I have a TC encore .50 cal muzzleloader and am having a hard time getting good groups. I’ve been hunting my whole life but am new to muzzleloaders......
Any advice??
Anyone have this setup and has found something that works good??

Thanks for any and ALL help!

I use 2 50 grain 777 pellets and the T/C 250 grain shockwave in mine. Shoots pretty good for me.

I have one of those barrels 2 5ogr pyrodex pellets and a 300gr Hornady XTP in an approporate sabot did not shoot very well, add one more pellet and groups at 100 yards went to 2 inches at 100 yards. That 150gr load was good on game but thumped my shoulder pretty hard. I have some loose pyrodex(sp) and same bullet and sabot with 90gr of the loose shoots better by a little than the 150gr loads so that is mostly what I shoot in it now.

I'd recommend you just get rid of the zip-gun and get a real side lock muzzleloader ! The whole situation changes for the good then !

The Encore is a nice rifle, but the QLA at the end of the barrel was done crooked in a lot of rifles and accuracy can be poor. I have a pro hunter that I'm debating whether to have a gunsmith remove the QLA and re-cut the crown or to just order a Bullberry custom barrel for it.

100gr triple 7 and either 250gr shockwave or the 240gr xtp should give you decent groups though.

I've been using the Triple 7 Mag pellets (60 grain) pellets. 2 pellets with a Hornady Monoflex ML 250 grain sabot. Shoots good groups and has sledgehammered deer every year. Would post up a photo of the damage, but it might be too graphic.

What is a side lock muzzleloader?? Lol. I’m brand new.... I’m clueless!

I have had my encore 50 cal for 17 years and have used it extensively. Longest kill was almost 275 yards, entered the brisket and recovered the slug under the rear ham skin. I used the Nosler 458 300 grain partition almost exclusively with the Hornady black (magnum) sabot. It liked 3-50 grain pyrodex pellets and was a consistent 1.5" 100 yard load. I have since backed off as that was a pretty good thump on both ends!

Right now I am playing around with different sabots of different thickness as well as several different 458 cal bullets as I had run out of the partitions. Shooters Pro Shop has 458's on sale periodically.

I have tried 777 pellets & FFg loose and Pyrodex RS FFg. Still working on finding a good load of around 90-100 grains of powder but it may be twisted too slow for that charge with 300 grain and up bullets. IIRC the twist is slow. That may be why my Encore seems to like hot loads and 458 diameter. It shot 6" groups with any of the pistol bullets or 452 diameter.

I would suggest playing with different combinations as well as powders, some guys find loose powder shoots better, I have not had that experience. Also, primers do make a difference, I am shooting Winchester 209 for in-lines right now. Before that I ran regular 209's. Have not tried Blackhorn yet.

Also, do a search on Encore accurization, make sure the fore-end does not rub on the frame, a file or sand paper on the fore-end "ears" was all mine needed.

Also, mine shows a definitive difference between clean and "dirty bore" shots.

Hope this helps a fellow encore shooter!

On a side note, that deer ran almost 200 yards after it was hit, no blood trail as the entrance was on the brisket and no exit. The lungs were liquefied and it bled out internally. Not sure how it managed it but it did! The front of the partition was separated but the petals and back remained intact after 3' of travel, classic partition performance.

Similar to adkhunter, I went down the accuracy rabbit hole a few years back. Tried tons of different powders and projectiles. Wound up shooting these bullets (https://www.prbullet.com/) with their .25 ACP primer conversion. Lobbed lots of bullets downrange with various powder charges and ended up with 120 grains of loose powder as the optimum load. Spent a bit of time on the phone with the owner of the company learning how to make the Encore shoot (including many of the tips noted above). It was a LOT of work to shoot deer at my typical 50-75 yard range. Finally got tired of keeping track of loose powder, .25 ACP brass, and small rifle primers. Went back to a standard 209 primer breechplug and pellets. Not quite as accurate, but plenty good enough to shoot deer under 200 yards.

A side lock is the traditional type of muzzleloader before they developed inlines. They are what were originally used when a primitive/muzzleloader season was started. To me, the muzzleloader season is supposed to be a primitive hunt, with primitive weapons. I think of inlines as a manner of basically cheating the season using scopes, plastic sabots, and modern bullets as they do.
We all have different opinions on such a subject, but I will continue to hunt with a sidelock using a patched round ball in the traditional style of hunting....and feel better for doing it.
To each his own.....

I agree with you.

fdf

By the way there were inline rifles in the 1800's though not as common as sidelocks. ,those were underhammer with the nipple screwed into the bittom of the barrel and the hammer under the bottom of the receiver

I hunt with and in-line and hear/see comments a lot. Your post got me to wondering....so I looked it up and found --

[Pauley]…was the first to design and patent an…inline action in which the [censored] of the sidelock was replaced by a cylindrical hammer driven by a coil spring… (1808)

That was a LONG time ago.....

Yup they made an underhammer as well as a mule eared type that used a different type of hammer on the side. They were not scoped modern rifles using plastic stuff in the barrels to work their way around the primitive aspects of hunting seasons though.