Taking the forum's advice, I bought some MMP sabots to use with the Barnes Expanders. The MMPs I bought, however, were much shorter andthan the sabot supplied with the bulets. Would this shorter sabot affect accuracy? I bought the MMP sabots because someone suggested the thinner sabot would load easier. I'm shooting the Omega X7. I didn't see much difference at the range. Am I doing something wrong? I'm trying to lose my Powerbelt addiction and be more responsible by shooting a better bullet.

A sabot needs to be tight in the bore, not so tight you have to pound it down, but nice and tight, you get better accuracy. As for the shortness of the sabots, as long as it covers the side of the bullet to where it narrows at the head of the bullet, your OK, because the base of he sabot is really doing the work of the gas check. Some folks "trim their sabots" to shorten them, I don't see that much difference between trimmed or extra long sabots, orreally anylength as long as you get goodbase on the sabots, I.E they are"high pressure sabots". If the Barnes supplied sabot work in your gun, by all means use those, but if they don't then experiment with MMP24,3petal ez glide or Harvester Crushed rib. I have an assortment ofall differnt sabotsand depending on your bore you will need one or the other. Thesabotis really doing the work of getting the bullet down the bore accurately. The Barnes Expander is an excellent bullet,much stronger and better penetration than a PB, especially on bone hits.Chap Gleason

deroche117

Which MMP's did you buy? The shorter black MMP sabots are not the HPH type sabot and are built to the thickness of the HPH-12..

For your Z7 you will probably need the HPH-24 or maybe even the HPH-3p-EZ load sabot.

I am not sure what yopu are indicating here - accuracy was the same??? or loading pressure was the same??? If it was loading pressure was about the same then I would even be more inclined to think that you got a package of the older plastic style MMP sabots - that are the same thickness as the Barnes sabots.

One other point are the bullets .451 or .452 - (I do not shoot Barnes) another bullet that I really prefer to the Barnes, and believe there is nothing wrong with a Barnes other than it is a longer bullet, is the Nosler Partitions, They are sized at .451 and with a HPH-24 go down my Omega great...

Hope some of this helps - keep asking questions - but just about anything will serve you better than the Power Belts. Another less expensive bullet that you can use to shoot paper or animals is the Spreer Gold Dot...

Shoot a roundball. $12 for 100 of them. thats the route im taking.

AS long as the sabot comes up to the shoulder of the bullet you will be fine.
You don't want the sabot/bullet to load really E-Z you need it to fit quite snug to shoot good .
If they donot fit tight I would try the MMp 24.

Both sabots loaded the same, HARD! I had purchased the MMPs thinking it would make loading easier but it hasn't. Both are difficult to load, nothing like the dead centers or TC's sabots. Those were much easier to load. I'm really eager to hunt with the Barnes bullets and I don't want to have to give them up. I do know one thing, if its not fun to shoot I aint gonna shoot it and right now the Barnes I have are a pain in the butt.

Buy some of these:

http://www.midsouthshooterssupply.com/item.asp?sku=00072H15045BR

the MZ will use this sabot and it will load easy, it is designed for the .452/1 bullet. See this trhread:

http://dougva.proboards34.com/index.cgi?board=Savage&action=display&thre ad=1198959766 on a guru on the Savage Board speaking about the Barnes.

and this:

http://dougva.proboards34.com/index.cgi?board=Savage&action=display&thre ad=1198358358

Chap Gleason