Hard or Soft Cast in Sabots

[Themoose]

I have one 50 Cal that is being a challenge for me with paperpatched loads.. I do have a much larger choice of molds and sizers in "44" and thinking of trying some of them.I plan on trying heavier, 270,280 and 300. Plan on punching paper and deer..Any suggestions on bhn? Is obturation a problem with low bhn and sabots?

Thanks for your help

[Taylor]

I use a Lyman Mustang for deer.

My load;
2-50 gr pyrodex pellets
Harvester green rib sabot
Lee 310 gr pure/soft lead 44 bullet

Last season at 60 yards the bullet went all the way through and took of the right front leg.Could not find bullet.

I don't think the softness of the bullet would have made any difference in the outcome.

[johnson1942]

what is the cal. and the twist rate? if you use the right length bullet and size it right before patching and a good wad between powder and bullet it will work as you want. i'll do the math if you want.

[OnHoPr]

IMO or experience if you go above 90 to 100 gr of powder, this is with PDex Select, that pure cast boolits, or the Lee 240 gr RN at least, will have less accuracy and might start deforming to much messing up the boolit/sabot combo. You could still use pure Pb from that 60 to 10 0 gr range, but somewhere getting to the higher range you may start to loose accuracy. Now, it still may be minute of deer @ 50 or 100 yds, but if a 200 yd shot presented itself you may have second thoughts on the shot. Though, this is speaking of a weapon that handles 150 gr of powder. Just in my particular rifle I cast 66/33 Pb/WW and use a 120 gr of PDex Select and its fairly accurate. With a 150 gr it really looses its accuracy, but a copper plated boolit is still accurate with the 150 gr of powder. No matter what powder charge you use the pure Pb will mushroom. The 66/33 alloy is still soft enough to do the things it does when it hits hair. If you went with a WQWW in a large meplat you could use any load and maybe up to 150 gr or should be able to. Back a few years ago I was in the midst of testing a WQWW with a large meplat, the Lee 310, for the elderberry thickets I frequent from time to time hoping the WQWW boolit would keep its shape if it was to hit a couple of those nasty tangles in low light situations like a SWC going through paper and trying to stay on sight axis or at least in the short yardages that the elderberry thickets present.

[Themoose]

Roger,

As far as the paperpatching issue in the rifle goes, I am using a 455 gr plains style bullet that is .996". My biggest issue is getting a tight enough fit for BH209 ignition... This is a 50 Knight Disc rifle with a bare 209 primer conversion... I was getting decent groups @100 yds, but got 2 squib loads where the BH209 did not fully ignite(one bullet hit my chrono @ about 7 yds) going so slow I could see it and only made a slight crack in the plexiglas... I had sized the bullets with a .500 sizer, gave them two wraps of #9 onion skin and resized... since that range outing I played a little with the paperpatching and sized some bullets to .495(only other sizer in range available to me) and wrapped them with two wraps of #9 onion skin or 2 wraps of parchment and left unsized...measured them and then took bullets sized to .495, knurled them between two files and wrapped them with two wraps of parchment... the last group fit the bore snugly, but will seat... I think my biggest issue is with the Knight's bore size and the wads I had been using... I made a wad punch to provide a larger diameter felt wad that will be a a tighter fit in the bore... but back to the orginal post... I was still wanting to try some sabots with bullets that I had already cast for my three 44 magnum rifles... they should be easier on the shoulder for my teenage grandson and also on my supply of lead if he likes to shoot them... may even be able to snipe some groundhogs this summer.... a few years ago I killed six groundhogs on a farmers land where I had permission to deer hunt with the conditions that I shoot groundhogs... shot several with .22's before blackpowder, but in the early BP season, shot six with my .45 inline... never saw a deer... but a fun hunt anyway..

thanks again Roger... I am off to the range