Spent the morning in the rock pit shooting - and here is the report.
(1) I wanted to try the new Speer Gold Dot bullets that I have just purchased.
(2) I wanted to try the new Harvester Crush Rib sabots that I just got in the mail - 50/.451-.452 Black
Easy report first... I normally shoot .451 Nosler Partitions in Nosler Sabots. They are no problem loading into and down either of the Remingtons or the Austin & Halleck (which I have always considered as having tight barrels). I have also loaded .452 Hornady's down these three rifes also without a lot pressure or pain with the Nosler sabot.
My first load was anew Speer Gold Dot .452 300 grain hollow point in a Nosler black sabot.
Really really tight to get down. Next load I decided to try the new Crush Rib sabots, because I did not want to fight thesabot down the barrel. TheCrush Rib went down without a problem - almost to easy.Next shot I tried a MMP HPH-24 sabot. I expected it to be as tight as the Nosler - but to my surprise it went down as I would want it. Not as easy as the crush rib but certainly easy enough that I can do it in the field with the guns ram rod and a palm saver.
I did pick up some of the sabots for inspection. One comment I had read somewhere was that t7 stressed the Harvester sabot. My visual inspection of the sabotscertainly does not verify that. Thispicture shows the recovered sabots.
Conclusion: of the three sabots tried the Crush Rib certainly goes done easy as Harvester claims. Those of you with those really tight TC barrels, these sabots might really work for you.
MMP HPH-24 sabots (top three) and Harvester Crush Rib sabots (bottom three) all of these are 50/.451-.452 sabots. The recovery does not show me that any one was stressed any more than the others.
One significant difference - according to the chronograph...
3 shots with Crush Ribs (300 grain bullets) 1710 - 1670 - 1644 fps
4 shots with HPH-24 (300 grain bullets) 1724 - 1729 - 1752 - 1685 fps
(remember the HPH was a tighter sabot)
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Accuracy of the Gold Dot? They certainly work for me! I would love to have recovered a bullet, but shooting in a rock pit with volcanic basalt rock as the back stop - there really is not much to recover.
First impression: Which are always supposed to be significant - when I opened the box -
I was un-impressed... The bullets looked OLD I mean really old - they were not shiny at all. The 250 HP really intriqued me - it was really deep - reminded me of a Barnes. The 300 grain HP looked like it would really fly well because the HP was not as deep and was more semetrical.
The two hollow points are significantly different. The 300 grain .452 built for the 454 Casual has a shallow HP with fairily sharp serrated edges. The 250 grain built for the Colt 45 has a very deep HP with serrated edges. Both bullets shoot from my A&H extremly well. I probably should have taken a picture of the bullets and included that in this. If someone would like a picture look-see let me know.
Well here is the target - I will complete the deer hunting season with these bullets, right now I believe I will use the 250 grain to finish out the regular rifle season. Then use the 300 grain in a side hammer for MLseason.
note: I never adjusted the scope from its original setting until the end of the day.
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Hope somebody finds this useful - it sure was fun shooting it.
Takes awhile for the photos to load-up be patient