I now have three different boxes of bullets. Each box has a different sized sabot. I don't want to throw them away. The bullets are the same, so I just wanted to get a sabot that will allow me to shoot them all. When they've all been shot, I'll just use what comes with the next box. Hope that explains my question.

I have found the same recently when at the range. Just grabbing bullets out of my box, and my groups started to open up with the 250g shockwaves - when last year I could fit 3 shots into a half dollar! Upon inspection I noticed that I had two different types of sabots with the shockwaves. I had bought 60 (couldn't pass up the deal) shockwaves online since I was running low- and had to order the harvester sabots (.452) from Cabelas in order to regain some consistency in my grouping. The best grouping came from the sabots packaged with the shockwaves from last year; but, I am still holding 2" groups with the harvesters at 100yds.

Roseaukaine

I do not shoot shockwaves nor do I shoot SST's and niether do any of the folks that I hunt with, so I have not ran into this problem other than hearing you guys talk about

If you have time would you describe the bottom (the compression cup)of the sabots to me. On the sabot that works what does this cup look like?

I went through the same thing with my Encore. I bought 50 each of the HPH12 and HPH24's. I'm still testing them but they loaded and shot better then the sabot that came with the Shockwaves. I load the originals with XTP's for practice. I havn't tried the Crushribs yet but plan to after the ML season.

EThan

I have a box of sst 250s purchased two years ago. Never shot any. I have part of a box of shockwaves from last year and a new box of shockwaves from this year.
The cups in all three are very similar. They all have steps in the cup. The major difference is in length and thickness of the sabot. The new shockwave sabot is nearly 1/8 inch longer and the petals are thinner. Last year's sabots are thicker and harder to load. The SSTs are very similar to the new shockwaves, but seem to be a bit thicker.
Again, I wasn't trying to cause controversy, I just wanted an aftermarket sabot that I could use in shooting all of the projectiles.

HP

No controversy here, but a great learning point.....

From your description all of the sabots are most likely MMP...

The sabots that came with the SST's are built to Hornady standards and is probably a HPH-12 240 to 350 grain sabot

The sabots that came with the older Shockwaves were 185/300 grain sabots packaged with TC Shockwaves and had the HPH-12 thickness.

The new package od Shockwaves has the newer - thinner HPH-24 240/350 grain sabot.

I guess getting the 12's down some Thompson bores is really a difficult procedure. That is why TC had to switch to the thinner 12's. I am alsounable to comfortably load the 12's in any of my Remingtons, A&H's, or sidelock.

Because I do not buy packaged bullet/sabot combinations, nor do I use the SST or Shockwave this all new information for me. Although there has plenty of discussion on the difficulty of loading some of these sabots down Thompson Center bores, especially the Omega. Thank you very much for the information.

Sabotloader thanks for the advice, I dug through my gun safe found 4 old sabots, replaced the sabots on the SST's in my speedloaders and in my Encore and managed to harvest a nice 8 point Ohio buck with it this morning, thanks again for the great input, your advice made loading and reloading my Encore a snap this morning.....thanks again

lowtempguru

Congratulations - I am going to try in the moring with my old Hawken, except now we are restricted to does only.

With your note I can now tell my wife that all this time and money I have put forth for all these different sabots has paid off.... She will not care and she will still be miffed, but I keep asking her which is cheaper finding a sabot that will work or buying a new gun to fit the sabot.... that is really digging the hole deeper...

Again - congrats!!!!

That's what I have found as well - none of the sabots had a smooth cup like the harvesters, but they did vary in overall length and thickness.