There must be something different in the sabot or something but good info. I might have to get some of the SW because all I have right now are the SST. I guess they must not be exactly the same. Well thanks.

River Rat

River Rat

SST/SW - same bullet different tip & different sabots... SST comes with MMP HPH-12 and the SW come with HPH-24 -> black sabots...

SW also come now with the super glide sabot, also a MMP and Hornady now has now slimmer sabot also - also from MMP...

The super glide and the new hornady sabot are under contract to those two companies so humans like you and I can not by them direct but:

MMP does make a thin sabot that all can use it is the MMP HPH-3p-EZ load or you can go to the Harvester "Crush rib"

Good info Mike, how do you know this info, what is your source or did you inspect the bullets and sabots, I am not disputing your post, but would like to know your source.

Of all the things affecting accuracy, sabot I feel is most important. Too tight a sabot makes loading difficult or impossible, too loose a sabot causes "blow by" and no gas seal making for accuracy loss. So "Bullet Review" for accuracy, must include sabot, however bullet review for "killing power" or Terminal Performance as it is called technically or 'Boom Flop' assome say it on this forum is what we are all looking for, a bullet that is accuract as all get out and goes boom flop. I believe this bullet must be:
#1 accurate, because if your shooting 6" or 8" groups how can you be sureyou will hit the deer where your aiming
#2 penetration, becuase penetration gets into the vitals and does not blow up on the ribs or 1" into the deer causing a wound and not a kill
#3 expansion, since itis wound chanel and massive bleeding and tissue disruption that causes the FLOP
#4 shoot thru, cause sometime even with a heart hit or a double lung, deer sometimes run for a long distance and without a shoot thru tracking is difficult
#5 reasonable cost, so we can practice with them to get better

There are what I am looking for in a bullet. Some will dispute this list ofattributes they want from a bullet. Hope this help River Rat, in your Bullet Review.
Chap Gleason

River Rat

MMP was the source back when I was requesting to get some easy glides from MMP - they could not sale me any because they were under contract to TC... and then when I wanted to purchase some 200 grain SST's from Hornady - I couldn't they were under contract to Thompson Center. Still do not think Hornady offers a 200 SST - gotta go look that was a long time ago... They do offer a 200SST but in a 45 cal sabot - still no 200 in a 50 cal sabot.

Go look at the site now that they are offering their low drag sabots in 50 cal... count the petals - remind of another sabot made by MMP.... better yet maybe this pic will come through...

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Well we can all talk about boom/flop - but the biggest reason for the NON boom/flop, other than bullet placement, is the animals flight response. If the flight response has been alerted the animal will bolt even though it is dead. If it is truly an ambush and the animal knows of nothing until the hit and the truma often you get boom/flop. But even then the shock must be devastating or massive breakage of motor bones. This is another reason I do say time-in-flight of the projectile is important.

All of you thoughts ARE important and the fact is they are all tied together failure in one can cause a potential problem.

My thought is/has been for years and years Boom/flop occurs when the animal can not react to BOOM and is not reacting to your presence. If he/she has time to start the response or the injury is not great enough and allows a limited flight response you might not see the flop... just my thoughts after all these years....

"Go look at the site now that they are offering their low drag sabots in 50 cal... count the petals - remind of another sabot made by MMP.... better yet maybe this pic will come through..."

This is the one that i fired about ten days ago when i re-sightedmy Encore. With120 grains of JSG theywere very accurate.Groups ran 1.25-1.50 inches at 100 yards.

Mike, what sabot do you prefer when shooting .451 or .452 diameter bullets in your Ultra Mag? How easy to load?

UC

The Nosler's are .451 and the Speer's are .452 - both in HPH-12 sabots. They load fairly easy but tight enough that they would never come off the powder. + I am quite confident thay are not leaking. The new MMP stair-step baseeasily expands enough to seal with out stressing the cup + there is a small amount of obturation so everything is tight goin out.

The .458's in an Orange sabot is little tighter but still easy enough to get down.

One thing that helps me is both the Speer Gold Dot 250 grainand the Nosler 260 are a bit longer than the XTP's - I like that length.

mike

falcon

That new "low drag" Hornady sabot is a MMP HPH-3p-EZ load sabot only in Red - if you get them from MMP they will be black....

Thanks Mike, I believe the equivalent of HPH12 thickness is what I have a few bags of in the garage. Older MMP stuff but I may want to shoot it some of these days. Have a nearly full box of 300 grain XTPs that I might as well do something about. The .40 Shockwaves in the blue MMPs went down smoothlyrequiring enough pressure to know you were definitely pushing something but not so much as to be a PIA.

edit: just put the mic' to one of the Shockwaves and one of the .452 300 gn XTPs inside the sabots I have (older, standard black MMPs). Tried to center on the bullet/petals and put just a bit of pressure on the plastic with the mic'. .505 for the Shockwaves and .510 for the XTP combo. Drat! Don't think I'll even mess with those XTPs - no wonder I didn't like those things.

Your right that is a factor also, I know from bow hunting experience, a relaxed animal that doesn't know your there is much easier to hit and will not run as far as one on alert or knows your there. I have seen that the time of ignition to time of impact is on the order of .6 seconds, that can of course give the animal time to start if's flight if it knows your around. I would say penetraton and wound channel really come into play then. Thanks for pointing this out. Chap