Gary Reeder
my info came from Ernie French years ago when he was the
Saturday, April 27, 2019, 23:08

head honcho of the TC custom shop. Ernie and I hunted together at the Celebrity Handgun Hunt several years. On one of the hunts he asked me if I was building any belted magnums. I told him I had built a few 300 Win Mags and maybe one or two 7mm Mags. He said it would be good if we didn't chamber any belted magnums as they had had a lot of problems with guns coming back in stretched and ruined. I mentioned the main problem we had had was the problem of the belt going over the extractor and in some cases breaking the extractor.

Anyway after that we quit building any belted magnums. I figured Ernie knew more about what the Encore would handle better than I did. That was the gist of my statement on belted magnums in the Encore. One has to remember there are no locking lugs in the Encore like on a rifle. The Weatherby rifles boasted of having 9 locking lugs to keep the gun together and the bolt out of your face. The only thing holding that Encore together is that little flat bolt. Once that goes your face is the next thing in line. An Encore is nowhere near as strong as any bolt action. Pure and simple. As far as the fellow using it for years with a Weatherby magnum and he had no problems, when does his luck run out? It only takes one hot round. I sorta figure if Weatherby thought they needed 9 locking lugs, then maybe an Encore was a foolish thing to run a belted magnum thru.

Just my humble opinion. It's your eyes.