Lately the 44 caliber 300g xtp has been on my mind. Hornady claims the B.C. of this bullet is 0.245. The ballistic coefficient of the 45 caliber sst is supposed to be 0.250. Do you see my dilemma? The blunt xtp is supposed to fly about as good as the pointed sst.

To check the B.C. of the xtp i did a little experiment, and combined it with another little experiment of seeing how it would shoot in a hunting situation. First i clocked the speed of the xtp shot from my Accura with a chrony. The chrony was at about 20yd so to keep the sabot from causing damage, and it say the xtp was flying at 1900 feet per second. Then i set up a target and shot it from near 98yd, and then from near 202yd, allowing the gun to cool off in between shots. Then i went home, and came back another day after a dang blizzard passed and fired two more shots at the target, and went home, and fired two more shots the next day. The gun wasn't cleaned between shots, nor swabbed. Shooting one shot a day kinda is how it goes whilst hunting. Shooting two shots a day isn't quite like hunting would go, but with the gun allowed to cool between shots it was some similar.

A picture of the target is shown below. The upper three shots were from about 98yd, and the lower three shots were from about 202yd. Naturally the aim point was the center of the bullseye. I wish the three upper holes were about an inch lower, but this is how they turned out. Before i shoot again i will turn the scope down 4 click.






One can see that swabbing the barrel between shots, and cleaning the breach plug between shots is not necessary.

Then i played around with a ballistic calculator and came up with this:







The ballistic calculation is quite close to real life which indicates, to me at least, the ballistic coefficient of 0.245 is indeed true. This tells me that the xtp flies about as good as the sst. I like that because the xtp is cheaper to shoot, and should be more better on game.

The load was 105g of BH209, with Winchester 209 primer, and the Harvester high pressure green sabot.


Did another ballistic calculation for how the bullets will fly when the scope is adjusted lower, and that follows:






Now, that is some better for hunting. One can kill deer by holding dead center with a simple reticle scope out to a little beyond 200yd, using the inexpensive xtp. The remaining energy out there is plenty for a clean kill. It surprised me how much energy the bullet still has at 200yd.

Since we can't use scopes here during the muzzle loader season, and i already knew cleaning a rifle during the hunt isn't necessary, this little experiment doesn't do me much good, but it did keep me from doing chores, so that is good.