing. (At least when the sidebar preview was on.)
Yeah, and email them with a relevant question. You will NEVER hear from them, EVER.
ReplyDelete"And according to my system monitor application, my PDF Viewer used up 350 megabytes of memory to load that thing. (At least when the sidebar preview was on.)"
ReplyDeleteWhich is about 70% of the total on tap for VFTP Command Central, and I had Excel idling in the background. to boot. Nae wonder it was bog-slow.
I'd second HTRN on the K-hornet, especially since you already handload.
ReplyDeleteOne of these days I'll get one of my own.
hzorga!
Y'know what would be absolutely slammin'?
ReplyDeleteAn Encore carbine barrel in .22 Remington Jet.
...or just lazy web design. 85MB pdfs! Lazy!
ReplyDeleteThe Hornet is a neat little round to play with and I love shooting mine but your other choice the 6.5/55.thats a go to round.
ReplyDeleteThe T/C site is a dog but I did get the barrel option page without the rest of the catalog.Don't know how I did it,heck I can't even figure out how to get out of the anonymous catagory.
I am seriously looking at what I can trade to get an Encore in 6.5-55.
Springfield Armory's site sucks rocks. Stupid Flash movies all over the place.
ReplyDeleteTo avoid the huge down load this is an option:
ReplyDeleteFor catalog requests please send your address to: catalogs@tcarms.com,
Randy in Arizona
You have got a very good knowledge about guns. Can i have some links where i can get some useful information about guns??
ReplyDelete"Y'know what would be absolutely slammin'?
ReplyDeleteAn Encore carbine barrel in .22 Remington Jet"
Bullberry lists 22 Rem Jet for the Contender, but not for the Encore. However, they may be willing to make you one.
On Target Technologies will chamber an Encore barrel for you using their EDM machine and your cartridge. So if you have a Jet cartridge lying about, you could get a chamber custom-fit to it (or to any reloads you've cooked up).
ReplyDeleteI've got a Bullberry Encore barrel in .308 and love it. Nice folks to deal with, too.
I've got a break-action Savage in .22 Hornet that will do one-inch at a hundred yards until you get tired or run out of ammo. I'm using 4227, a 45gr Hordney bullet, and reloading very old mil-surp cases that come loaded with fmj bullets.
ReplyDeleteemdfl
I had a similar problem with trying to search Galco's website for a specific model of holster that a friend had- no way to search by model of holster, only by model of gun, and the gun he was carrying in it didn't list that holster. Turns out it was a holster for an XD but fits a Glock 19 just fine.
ReplyDeleteWasted a couple hours trying to figure that out.