Chap, yes unbonded bullet. Not the packaged sabot but rather the thinner pedal MMP HPH24. My savage has a tighter bore then most and packaged HPH12 sabots cause uncontrollable flyers. I took the double shoulder shot (scapula's) due to terrain as I didn't want her going into the coulee after the shot. In most situations being a doe aka meat deer i would have placed the bullet behind the shoulder to minimize meat damage. That said it did allow me to see perfromance of the load/bullet on a shoulder shot of longer then 100 yards.

Thanks Cayugad. So far i have personally shot 6 deer with this load and seen more then a dozen more with similar loads flung from the savage...let me say expansion has not been a problem in any of the cases. Big exit holes on behind the shoulder shots. Shots have ranged from 20 yards to 250 yards. In fact i was thinking the 250gr SST might not beequipped to handle the velocity for which we are pushing it behind smokeless powder in the savages(which BTW is book loads/velocity not the ragged edge that some are doing it at, though my bore is slightly faster then most of the savages i have shoot with). Like you mention with sub shooters it seems to be to robust and needs something substantial to open it up. ReasonI ended upsticking toother bullets like the XTP or Nosler in my remington and knight inlines. The performance was exactly want I hoped, the lungs heavily damaged, the projectile got thru and busted both scapulas. She dropped like a stone and was dorrnailed when i got up. As far as the shot let meclarify it was a perfect situation and conditions to make it. Light wind on my nose, steady rest off my shooting sticks, verified yardage with a LRF and a relaxed broadside standing shot. Had it not been the case i would have passed. I spend a lot of time shooting my rifles/bows each year at longer ranges, being I hunt in some very open terrain I feel it is nessecary to practice and know your equipment/abilities. This area for exampleis totally void of any real bush, the deer feed on the tops and live/get coverin the coulees in buck brush, sage and prairie grass. From the tops of the coulees you can see for miles the vast prairie landscape...it offers a whole different set of challenges to the hunter no doubt.

Here is a pic of the flats where the deer feed. I belly crawled through the prairie grass to the edge of the wheatstubble totakethis pic of a bedded pronghorn antelope.