ronlaughlin

Early doe rifle season is 7 month ahead. Last week, i kinda figured my scoped rifles were pretty much ready to hunt with their respective loads. The Triumph was to be the prairie deer rifle shooting 200g SST. The scoped X7 was to be the hills deer rifle shooting 300g Deep Curl.

The Accura V2 was the scoped back-up, shooting 270g Deep Curl. One thing kinda troubled me though; the smooth Harvester sabot seemed kinda loose. Well, i remembered i had picked up a package of green sabot at Cabelas quite a while back; i wondered if they wouldn't be some tighter. I found them, and gave them a try. They did seem better, so i started using them. About that time my groups went from decent to looking like they were from a shot gun with a full choke. It was puzzling, but after further shooting, it was obvious the scope wasn't holding point of aim. So i removed the scope, and replaced it with another.

Yesterday i went up to sight in the new scope. It seemed i moved back too quickly, and moved closer again. Then it dawned on me the clicks on this new scope were 1/2" not 1/4" like the replaced scope. Also, since i was burning more bullets than i had planned on, i switched to shooting XTP in a short black sabot, instead of the Deep Curl, because the Deep Curl are becoming harder to find. After switching bullets, zero was quickly achieved. The rifle went back to shooting nice tight groups.

This morning i went out to do more shooting, and verify things were as i wanted them to be. I decided to use the hunting bullet i was going to use--270g Deep Curl. I set up at near 100 yard. Them Deep Curl were loaded in them green sabot from Cabelas, and 3 shots were fired. One, two, three marked on the middle target.









Wow, another shotgun group. I figured i had ruined another scope, but then i started to wonder about the load. What i did then was switch to the same XTP load, i had used yesterday, and shot 3 shots. They are the 3 in the middle target not numbered. Then i shot 3 270g Deep Curl in the smooth Harvester sabot at the top target.

Then i moved out to a measured 199 yard, aimed at the middle target, and shot 3 Deep Curl in a smooth Harvester sabot, which dropped to the bottom target at that range. Whilst waiting for the barrel to cool, i took a couple of pictures of the 'new' scope. I can barely see the target out there near 200 yard away.










I guess i won't be packaging and mailing the 'broken' scope tomorrow. It is probably just fine, and i will have to mount it, and 'proof' it. It is very very amazing to me, that using that different sabot could turn this rifle into a shotgun.

Screwbolts

Ron,

I have a well used smooth bore shotgun that will give better groups at 100 than your 1st group, green sabots!

Did you see the post in the top thread as to were to get cobalt drills?

Josmund

Ron,

I just wan you know I always enjoy your post. While Rarely have anything to offer, I find them very informative.

Thank you for taking the time to share your efforts. We all learn from your experiments and observations.

nchawkeye

I've seen this before...When the SSTs came out, my Knight preferred the T/Cs over the Hornadys because of the sabots supplied...I always make sure I write down the sabot used with the load info...

sabotloader

Just so you know, MMP has the contract to supply both Hornady and TC with the sabots they use.

And at this time MMP only has one type/thickness of 44 cal sabot.

In Ron's case the only thing I can think of is that you might???? have gotten some of the non-HPH MMP Green 44 cal sabots that are made with a different formulation of Polymere.

Did you recover any of the sabots? When I first started shooting ML's I really wanted to shoot 44 cal bullets (better BC) but I could not get the Green sabot to be consistent for me. At the time I did not know I was shooting to much powder with that sabot. Every once in awhile I would get a wild flyer - not knowing that I was breaking the sabot down with a 300 grain bullet and 100 grain charge of T7.

The new formulation of Polymere is so much better and will handle the heat and pressure.

If you look at the MMP site (www.mmpsabots.com) you will find both varieties of the sabot. The first one you see is/was the non HPH and then down the page you will find the same looking sabot that are the HPH. Look at the difference in what they can handle.

ronlaughlin

Thanks for the information on purchasing the cobalt drills. Plan to place an order one day soon.

ronlaughlin

sabotloader

No, i didn't recover any of them sabot. Next time, i will take some time, and look around. I still cannot hardly believe what a difference the choice of sabot made in my recent shooting. Something like this has never happened to me before. Right now, i feel real silly for removing, and replacing the scope. I was so sure the scope had loose innards, but it was only the sabot causing bullets to fly helter skelter.

sabotloader

ronlaughlin


Anther big clue is to see if all the sabots are in kinda in a direct line with each or are they scattered helter skelter with no real pattern.

Ron this is no joke... way back when I first stared shooting a ML one of the guns I had was a TC Hawken 50 cal. At the time in Idaho we could use sabots and copper/lead bullets.

Coming from shooting centefires all my life I was very interested in the BC of the bullet. Since my primary hunt was elk I chose to shoot the Hornady 44 cal 300 grain XTP (higher BC than the 45). It never was consistent for me it moved all over the place but yet when I went to the 45/300 grain XTP - like magic right there all the time.

Back to the drawing board I was detirmined to find out why? I started paying more attention to what I was doing, and low and behold every once and awhile I would see a sabot going straight up in the air or off to the side - just after leaving the barrel. I then had a friend start watching and he said the same thing every once in awhile a sabot would go zooming off in some odd ball direction. Then we started comparing where the bullet was hitting when we got a flying sabot... the bullet was always a flier also...

Collecting the flying sabots I found that I was melting the base and/or blowing the cup, usually on one edge of the cup, causing un-equal pressure on the bottom of the sabot at the crown... from there the rest is history... Never shot many 44's after that until Del Ramsey told me that he had changed formulaton the polymere he used in his sabots... then renamed HPH sabots...

nchawkeye

Sabot...This was the first year SSTs hit the market and T/C and Hornady used different suppliers...If memory serves me, the Hornady's were a tad longer...

ronlaughlin

Now that you mention it, i too noticed this happening in the recent past, and have never noticed it before. Could be, it was these 'new' sabot doing this. Now that i am not using them anymore, i will 'see' if it happens the next few time i shoot. Thank you for the information!