MarineStud

just wondering if anyone uses these and what your opinions are of them? i used them last fall and shot a 6 point but i had no blood trail and no expansion of the bullet. I use to use Remington ML sabots but they don't make them anymore and the blood trails were amazing using those.

Criggster

I saw the remington ML sabots in a Bass Pro catalog today. You might want to check for them there.

retrieverman

I have used them the last two years and am not impressed. I had been using Barnes Expanders and was very pleased, but I fell for all the hype over the SST's. I am finished muzzleloading for this season but will be shooting Expanders again next year.

MarineStud

Criggster,
the rem sabots you saw in the magazine, where they polymer tipped? those were the only ones i could find on there website and the ones i use to shoot weren't like that, thanks for the info though

lemoyne

I have heard people say they don't open up and other people say they fragment; and yet some others say they are the same as Shock waves which work just fine for me with a load of 120 or 130 gr depending on which gun I am using.
WHAT load were you pushing them with? I use 250gr XTP when I know my shots will be less than 100yds. They will work well all the way down to 100gr. Lee

Criggster

Marine the sabots I saw were polymer tipped.

sabotloader

MarineStud


This is my own personal belief, based on nothing scientific. A lot of the information i have read confirms exactly what you have noted. The are a ton of people out the shoot SST's/Shockwaves and love em, I am not one of them. It is my belief that in a short range situation, unless you hit a large bone on the way in the bullet mostly just passes through the soft tissue of a white tail. The animal is dead for sure but you are probably going to have to do some tracking with limited blood trail, especially if you are shooting 300 grain bullets. It is my belief that at long ranges the SST/Shockwaves are outstanding bullets, but at longer ranges the velocity of the bullet has slowed to the point that expansion will occur.

For white tail I have gone back to a regular HP bullet, I am using the Speer 250 grain Gold Dot... They are a bonded bullet and stay together, with a 100 grains of t7-2f this figures to be an awesome bullet out to 150 yards and a person with your experiance could make it do it's thing to 200 pretty easy. + the big thing for me, because I shoot so much this combination is less money...

good luck

skeeter 7MM

Sabotloader that doesn't make sense to methe polymer tip at higher speed is driven faster into the core causing more expansion where at lower speeds the expansion is limited to the speed and energy remaining in the projectile. In the ML side of things the longer the range generally the smaller the wound channels since the bullets are ballistically ineffecient to begin with and shed quickly. Though I do agree with your reasoning on the SST/SW being not the greatest bullet at the speeds most hunters shoot them at. I think they are too tough with 100 gr of powder behind them to reliably expand on a ribs only shot. Though one must realize they were developed for the long range ML shooter in mind! Which usually means more powder behind them at a greater velocity and energy downrange. I have seen what they do with a savage spitting them out at 2400 fps and they are almost fragile at this point, but in the ribs highly effective. My 2 mule deer does dropped like rocks when hit at 130 and 100 yards their lungs were reduced to nothing and 2-3" hole out the exit side. On the flip side of things in my rem 700 behind 100 gr of T7 I was anything but impressed, right on through the ribs, poor wound channel and limited blood trail. Though my partner dumbed a buck a couple years ago with my rem/load measured better at feet not yards and the bullet did a bang up job to that deer..DRT(though only thing we found was a few pieces of lead and the jacket..so it came unglued).I will stick to the xtp for the modest chargesI use. I have taken deer from 30 to 197 yards with it and never had a problem. Not to mention it is much cheaper to shoot and very accurate in my rifles. While the SST is better ballistically for the longer range I like the reliablity of the xtp or similar better on the terminal performance side of things with the sub shooting ML's I own.

Lee the SST/SW are one in the same, just different sabot and polymer tip, both are manufactured by Hornady!

sabotloader

skeeter 7MM

See, in my first life I would have believed that also, because that is the way it is suppose to work, but! I really feel that the a white tail is so then skinned and such a short distance through and the bullet is traveling so fast it is not happening especially with a 300 grain bullet. Now if you hit a bone and you really do shove that tip back everything works just fine. I have found the same thing shooting 130 grain Nosler Ballistic Tips at deer. That bullet goes in and out so quick - it does expand because of it really fast velocity as compared to a ML gun - but shoot the same bullet at and elk with the way thicker skin @ the same range and the amount of devastation is far greater through the elk. And again why i say as the velocity drops a little bit and the bullet spends more time passing through the animal it does expand. For white tail the 250 grain SST/Shockwave works more effective because of the thinner copper clad bullet.

My point exactly... even last year as an example I was hunting elk so i was loaded with a 100 grains t7-2f a 300 grain .458 Nosler Partition... I was walking out at the end of the day and this nice white tail buck walked out right in front of me 10 yards away - i was frustrated with the elk hunt that day so I said what the heck - shot him right behind the shoulder, and a 100 yards DOWN the hill later there he lay with to nice .458 caliber holes through both sides of the body. My bullet was to fast and the the animal was to thin - but then again if I could shoot that bullet at 2600 ft/sec instead of 1800 ft/sec the shear force of that velocity would start the bullet expanding as soon as it encounter liquid.

I really think we are really on about the same page... good conversation...

mike

mouthcaller

I had the same problem with the SSTs.

I used the SSTs last year, taking a spike and a doe at ranges of 100 and about 40 yards respectively. The bullets shot great from my Omega Z5. I could get tight groups easily with 2 pellets of 777 (100gr charge total). I will not be using them this year, however, because they left a small exit hole with minimal blood.

I hunt in a cutover bottom next to the Mississippi river in NW Tennessee. Very dense, thick stuff that is easy to loose a deer in. I really need a blood trail to follow if the deer makes in into this mess and the SSTs wouldn't provide it. I switched to 300 gr Gold Dot .452 bullets this year. These bonded, hollow-point bullets are made for the 454 Casull pistol, which acheives nearly identical velocities as one would typically see when shot from a muzzleloader with 90-110 grains of 777.

As for the SSTs, two deer I shot were recovered, so they certainly do work. I shot another doe, however, later in the season that I never found. The shot felt good. The range was about 70 yards. I foundsome dark hair and a little blood where she stood when shot, but nothing else. I looked for two hours and didn't find another drop of blood or the deer. Of course she ran into this thick, rough cutover and without a blood trail it was hopeless.