bronko we are in agreement. I like to have them tight enough that I want to use both hands to push them down but its not because they won't shoot good it is because I hunt a lot and I feel safer knowing that the bullet is held tight and it and the sabot will be tight on the powder when I pull the trigger. On the other end of the spectrum if I can not push it smoothly down to seat on the powder in one stroke it is probably to tight.

The 'smooth side' is too tight in Omega rifle to suit me; i guess we will never know.

The Triumph started out like that, I bought a bunch of C.R. sabots then decided it really could load a bit slicker and lead lapped it with polishing compound and then the smooth ones fit best. I do believe it shoots a bit tighter group now but now the C.R. sabots don't fit anything.

The crush rib have worked fine in the Omega rifles, no good reason to use anything else. Load pressure is about perfect. Accuracy is satisfactory. Follows is a target shot by a different Omega than the one used in the OP. The X7, which is a rifle our son and i, hunted with, last hunting season. The load was 74 (weighed) grain Blackhorn, 300 grain XTP, black crush rib sabot, W209 primer.

The following photo shows the fourth, fifth, and sixth shots i made one morning, preparing the X7 for last season. These shots were made into a target pasted over the first three shots from the clean cold barrel.













Then i was able to peel the paper off the cardboard backer, and photograph the back side; one can see the holes of the first three shots, now covered by the target used for the second three shots.























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I guess they had to make sabots to fit because of the variation in barrels, the only bad thing about that is that the beginners usually do not have any idea on how to match up what they need for the best results.