you know, I wish you would be a little more careful with your loading technique. That way you won't have an excuse for those flyers. And how come you didn't try 90 and 100 grs as I requested previously. I swear you don't listen to anything I say.
Anyway - not to bad shooting for and old guy....

Dammit Bronko, you're a tough taskmaster. I would very much have liked to do that shooting in five grain increments instead of ten. But I worked that range session in between a morning and evening hunt, and just didn't have the time for that.

I did start to pay a lot more attention to the initial seating of the sabot. As I did so it became clear that it's very easy to deform the petals when starting the bullet. Later that night I thought about putting the sabot into the muzzle with no bullet, then seeing how well the bullet will slip into the sabot. Has anyone tried that?

Semi I don't think that is wise. You would probably get more petal deformation or worse, an inadequate seating causing a void creating a possible dangerous situation. And Lord knows, we surely would miss your unique way with words and we also wouldn't have anyone else to pick on.