That is a bit surprising about the powerbelts. Have never shot them but know many who have & all got good accuracy. Of course most are with fast twist barrrels.

Seems that the 300-grainers should be more inclined to keyhole than the 250's, since longer bullets generally require more stabilization. I guess since the sabots are the same length that wouldn't matter though. So many things are counter-intuitive with these black powder rifles. I'm sure there's always a physics-based reason for what happens but sometimes it would probably take some mighty sophisticated equipment & testing logic to find it. More fun to just shoot it a bunch & let the targets decide what works

Hey Dave, I have been having a lot offun shooting my Hawkens Carbine in .54 cal. I have tried manydifferent saboted and conical bullets in it. It has a 1 in 24" twist and loves both. Here are jus some results I got:



This was the conical:



I have found that I have been having a some problems with the RS and have just switched over to Goex 2F. Now no more problems. I also switch my nipple over toa musket cap. Lately I have been working with a real bullet. So far it is showing some good results.

Well I was shooting a different traditional rifle today, and I think I figured out the hangfire problem. It was the caps. I thought I was shooting RWS caps. It was an old Ted Cash capper that I had laying around and it was full of caps. So why not use them right.. Well today when I was using the same capper I noticed some of the guts were green which are RWS or Remington 40% hotter caps, and others were copper colored. That means it was them rotten CCI standard caps that I thought I had shot all off. I must have loaded that old capper with the CCI because they were junk caps. So today I had no hang fires with the green gut caps, but did have a hangfire with the copper gut caps. So I am almost 100% sure it was the caps.

That is some good shooting. My rifle has 1-48, but that little carbine of yours is sure a good shooter. Nice groups there. I'd hunt with that rifle any day.

cayugadwhen i went out to the range to move my target from 35 to 50 yards,i noticed a sabot stuck in the board, looked alot like your target.Maybe thats whatcould be what happened to you.

hunting junkie you might be on to something. There were sabots laying on the snow in front of the target. I had sabots today go over 30 yards down range. Other times its lucky if they make it 20 feet.

I was gonna get a pic. but forgot i'll try tomorrow.