With temperatures in the low 80's, blue skies, and no wind - had to get out to the range this afternoon. A couple of weeks ago, I tried the .429 Nosler Partition HG bullets in my Black Diamond XR with very poor results. The green Harvester crushed rib sabots were coming apart with 130 grains of Pyrodex pellets.

Gave this a little thought, and tried putting a Ballistic Bridge sub base behind the crush rib sabot. This got them hitting the target at least - but for some reason the group was a vertical line where each shot hit about and inch or so below the previous one. After five shots, I had a 6" group. The barrel was getting hot, so that may have been the culprit. I also tried some black MMP sabots for .429 bullets and got a five shot group around 4" - about the same as what I had gotten previously with a 270 grain Speer Gold Dot bullet. Mediocre, but would probably kill game inside of 150 yards.

I also tried the Ballistic Bridge sub base with the new 300 gr. Saber Tooth bullet. Had previously gotten good groups with 130 grains of Pyrodex pellets as well as 100 gr. of fffg Triple 7, but very poor groups with 120 grains of ffg Triple 7. The sub base did not help. Groups were still around 12". I chronoed the 100 gr. of fffg Triple 7 load, which shot around MOA,and got 1770 fps.

Towards the end of the session, I had an unpleasant surprise from my Black Diamond. I pulled the trigger and, when the stiker didn't fall, I figured I must have the safety on. Just as I relaxed and reached up for the safety, the gun discharged. Ouch!! I have had problem occasionally in the past with gunk getting underneath the striker on extended shooting sessions, but this is the first time it caused delayed ignition. I cocked it again and this time couldn' get it to let go. Had to remove the striker assembly and clean it to resume shooting. Guess this is one of those little design flaws of an otherwise pretty decent weapon.