The power belts belong to the 50's and 60's eara, one to 1.5 grains per caliber they can be made to work but the majority has bad experience with them.
If you have the option of sabot-ed bullets try the Shock Wave [one of the most accurate for long range] or the Gold Dot 250gr which I believe to be the most effective reasonable priced bullet. If you are hunting massive game then the more expensive bullets are appropriate Nosler Partition, Lehigh and barnes. About the same price as those power belts which are on the bottom of the majorities list of bullets if they make it at all, I am about to melt some to make round balls.

a good friend of mine has been using 295gr. hp powerbelts for 7 yrs. now and has killed alot of deer with them.they load easy and are accurate ln his encore, he uses 2 t7 pellets.out of about 15 deer he's shot we've failed to find 3 deer,of the others not one powerbelt has had a pass thru on deer,all of his shots were behind the shoulder on the recovered deer.some made it to the opposing hide and some stopped inside the ribcage expanded to the size of a 50 cent piece.after seeing this i 'd use just about any bullet before i'll use them.there's alot of bullets that are better at half the price.jmho.....karl

Thats fine if you or someone else dont like them, but for everyone to keep bashing them is un called for. List what you like, and why you like it, and move on.

BIGDADDY-i was simply answering a question based on what i've seen,the man asked for opinions and i gave my mine.my friend still shoots powerbelts and knows what i think of them and takes no offence and neither should you.folks should shoot what ever they like out of whatever they want.i'm sorry you thought i was bashing i sure did'nt mean it.........karl

Wow, you sure are sensitive about your Powerbelts. Just be darn glad you don't shoot a Remington 710/770.

The fact is that, unless you like to run VERY light loads to keep MV down to under 1400 fps or so, you're just begging for a bullet failure with the Powerbelts. I've heard too many accounts of guys not recovering deer that had been obviously hit with a Powerbelt, and many others that recovered the deer hours or days later with a gaping, fist sized crater in their shoulder but little or no penetration into the chest cavity. These were guys shooting what are today standard loads in the 90-120 grain BP equivalent range, with MV's running in the 1600-2000 fps range. Powerbelts are just to fragile for use as a big game bullet when driven to normal ML velocities, and there really is no reason that they couldn't make them hold together better other than it would require a harder (and therefore more expensive) lead alloy for the core and a thicker (and more expensive) gilding metal jacket. I'd shoot, and strongly advise others to shoot, a Hornady Great Plains conical long before I'd ever recommend a Powerbelt. They aren't quite as easy to load, but they're just as accurate, hit harder, and hold together and penetrate like they should. Oh, and they're a fraction of the price.

I shoot smokeless powder in my Savage, and as such require a 45/50 caliber sabot projectile. My load pushes the 300 grain Barnes in the mid 2100's to low 2200 fps range. I have never had a Barnes Expander MZ fail to fully expand (based on internal damage and exit wound size), and I've never had one fail to completely penetrate through a deer. And the crazy thing is that the Barnes bullets are CHEAPER than the way overpriced Powerbelts and perform far better. With Powerbelts, you definitely DON'T get what you pay for. But if you like them so much, by all means shoot them, but don't expect others not to tell the truth about your poor choice of hunting bullet when there are FAR better options out there that are less expensive.

Mike

100-120gr RS through the Accura with the 245 does pretty good in the sand trap.

What about the unjacketed powerbelts? Do they expand better?
I know they are limited in availability. I wonder why?
Does the shiny jacket make them sell.

I made Power Belts work quite well with a decent load back before there was much else available, Its relatively simple as the hollow point works right at 12 to 15 hundred fps, you can use a number of things depending on the results you want, for deer I just poured the hollow point level full of pure lead and they worked fine and mushroom nicely, for elk I used a headless brass screw ,they still mushroom but they penetrate first. It just seems ridiculous to pay that price then work it over when you can use a Hornady FPB or a Thor just like they come and get a flatter trajectory and better results. I guess what I object to most is the lost or wasted deer.

the jacketed powerbelts keeps the lead out of the barrel. Non coppered powerbelts expand really really fast and with the soft lead, you'll be scrubbing out the bore after only shooting a few rounds.

Thanks to everyone for all the excellent information.

Ed