sabotloader

Russ Koon

There are an awful lot of people that have great success with PowerBelts. I have often thought if I could not shoot sabots that I would really look at PowerBelts, I thought that until Cayugad and Surveyor showed up with the No Excuse Conical and really had good luck with it. My hunting partener shoots PB's and loves them i tried for awhile but moved back to sabots... The PB's will load easier...

I have a CVA firebolt that I load all the time with sabots and .451/.452 bullets and believe me,I would not fight the loading as you describe. I need to throw a little caution in here because not all barrels are the same - muzzleloaders do not have a set direct standard. There is a possibility that he has an ultra tight barrel.There certainly are some things i would try before I conceded - one would be to mic the barrel, the other would to be trying different sabots.

Here is my assumption you are buying packages of bullets and sabots, most likely Hornady's. You might try some TC Mag Express and see if they are as tight - but then again due to a packaging error some TC packages are coming with the thicker sabot. Check the bottom of the sabots you now have- are theystepped inside or do they have a smooth cup? And again Iam assuming they are black. I do not know your location or the availabilty of ML products. But different thicknesses of sabots are available.

The thinnest on the market right now might be the Harvester "crush rib" followed by the MMP HPH-24, then the Harvester regular, followed by the Nosler sabot. The Nosler is the sabot I was using in my FireBolt.

Try to locate some "crush rib" and give them a try they might actually be a bit loose - not loose enough to cause a real problem but you might loose a little bit of velocity - If they fit well use them them if they a little to loose go to the MMP HPH-24.

All of this advice is predicated on the assumption that the barrel is clean and not loaded with plastic fouling and if the sabots have been that tight it might be.

Good luck - and let me know
I really try to be asuare as I can.

Russ Koon

Thanks, Sabotloader and Cayugad.

You're right in assuming we bought packaged bullets and sabots. He was still using the ones that were packaged with the gun until our last session, then went to another prepackaged lot, and I think they were Hornady, though I don't have access to them right now to check.

I told him of the info I had received here, and he was going to get some of the Powerbelts to see if they did the trick. Probably have some results tomorrow night if he gets off work in time to get a few shots in. We'll check the barrel for plastic fouling, but he said it loaded about as hard when he first got it, so I really don't think that's the problem.

I've never checked for different thickness sabots at our gun shop. I was delighted to find ANYTHING for my .58, and aparently got lucky when I bought sabots for it, as the fit was perfect. Unfortunately my old H&R Huntsman is a slow-twist (very old model), and didn't spin the sabots enough for good stability. Went back to patched round balls with it.

I'll check around for the availability of sabots of differing thicknesses here. All I've seen so far is the prepackaged combos, but as I say, I never realized there was a need until a couple days ago.

I'll get back on here as soon as I have results. With his work hours, I may need to take the gun and check out the loading, grouping,and impact point changes if any, so we can be ready for this weekend.

Thanks again for the advice.

Russ Koon

Just wanted to drop in again and report on the weekend. We went, and camped, but didn't get the chance to check out the performance of the Powerbelts on deer. Did load a few and checked out their point of impact in some informal shooting. Seemed to hit at same point of impact as other sabot loads, without having a real target session off the bench. Plenty of hunting accuracy. The loading problem was solved completely. He can now thumb start the bullet and can push the load steadily down the barrel without heroic amounts of effort. Still has some resistance, but now it seems to be about what one would expect in loading a ML, rather than the silly extreme tightness he was fighting before.

I'd say your advice was right on target. Thanks again for the help. The CVA is now a pleasure to load and shoot.