cayugad....do you think its a matter of being undercharged at highter temps/humidity? When I set this load up it was cooler, not cold but certainly not near 90 degrees and 80% humidity. If I need to add 5-10g in warmer temps....no big deal. I just had never seen this before and am learning. What do you think?
I would hate to say that is the cause. You might try adding 10 grains of powder to the load and see what happens. I would be interested in the results. I had a shockwave once make a "perfect" sideway bullet shape in a paper target. I was shocked it had done that. I went and looked for that photo in my albums, but was not able to locate it. I wanted to see if the powder charge was changed, what the temperature was, and the weather in general.
My comment about the sabot staying with the bullet too long was really based on today's shooting as well. It was 89 degrees today on the range (finally got to 92). I was shooting shockwaves and XTPs. I was shooting Pyrodex RS and APP 2f. I noted a couple things. The barrel of the Knight rifles were veryhot to even touch. The bullets and sabots that were sitting in the sun were so hot, that it was very noticable. Also normally a sabot leaves the projectile after being fired, between 12-25 yards in most cases for me. Today I found the blue 10mm sabots almost 35 yards down range. (I pick up my sabots after each shot because I hate them in my lawn).
My brass powder measure that sits in the tray of the shooting rest was so hot I changed over to a plastic one and put the powder, caps, and projectiles finally on the shelf under the shooting bench. I did not get a key hole though. I just threw that out as a possible cause because my accuracy today was not as good as it was on cooler days. Was it caused by the sabots sticking in flight longer? Could not tell you. I even brought both Knight rifles so I could trade off and let the other cool as I was shooting.