I've been reading a great deal here on this forum. I can see there is a lot of experience and wisdom to be shared and gained here.

Now for my question.

I've been casting and shooting my own handgun bullets for close to 20 years now. Over the past 7 to 8 years, I've always stuck with Hornady's excellent XTP bullet.

I have several different hollow point .44 Caliber bullet molds. I can size them to the proper .429 diameter or larger if need be.

Has anyone here done much experimenting with cast handgun bullets and sabots in their black powder rifles?

For those who are familar withbullet casting for handguns, my molds are Lyman's Elmer Keith's bullet and Ray Thompsons designs.

Thanks,

Murphy

I haven't much luck with the green 44-cal sabots. I get occasional flyers - right out of the clear blue sky - with no explanation at all.

I've tried a couple of 44-cal 230 gr. castrevolver-typebullets in the Omega. Keyholing - Hour-Glass...... call it whichever you want! I hate bullets that go sideways in targets.[:-]

Your findings may be different than mine.

If you want to shoot cast bullets with sabots, then go to a .458 rifle bullet, the .429 pistol bullet is too small. The petals on the sabot are too thick, due to the smaller diameter .429bullet. The .458 has a thinner petal, and more bearing surface. The second thing you can do is use a softer than #2 lead mix. I usually go 25 to 1. You do not have to worry about leading, and with greater velocity you get fantastic expansion, Tom.

I find that 451 or 452 cast and sized bullets work fine for target and I have used them on several deer with no problem;I cast them from wheel weights and size them for the gun. The 44's are touchie because of the sabot your fast burning powder like 777 will turn them inside out some times, most guns will shoot them with a fast twist and a light load of black ,pryodex or APP-FFthe FFF grade of powders don't seem to work on them for me either.Lee

Not extensive experience, but I have shot some of the Cast Performance Co. .454 Casull bullets using sabots (265-grain, .452" WFNGC)in my .54 Kodiak SXS double. The test was to see if the 1/66" twist in this rifle would stabilize them. It did, out to 50 yards, which is the longest range I tried them at.

The load I tried was 120 grans f Pyrodex RS, and the rifle shot OK. However, I did not try to "regulate" this bullet by trying different powder charges.

My "standard" load in this gun consists of the .535", 230-grainSpeer PRB with 85 grains of Swiss FFg. This load regulates at 100 yards as shown.....

I never tried any .429 cast bullets, but had pretty fair luck with hardcast .452 bullets using a Harvester .451/452 sabot. It seemed like the shape of the bullet base, if it matched up pretty well with the shape of the bottom of the sabot cup, was the key to good accuracy. The only lead bullets I used were very hard and didn't give any expansion. Best of the bunch was the 250 grain Keith style, made for the .45 Long Colt by Colorado Cast bullets out of Montrose Colorado. They shot about 2" to 3" at 100 yards out of my T/C Black Diamond.

I have had good luck with them as long as the .50cal sabot bullets were 240g or bigger. never had much luck with lighter ones.