Originally Posted by
hunters_life
I finished building the old man's smokeless muzzleloader a few weeks ago and have had the joy of shooting it with 300 grain Nosler Ballistic tips full sized with the rifling. It is without a doubt the most accurate and powerful muzzleloader I have had the privilege of shooting. A couple of the guys told me I should try some saboted bullets and that I would get even better speeds with less pressure. The only problem with that is I can only use .44 caliber and up in bullet size around here for deer. With this being a .45 barrel that puts saboted bullets out of the picture for Illinois but not the other states I hunt deer in such as Kentucky and Tennessee. I really like how those 215 grain bullets look and they have a fairly high ballistic coefficient for a muzzleloading hunting bullet. The questions I have for the people here is, one, anyone try this particular bullet out for accuracy
I have shot a fair share of these bullets - hunting accuracy to 200 yards is not a problem.
and terminal performance
The bullet does have decent Terminal Performance but for myself I do not believe it is a good as the 40x200 CF Bloodline.
Lehigh is in the process of developing a solid copper line of bullets. Currently they have on the market a 452x265 CF and this bullet does have the Terminal Performance of the Bloodlines.
Lehigh is currently in the process of making another 3 maybe 4 copper CF bullets. One or maybe two of them will be 40 cal bullets. The first one out is likely to be a 40x200 CF. It will not have the BC of the 215 but it will be a good bullet to 200+ yards. A second 40 is planned to be possibly produced for fast twist 45 barrels.
Here is a picture of the 200 grain offerings.
The copper one could be out shortly and there is a possible addition to the bullet to enhance the BC not far behind.
and, two, with this being a smokeless muzzleloader capable of much higher speeds and pressures as well as a 1:20 twist rate, which sabot would you recommend?
I currently shoot and really like the MMP Light Tan 40x45 sabot, but I am shooting T7 and BH - very little to none smokeless knowledge. but since you are going smokeless and plan on driving the bullet the Harvester 40x45 might be the better sabot. This pic shows the 215 wrapped in a Tan MMP
If my math is right, and I am not that fantastic at math but these calculations aren't too headache inducing, I think I can get this bullet just over 2700 feet per second but with a 1:20 twist that is going to be putting some serious stress on a sabot. I am not as familiar with sabots as the old man was so consider me a rookie in this.
I really and honestly do not know if the sabot can handle 2700 fps... that would be some serious torque!