Saboted Bullet Loads?

[CoElkHunter]

Remember the Remington saboted bullet cartridges? Turn your ‘06 or .308 into a .223 caliber with a .22 caliber bullet encased in a nylon .30 caliber sabot so one could fire it out of a .30 caliber rifle? Wonder if it would work say firing a .416 bullet out of a .458? It’s cold here, about to snow again, I’m bored and have to work tonight, so there! More ludicrously! But, it might work?

 

[CJW]

Try it and let us know. It would be a cool experiment.

 

[1dirthawker]

coelkhunter,

i am sure it would work. you might need to go down to 375 cal to get a sabot with enough plastic on the sides to have some strength, maybe 416 would be enough of a step down, but there is no doubt it would work. they use sabots all the time to make muzzle loaders work with .308 bullets in 45-50 cal rifles.

feeding might be an issue. one does get a similar effect by shooting very light bullets for caliber (250 gr .458 bullets. the upside with the sabot is, you would have a pretty ballistically efficient bullet. i suspect the bc on a 300 gr 458 bullet is around .250 and a 300 gr 375 could be over .500.

 

[CoElkHunter]

coelkhunter,

i am sure it would work. you might need to go down to 375 cal to get a sabot with enough plastic on the sides to have some strength, maybe 416 would be enough of a step down, but there is no doubt it would work. they use sabots all the time to make muzzle loaders work with .308 bullets in 45-50 cal rifles.

feeding might be an issue. one does get a similar effect by shooting very light bullets for caliber (250 gr .458 bullets. the upside with the sabot is, you would have a pretty ballistically efficient bullet. i suspect the bc on a 300 gr 458 bullet is around .250 and a 300 gr 375 could be over .500.

Yeah, I just but a .416 bullet in a .458 Lott case. Not enough room for a Sabot. But, there may be enough space with a .375 300gr Nosler Accubond and definitely enough space using a 250gr .338? Just food for thought? Feeding definitely might be an issue in a magazine fed rifle, but a Ruger #1? It was Remington’s “.22 Accelerator” cartridge which allowed a .22 caliber projectile to be fired out of a .30 caliber using a sabot. I just found that on Wikipedia. I guess the velocity was greatly enhanced using the .22 out of an ‘06, but accuracy suffered somewhat? But I’ll bet you could get a long 300gr .375 to “scream” out of a Lott without having to buy a .375 rifle! I know, but what fun is that! Ha! Ha!

 

[1dirthawker]

But I’ll bet you could get a long 300gr .375 to “scream” out of a Lott!

i bet you are 100% right, you could get a 300 gr bullet screaming out of a lott! the efficiency of the case becomes greater as caliber goes up. a simple example is the 7mm remington thru 458 win

7mm= 3000 ft lb rifle (175 gr bullet)

338 win= 4000 ft lb rifle (250 gr)

458 win= 5000 ft lb rifle (500 gr)

all with essentially the same power plant/case as caliber goes up, so does efficiency. so having a larger caliber, with lighter bullet would of course increase velocity by a lot, and a sabot would allow a high bc bullet to be used with the larger diameter power plant (458 win in this case)

 

[CoElkHunter]

i bet you are 100% right, you could get a 300 gr bullet screaming out of a lott! the efficiency of the case becomes greater as caliber goes up. a simple example is the 7mm remington thru 458 win

7mm= 3000 ft lb rifle (175 gr bullet)

338 win= 4000 ft lb rifle (250 gr)

458 win= 5000 ft lb rifle (500 gr)

all with essentially the same power plant/case as caliber goes up, so does efficiency. so having a larger caliber, with lighter bullet would of course increase velocity by a lot, and a sabot would allow a high bc bullet to be used with the larger diameter power plant (458 win in this case)

We’ll see. I just sent an email to MMP sabots, who apparently makes sabots for muzzleloaders in different bullets calibers and weights for different caliber muzzleloaders. Like you, I don’t see why it wouldn’t work, but maybe there just wouldn’t be a large enough market for them to manufacture them? But, maybe someone else would/could?

 

[CJW]

Is a standard muzzleloader sabot going to be damaged in any way when it hits the rifling? Would it need to have more of a taper for smoother contact? I haven't really looked at a ML sabot in a while.

 

[bruce moulds]

if twist is an issue, muzzle loaders usually have slower twists than smokeless guns.
twist required for meaningful bullets in 375/416, etc might strip a sabot.?
bruce.

 

[meigsbucks]

Yeah, I just but a .416 bullet in a .458 Lott case. Not enough room for a Sabot. But, there may be enough space with a .375 300gr Nosler Accubond and definitely enough space using a 250gr .338? Just food for thought? Feeding definitely might be an issue in a magazine fed rifle, but a Ruger #1? It was Remington’s “.22 Accelerator” cartridge which allowed a .22 caliber projectile to be fired out of a .30 caliber using a sabot. I just found that on Wikipedia. I guess the velocity was greatly enhanced using the .22 out of an ‘06, but accuracy suffered somewhat? But I’ll bet you could get a long 300gr .375 to “scream” out of a Lott without having to buy a .375 rifle! I know, but what fun is that! Ha! Ha!

A guy I used to deer hunt with in the early ‘80’s had a Remington 760 in .30/06 that shot those Accelerator’s like a house on fire. It would destroy groundhogs with a vengeance.

 

[CJW]

A guy I used to deer hunt with in the early ‘80’s had a Remington 760 in .30/06 that shot those Accelerator’s like a house on fire. It would destroy groundhogs with a vengeance.

He must have been lucky. Most anything I've ever read about them would make it seem that hitting a groundhog with any consistency is a miracle. I've always wondered if they would have used a 75 or 80 gr .22 if they would have been more accurate.

 

[CJW]

https://eabco.com/remington-accelerator-sabots.html

Here are some 30 cal sabots. They're just injection molded plastic.

 

[1dirthawker]

i suspect twist rate had something to do with the rifles inherent accuracy. a slower twist rate would work well for shorter/lighter bullets. regardless, and interesting experiment.

 

[CoElkHunter]

Yeah, I don’t know about the twist rate? The Remington .22 Accelerator was apparently loaded into .30-30, .308 and .30-06. If the twist rate of those caliber rifle barrels were too slow to stabilize a .22 bullet, I could see where accuracy would suffer? But whatever kind of Sabot they used to encase the .22 bullet, it apparently worked well enough to get the bullet out of the barrel at high speed?

 

[mark-hunter]

@CoElkHunter

See also, my post no.3, on this link... there may be side effects with sabots...
https://www.africahunting.com/threads/aside-from-shooting-your-chronograph.56263/#post-649369

 

[CoElkHunter]

@CoElkHunter

See also, my post no.3, on this link... there may be side effects with sabots...
https://www.africahunting.com/threads/aside-from-shooting-your-chronograph.56263/#post-649369

Very interesting! Thanks!

 

[Wyatt Smith]

My uncle claims his friend was sighting in his slug gun, using the hood of his truck for a rest. The sabot from the deer slug lost a petal and pierced the truck hood. They apparently found the petal in the insulation that’s stuck to bottom of the hood.