310 grain 45cal lee in a sabot??

[indymadcaster]

Folks,

I have this mold and a .452 sizing die. I will cast with ACWW and then heat treat and water quench, then after 2 - 3 weeks shoot them in an MMP sabot out of my Savage Smokeless muzzleloader. this should yield 1900-2100 fps MV ( it shoots 2105 fps it shoots that now with 300 gr Jword in same sabot)

good idea? Bad idea? i am thinking it would do VERY WELL on whitetails

indymadcaster

[x101airborne]

Not being all that well versed on muzzle loaders, but I think you should have no troubles doing so. The boolit is protected by the sabot, so no worries there. I would think at those velocities, air cooled wheel weights would be about perfect.

[btroj]

Want to relally see something? Get a Lyman 457122 HP mould, the famous Gould hollowpoint. Cast then out of pure, run them thru a Lee push thru .452 sizer.
Those things at 1700 fps out of a sabot in an inline are devastating on deer. They don't go very far with that big a whole thru the boiler room.

So yes, any .452 bullet will work. The Lee would be fine.

[161]

There's a guy called 10 ga. on here and he is also on the Doug's Message Board. He shoots some cast in his smokeless. I tried it once with 225 swc. But lost interest. Been thinking about trying a cast .458 with a Harvester Black Crush Rib. I have a Savage also.
161

[Packy]

I do just what btroj does. And yes they are devastating on deer. Using the orange easy load sabot from knight they are very accurate in my knight muzzleloaders.

[tomme boy]

I have tried a few cast in my ML. I have problems with a flat base seating in the sabot. If they are a true flat base I cant get them to seat flat in the sabot. I have not tried any others yet. But I think a gas check style would work. Let us know how they work.

[Crawdaddy]

There's a guy called 10 ga. on here and he is also on the Doug's Message Board. He shoots some cast in his smokeless. I tried it once with 225 swc. But lost interest. Been thinking about trying a cast .458 with a Harvester Black Crush Rib. I have a Savage also.
161

Good choice. That is what I use. 463 gr cast will drop a deer in its tracks.

[MT Gianni]

I am another that doesn't see the need to wd them. WW should give you a complete pass through, they will not strip out in the rifling, and any expansion would be beneficial.

[indymadcaster]

well i will first try it with NO GC and ACWW if that will not group well, then I will try heat treated with out GC and failing that then try it with a GC I think that a 310 grain wide metplat style slug @ 2100 fps would be devastating on anything less than elk......... it works well in handguns Ranchdog bullet designs are similar and work VERY well like any of my other stuff i just wanna make my own : )

[stubshaft]

If you are going to shoot it out of a sabot, why would you size it?

[indymadcaster]

it casts @.454 and is VERY hard to load tested a little today @ 25 degrees they load easy and go off! so far half the battle

[Bad Water Bill]

A couple years ago I got a 335 gr HP Lyman mould and cast up a bunch of pills for my Savage ML 11. All I can say is , is a 1" group at 100 yards good enough for you? It is for me so stashed the pills and receipt for later. The 335 does have a little more punch to the shoulder tho and at my age I try not to hurt the thing to much.

[MT Gianni]

If you are going to shoot it out of a sabot, why would you size it?

+2 the gas check will not need to protect the bullet base in a Sabot.

[quilbilly]

I have been using a 265 gr swc in a sabot in my muzzleloader for going on 20 years for elk. It definitely picks them up and lays them down. Unless I am out on the desert after mulies and expect 200 yard shots, I decided that boolit in a sabot is almost too much gun for deer at close range so I went back to patched round ball. My load for either PRB or the 265 with sabot is 78gr of FFF Goex.

[41mag]

I have this mold and a .452 sizing die. I will cast with ACWW and then heat treat and water quench, then after 2 - 3 weeks shoot them in an MMP sabot out of my Savage Smokeless muzzleloader. this should yield 1900-2100 fps MV ( it shoots 2105 fps it shoots that now with 300 gr Jword in same sabot)

indymadcaster,
Based upon your description I am figuring that the below bullet is what your referring to correct?
C452-300-RF

it casts @.454 and is VERY hard to load tested a little today @ 25 degrees they load easy and go off! so far half the battle

I am using this one as well, and cast them from the 6 holer for my 454. I have found that if I keep my temps around 630 - 675 they will throw out right on .452-453" and hardly hit the sides of the .452" sizer I use. If I get the alloy up to 700 they actually throw a bit shy, and I need them at least on .452"

I'm also not sure why your even concerned with the GC if you putting them into the sabots, seems like a waste, unless this is to help them set in the bottom of the sabot a bit better.

I can tell you that the impact of one at 50yds with a muzzle velocity of 1550fps is pretty awesome, as is shown at the link below my sig. I can also attest that they will most definitely drop a 80# sow right now at 85yds as well. I doubt you will have any issues with deer other than if you smoke them directly through both shoulders. Then you might have some trimming to do.

[indymadcaster]

ok so far with OUT the GC it loads easy and goes off ot to do some load developement now BUT do I heat treat@ 460 degrees and quench just water drop or just use the ACWW alloy? they are going 2085 fps so over 500 fps faster than the 454 load in the video I am leaning to heatreating .......?

[Bad Water Bill]

KISS

If the bison herds were wiped out with Pure lead boolits and they were DRT why not just cast them and shoot em the way they fall out of the mould cavity.

The hide hunters used pure lead boolits and they went through the mud that was caked on from the wallows and still had one shot kills.

Why do you need to harden the boolits even more than pure? Have the Indiana deer grown a new type of armor plating?

With your boolit shooting at your quoted speed any Indiana deer would probably keep flying till it landed in Illinois. No need to do any thing but cast, cool down 1/2 hour, load and shoot. That Savage will keep your shots in a 1" group if you do your job of shot placement.

Ded is ded

[Elkins45]

I shot two does this year with that same bullet out of a Savage smokeless. The only difference is that I cast mine from pure lead and they weren't sized before loading. I use the black Hornady sabots. Both were double lung hits and both ran about 30 yards before piling up. Previously I have used the Hornady 300 grain XTP to take several deer and I can't see any appreciable difference in terminal performance.

Given that I just shoot ML for meat and not recreation I don't know if I will ever run out of the two boxes of Hornady bullets I bought when I got the rifle. Still, having the Lee cast bullet for practice and sight in verification will make them last even longer.

I wouldn't hesitate to use the Lee on game again, but I don't think I would cast it out of WW unless I was just using it as a practice slug.