new vs. old encore and encore/pro-hunter

I really can't believe nobody has responded to this question yet. Myself I do prefer the older Encores for the simple fact that the triggers seem a great deal smoother and lighter pull. I had a stainless pro-hunter and sold it because I didn't like the horible trigger and saw no advantage of the swing hammer. I feel TC quality suffered even before the closing of the custom shop. I had a 2008 era custom barrel that was complete junk. Would rattle when you installed it in a frame, overheated after 2 or 3 shots and shoot 5 to 6 inch groups at a hundred yards.
As far as the value of your older blued 50 I would sale the barrel on ebay ( you won't get to much out of it) then list the frame on a site such as here or others by itself. There are still some of us who still want to by a blued frame and they are actually harder to find. A used bare frame on gunbroker will go 225 to 285 range. The barrel should bring 125 to 160 if it is used. Then you still have the stock & forend to sell. If you sell everything togeather I would guess you would only net 350 to 425 depending on condition and stock material.

Well I own two contender frames and more barrels for contender than I can remember most carbine length and also two very early Encore frames and several barrels, all Encore barrels are rifle length.I don't own a recent Encore or Pro-hunter frame but have handeled a few and also agree that there is nothing to be gained from the swing hammer and the triggers seem to be something less than acceptable.

One of the vintage encore barrels chambered in 7-08 has been back to the factory three times accuracy issues, everytime it comes back with a note (this barrel meets our accury standards) whatever that is, they dont care if it shoots 6" at 100 yds. Finally had it re-chambered by Mike Bellm to a 7-08 Bellm #2 this was supposed to correct some throat alignment issues that Bellm always harps about. Rechamber did not help one bit. So had my local smith look at the barrel with his bore scope and his assestment was that is the goofiest looking rifleing I have ever seen. So the next step was to slug the bore with a lead slug that revealed a bore diam. of .2855 should be .284 and also revealed a bore that was out of round by .001. This barrel will now become a fence post.

Don't get me wrong I have had good encore stuff that I am happy with as have many others and my contender stuff is all acceptable some of it exceptional. I do believe TC has always had quality control issues.

My advice would be unless you area tinkerer and don't mind being frustrated , buy a Remington 700, Ruger or some other quality bolt gun.