I guess the appeal of the conical bullet kind of stuck with me from my Traditional rifle shooting days. Before inline rifles, I hunted mostly with a .54 caliber Renegade and shot roundball or Buffalo Bullet 426 grain hollow point conical bullets. After I took the front end off a deer with a Buffalo Bullet conical, I kind of swore off them. I always did cast my own roundball, so I started casting the 300 and 380 grain REAL conicals for the Renegade. My friends also started shooting REAL conicals because they were free and they shot real well out of their rifles.

I was pretty happy with this until I met a bunch of White Rifle shooters on a forum I think no longer exists. They talked about shooting 460 and 495 grain conicals, some even bigger. I kind of thought.. horse hockey. But I purchased some 460 grain No Excuses and shot them out of my Black Diamond XR and they shot perfect. So I was back to the large conicals again. Then I got my first White Model 97 in .504 from Sportsman Ware house. That first afternoon I shot off all my No Excuses stock. I was in love again with conicals. No swabbing, easy to load, and the down range power was amazing.

Where I hunt and shoot 100 yards is a long way. My conical bullets will do that in a heart beat. And the end results is just as dramatic or more so, as a sabot bullet. With the more Whites I accumulated, I even thought of selling off all but my White rifles and forget the entire sabot thing all together. But I like to shoot to much.

I think that were some of you live, and this shooting 200 yards.. a sabot might be better suited, although a conical can and will do the same thing. I guess it is a matter of choice. A matter of what do you trust to plant the deer where it stands, so you don't have to worry about a blood trail. For me that is big lead.