ORIGINAL: stratofisher1
The SSB's that I have are the black ones, and they are a tough fit in the barrel. I have swabbed and wetted the sabots with poor results. I may try the MMP sabots and see if that works. I need something is not quite as tight of fit.
It seems my best load with them was shooting 100 grains of Goex 2f and Winchester W209 primers out of my Black Diamond XR. This was last year at 100 yards. It was at the end of the day shooting. The rifle was filthy with fowling and I was beat up pretty bad from shooting large conicals all afternoon.
Anyway the rifle shot some real impressive groups that day with the 375 grain Buffalo SSB's and that's when I decided I really liked the big lead sabot idea.
Another Black Diamond XR shooter used them with 110 grains of Triple Se7en to harvest an elk with the spitzer point. He said they did a beautiful job of penetration and expansion...
I was curious about the color of the sabot after reading your post and checked my stock. You are correct, they are a black sabot. All the other Buffalo Bullet sabots I shoot are the yellow sabots, yet I have no problem loading them in any of my rifles. I am sure they are the older sabots before there was a change to them as I understand.
I've shot those crushed rib sabots and they sure seem to load easy.. they might be an idea like Sabotloader was saying.