Early doe rifle season is 7 month ahead. Last week, i kinda figured my scoped rifles were pretty much ready to hunt with their respective loads. The Triumph was to be the prairie deer rifle shooting 200g SST. The scoped X7 was to be the hills deer rifle shooting 300g Deep Curl.

The Accura V2 was the scoped back-up, shooting 270g Deep Curl. One thing kinda troubled me though; the smooth Harvester sabot seemed kinda loose. Well, i remembered i had picked up a package of green sabot at Cabelas quite a while back; i wondered if they wouldn't be some tighter. I found them, and gave them a try. They did seem better, so i started using them. About that time my groups went from decent to looking like they were from a shot gun with a full choke. It was puzzling, but after further shooting, it was obvious the scope wasn't holding point of aim. So i removed the scope, and replaced it with another.

Yesterday i went up to sight in the new scope. It seemed i moved back too quickly, and moved closer again. Then it dawned on me the clicks on this new scope were 1/2" not 1/4" like the replaced scope. Also, since i was burning more bullets than i had planned on, i switched to shooting XTP in a short black sabot, instead of the Deep Curl, because the Deep Curl are becoming harder to find. After switching bullets, zero was quickly achieved. The rifle went back to shooting nice tight groups.

This morning i went out to do more shooting, and verify things were as i wanted them to be. I decided to use the hunting bullet i was going to use--270g Deep Curl. I set up at near 100 yard. Them Deep Curl were loaded in them green sabot from Cabelas, and 3 shots were fired. One, two, three marked on the middle target.









Wow, another shotgun group. I figured i had ruined another scope, but then i started to wonder about the load. What i did then was switch to the same XTP load, i had used yesterday, and shot 3 shots. They are the 3 in the middle target not numbered. Then i shot 3 270g Deep Curl in the smooth Harvester sabot at the top target.

Then i moved out to a measured 199 yard, aimed at the middle target, and shot 3 Deep Curl in a smooth Harvester sabot, which dropped to the bottom target at that range. Whilst waiting for the barrel to cool, i took a couple of pictures of the 'new' scope. I can barely see the target out there near 200 yard away.










I guess i won't be packaging and mailing the 'broken' scope tomorrow. It is probably just fine, and i will have to mount it, and 'proof' it. It is very very amazing to me, that using that different sabot could turn this rifle into a shotgun.