Well, today it was not raining, snowing, or blowing so I headed to the farm with the 52 DISC Extreme. I was going to shoot the 50cal MHC but really wanted to test something that Tom and I have discussed on the land line.

When Tom was here a couple of months ago he left me some Lehigh .458/220 grain bullets. Tom has been really high on their accuracy and I wanted to shoot some of them just to check them for my reference. Plus I think they would make an excellent deer bullet and possibly make the 52 cal a bit more versitile.

I loaded up the chrono also as I wanted to do some comparison information with T7 and BH209. From the shooting comparison that I had done in the past with a 200 grain XTP, BH is not as effecient with that weight bullet as you might think. Tom and I also discussed this on the phone - he is going to do some additional testing at a lower elevation than I am.

It is my feeling especially in the 52 the weight of the bullet is a real factor in getting it to gain velocity from the barrel. It just gets out of the barrel to quickly. Now add the size of the 52 bore and the diameter of the base of the 52 sabot - I feel that this might also effect flight time through the bore. Because of the diameter of the sabot base and the volume capacity of the bore - it offers a greater surface area for the pressure to push on which helps get it out quicker.

I was a bit surprised when I ran into the old 'Law of Deminishing Returns' with T7 so quickly. If you look at the velocities from 100 to 120 grains you can see that I constantly gained a percentage of velocity as I climbed the ladder, but at 130 grains it fell flat... literally shooting powder out the barrel.

When I switched over to BH and ran about the same testing I was a little surprised how the velocity dropped, but again realizing that BH is a 'progressive' burning powder - it just can not build the pressure before that light weight bullet is out the barrel, until I reached 130 grains, even them I doubt that I was burning the entire load.

I also believe I could run this same experiment with a 50 cal bore and come up with higher velocities from each of the powder loads.

Here is a picture of the target with the information embedded on the target.

Using 2100 fps as the velocity - the bullet will develope about 2150 #'s of energy and at 100 yards 1450#'s and at 200 yards it is about 1000#'s.

Wow thats some good groups there sabotloader. Very nice

That's a Nice Shooting Bullet Sabotloader, have you had a chance to try it on any Game yet? How do they compare to the .452/250gr Lehigh DOA's that you sent me, will they group like those did? I hope so that would be great. I have'nt had a chance to test them yet but I will soon. Im gonna try between 110-120gr's of Pyro RS with the MMP HPH-24 Sabot and a Win W209 Primer out of My ACCURA.
I thought the .452/250gr Lehighs weighed much more than the 240gr XTP's I normally use. I laid them both side by side on the table and the XTP is half the size of the Lehigh, yet the Lehigh only weighs 10 more Grains. The Lehigh looked like it was at least a 300gr'er.
I was a little concerned about the Deep Hollow Point of the Lehigh, It looked like when opened it would deliver a heck of a blow to a Deer, but I figured it would slow down too much with the Deep Hollow Point and the Accuracy would suffer.
Nice Report!
(BP)

That is only a 50 yard target so I am not real impressed - but it was fun shooting. To tell your the truth I really was not even concentrating that much on the target. I was short time so I was just trying to get through all 21 shots + the 5 shots I took down range just playing.

I have not used them on game - in fact this is the first time I shot them. Tom has taken 2 derr with them if I remember right.

I am sure they will... the 250 is a great bullet - the 275 is even a bit better in my mind...

That should work just fine. Just compress the load.

It is just that brass is so much lighter than lead - so it take a chunk brass to equal a small piece of lead.

Do not worry about the hollow point - that bullet will fly a lot better than you can imagine. Did you get the picture of me shooting them 234 yards in the snow?

Hope you get a chance to shoot a couple soon - do not even mess with the scope - just shoot a group.

Sofar i have been very impressed with the 452 250 DOA but the 458 275gr really shines IMO. I dont know if it is the ogive shape of just the extra weight.

A 458 250ish grain might be interesting too. Im going to make a Lehigh order soon and give some of the 220s a shot.

BTW that is some good shooting and out to at least 100 yards that 220 should be devastating on deer.

Sabotloader,

As your Chronograph shows, that bullet is really light for BH209. At 130grns the BH209 does about 50fps better. Below 130grns 777 is better. We keep thinking 100fps to 200fps isn't much???? What does that equate to in Energy on game? I bet it's huge, or at least i think it is.

Nice shooting & info. I was surprised that T7 produced noticeably higher velocities at 120 grains and under.

You know I can actually tell you that... but I doubt you will get 200 fps with this particular bullet. With a 300 grain real possible...

I will go do some computing....

OK with this bullet @ 2100 fps second you would have 2154 #'s of energy at the muzzle.... If you could get it going 200 fps faster the energy would be 2300 #'s of energy. After that the bullets BC would detirmine down range energy.

Now with a heavier bullet... like a 300 grain bullet shot at 1900 fps second with T7 the energy would be 2405 #'s of energy and then adding 200 fps the energy would be 2900 #'s of energy.

The reason that happens is two fold... T7 is engineered to match the black powder performance curve, so it burns very rapidly. In otherwards it reaches it's pressure spike very rapidly... on the other hand BH is engineered to meter and perform like a BP but it is really a smokeless progressive buring powder. It burns slower so it never reaches the high pressure spike that BP or T7 does, although if a heavy enough bullet is used it will created more pounds of pressure total than does and equal amount of T7. But because the 220 grain bullet is so light it gets out of the barrel before BH can realize it's potential... add another foot to the barrel and BH would create more velocity.

Great shooting as usual SL.and those lehighs are looking better and better all the time.