I have the 12" TC Hunter barrel that has an integrated muzzle brake on the end of it, actually a compensator the way it's designed. It works VERY well. I shoot handloads out of it, petty hot, and it recoils about like .38 wadcutter out of my M10 S&W heavy barrel. However, you'd best have your ear protection on. When I first started using it, I shot a nice 8 point out of a box blind, had to kind of lean out at an angle to get on him. The blast off the compensator came back in the blind. Man, that night sitting around the fire telling hunting stories I'm going "eh? WHAT? Whadya say?"
Now, I put my muffs on top of my head so all I have to do to shoot is reach up and lower 'em over my ears.
Factory Winchester 150 grain flat nose clock around 1871 fps/1166ft lbs, standard deviation of 29.78 for six shots. It's making 1565 fps/816 ft lbs at 100 yards and 1325 fps/585 ft lbs at 200. A 150 yard zero sees it 2.72" high at 100, 7 inches low at 200 yards.
My favorite handload is 33.5 grains of IMR3031 behind a 150 grain Nosler ballistic tip. Mean velocity is 1989 fps, standard deviation for a five shot string is 20.64, mean energy 1315 ft lbs at the muzzle. At 100 yads it's making 1815 fps/1097 ft lbs, 200 yards it's 1663 fps/922 ft lbs. Sighted for a 175 yard zero, it's 3" high at 100, 2.5" low at 200. Sighted for a 150 yard zero it's about 2" high at 100, 4.8" low at 200. The Nosler bullet expands readily at these velocites and holds together well on hog. This load will shoot 1.5" off sandbags at 100 yards with a 2x taper dot reticle scope with 4moa dot. What I do is at 100 yards, 4moa dot, I hold the POA at the top of the dot. Not necessary for hunting, but when I wanna shoot a coke can at 100 yards, this puts me pretty much dead on at 100 with a 150 yard zero sight in.
As you can see, using a spitzer boat tail Nosler Ballistic Tip with good BC really wakes this caliber up in the contender. I've been impressed with the kills I've made, longest of which was only 75 yards. With this load at 200 yards you still have plenty of energy, though the velocity is down to about the minimum for good bullet expansion. This load is a true 200 yard load. Since most of my shots will be inside 100, likely (field position limits my accuracy much past that), I feel it's a good load for the gun.
I love the hunter barrel and would suggest you look for one. The compensator is really effective and taming the recoil. The muzzle blast is sharp, but hearing protection solves that.
