bigcountry
Easy loading means more possible blowby. You want it to be tight.
That is not neccessarily true any longer, it certainly was with the old sabots but with the newer ones - it might be a "wives tale." The cup on the HPH polymere sabots will hold the pressure, it would be the heat that might cause you a problem.
As an example, and I do not have the nubers right here, but I did some testing with HPH-24's, HPH-3ps, Harvester, Harvester "crush rib's." In the guns that I shoot HPH-24's and regular Harvesters go down snug - not hard but snug. So when Del asked me to test the new thin 3p's I was very concerned about blow-by. When I loaded that first 3p I was more concerned - the weight of the ram rod slid the bullet and the sabot down the barrel, even the Harvester "crush rib" had more resistance. With the 3p I was sure i could shake the bullet out of the sabot - I tried - it didn't. I was also convinced that the sabot would have at least come off the powder - it didn't.
Well anyway to the point.... There was very little difference in velocity or accuracy measuring from the 24's to the 3p or the Harvester and the 3p's. Where the velocity change occured was from the 3p's to the "crush rib" or the 24's and the regular Harvesters to the "crush rib." I did publish the numbers a while back and sent them to MMP. I could dig them up again if you would be interested.
The point being, other than a Savage shooting smokeless, there is no reason to be pounding or struggling to get a sabot down, but I will also agree that if it is to loose you may be creating more problems than just blow by.
If you had a White you would really understand.... I have know idea what holds those conicals in that they shoot... Cascadedads loads easier than ANY sabot that I have ever loaded, why it doesn't come off the powder or loose accuracy - I'll never know....