WB
The .72 Encore BP Howdah HHC Handgun
Thursday, November 19, 2020, 18:49

It's now legend, a campfire tale from HHC 2013. The real origins of the project long forgotten. But no doubt they stemmed from some discussion relating to the British and American Revolution, Brown Bess' and such. As I mentioned, a single Bess' ball would shoot through several soldiers in a British Square with the service load of some 165 gr. Fg.

"Lets make a hunting handgun version..." Things like that just happen around us. A TC Encore BP shotgun barrel was sourced, using #209 ignition. Cut off and refinished. Dot optics seemed the most suitable for the smooth bore and task at hand. The first and pure variation was strictly handgun and a TOTAL BEAST!

The 0.690 RB at 550 gr. each were actually too small for the bore. The old Indian trick of double patching your balls worked fine in the smoothie.

Mercifully for testing a folding stock was added and helped greatly.

It was literally blowing all the sand out of my 55 gal. drums! Groups at 33 yds. were usually one big ragged hole, fist sized!

October 2013 was a good one.

Doug was successful with the carbine version and literally smoked a big HHC piggy. At the shot some distance away Denning started hollering like a mad man! Of course since the big round ball blew clean through the trotting hog and ricocheted off to somewhere else, Doug thought he'd killed Denning. It was quite some excitement for a few moments. Come to find Denning was navigating some impromptu spelunking and was actually oblivious to the brutal murder outside the deep hole he was exploring. Doug was mostly relieved, but happy with the big hog too.

The .72 BP Encore handgun/carbine was as far as I know the biggest "Big Bore" hunting handgun at HHC to date. I'll throw in my hat, I'd not care to challenge it's crown some seven, eight, years after the fact. It was boss.