Specifically for hunting whitetail. I was thinking of getting one myself instead of borrowing my father-in-law's old Knight he bought 20+ years ago.
Both my father-in-law and brother-in-law have a Thompson Center Encores and those look nice so I went to take a look. Both of them told me they paid $600-700 a few years ago, so I figured I should be able to get them in that range. So I got to the gun shop (Fred's sports, the same one my brother-in-law bought his from) and the Thompson Encore Endeavor that I saw online that I decided on turned out to be $930, which seems astronomical for a muzzleloader to me. I thought hey, 600 bucks and it's supposed to be the best, why not, I'll have it forever and it has interchangeable barrels; then I saw the price. But I'm second guessing it now since it's like 55% more than I expected and the additional barrels are $300-400 (even used).
Any other recommendations? I keep going back to the cheaper muzzleloaders, but in the back of my mind I'm wondering if I will ever change the barrel because additional barrels will have to be scoped (or resighted, which isn't gonna happen probably and defeats the purpose) and they are so damn expensive. I was looking into the CVA Apex online as well, and that seems to be around $700 or so.
Seems like by the time I buy a more expensive muzzleloader that can accommodate another barrel, buy another barrel and another scope I could've bought a nice additional firearm for the same or not much more. Plus, with the Encore or Apex, I'd be stuck with single shot.
Oh, and there's always the fact that I don't have to worry about FFL's if I buy a muzzleloader that doesn't have interchangeable barrels so I could just buy it online instead of driving all over creation (closest shop is 35 miles or so) to find what I want.
Both my father-in-law and brother-in-law have a Thompson Center Encores and those look nice so I went to take a look. Both of them told me they paid $600-700 a few years ago, so I figured I should be able to get them in that range. So I got to the gun shop (Fred's sports, the same one my brother-in-law bought his from) and the Thompson Encore Endeavor that I saw online that I decided on turned out to be $930, which seems astronomical for a muzzleloader to me. I thought hey, 600 bucks and it's supposed to be the best, why not, I'll have it forever and it has interchangeable barrels; then I saw the price. But I'm second guessing it now since it's like 55% more than I expected and the additional barrels are $300-400 (even used).
Any other recommendations? I keep going back to the cheaper muzzleloaders, but in the back of my mind I'm wondering if I will ever change the barrel because additional barrels will have to be scoped (or resighted, which isn't gonna happen probably and defeats the purpose) and they are so damn expensive. I was looking into the CVA Apex online as well, and that seems to be around $700 or so.
Seems like by the time I buy a more expensive muzzleloader that can accommodate another barrel, buy another barrel and another scope I could've bought a nice additional firearm for the same or not much more. Plus, with the Encore or Apex, I'd be stuck with single shot.
Oh, and there's always the fact that I don't have to worry about FFL's if I buy a muzzleloader that doesn't have interchangeable barrels so I could just buy it online instead of driving all over creation (closest shop is 35 miles or so) to find what I want.
