My experience is with Encores, but:
My first was from SSK. JD can be a little prickly to deal with,
but he liked what I proposed (a 9.3x74r) so he was pretty agreeable with what I wanted, that time at least.
T'SOB scope mount is a work of art! I bought a blued barrel,
and the blueing is beautiful. Worthy of a fine custom gun.
A little pricey, but worth it in my opinion.
Have a couple MGM barrels, professional looking with the etched logo and caliber markings. Owners were terrific to deal with, love those folks. Most accurate Encore barrels I have.
Only negative is that at least to me, scope mounting is sort of an afterthought with them? They offer a mount base of their own that is very nice, but only four screws offered on a sporter weight barrel, and it hangs out in the air at the front, a gripe of mine with Encore scope mounting in general.
It WILL flex if you push on it, I don't like that.
Mike Bellm, have one barrel from him, a Bergara 308 he poked out to 300 H&H. He has an acceptable if not pretty fix for the scope mounts, he adds two more screws if you request, one tapped into the barrel, and the other snug down against the barrel and lock-tited. It works.
My sample of one, the caliber marking is hand stamped, and not very neatly... used a hyphen stamp to make a "+" so it reads
300 H+H, and pretty sloppy at that.
Last edited by jeffdwhite; 02/13/16.
