Russ Koon

There are an awful lot of people that have great success with PowerBelts. I have often thought if I could not shoot sabots that I would really look at PowerBelts, I thought that until Cayugad and Surveyor showed up with the No Excuse Conical and really had good luck with it. My hunting partener shoots PB's and loves them i tried for awhile but moved back to sabots... The PB's will load easier...

I have a CVA firebolt that I load all the time with sabots and .451/.452 bullets and believe me,I would not fight the loading as you describe. I need to throw a little caution in here because not all barrels are the same - muzzleloaders do not have a set direct standard. There is a possibility that he has an ultra tight barrel.There certainly are some things i would try before I conceded - one would be to mic the barrel, the other would to be trying different sabots.

Here is my assumption you are buying packages of bullets and sabots, most likely Hornady's. You might try some TC Mag Express and see if they are as tight - but then again due to a packaging error some TC packages are coming with the thicker sabot. Check the bottom of the sabots you now have- are theystepped inside or do they have a smooth cup? And again Iam assuming they are black. I do not know your location or the availabilty of ML products. But different thicknesses of sabots are available.

The thinnest on the market right now might be the Harvester "crush rib" followed by the MMP HPH-24, then the Harvester regular, followed by the Nosler sabot. The Nosler is the sabot I was using in my FireBolt.

Try to locate some "crush rib" and give them a try they might actually be a bit loose - not loose enough to cause a real problem but you might loose a little bit of velocity - If they fit well use them them if they a little to loose go to the MMP HPH-24.

All of this advice is predicated on the assumption that the barrel is clean and not loaded with plastic fouling and if the sabots have been that tight it might be.

Good luck - and let me know
I really try to be asuare as I can.