sabot material

[orion]

Many have pondered how to get your .50 to shoot flatter, thus the move to the .40's and .45's. I have seen that Edge has made his own PVC sabots.

I am intrigued by the concept of getting small diameter, heavy weight, and longer projectiles, up to high velocity without buying a new barrel or gun, i.e. .338 or .375 bullets or even long .40. It could be a summer project.

It just seems there has got to be a way to do it. Probably many have tried, and said the hell with it, and went to a smaller diameter barrel.

What materials have people experimented with if any?

The US military uses a carbon composite material sabot on their big tank guns, that shoot a small finned dart, the sabot appears to be placed in the middle of the projectile. It seems somewhere I read about an aluminum sabot once.

Any thoughts?

[rangeball]

I think the main weak link isn't so much the material, but rather the base thickness and lack of smokeless specific specialty sabots. Harvester produces a .50/.40 sabot, but doesn't recommend it with smokeless.

The reason I think it's the base rather than the fins is many are successfully shooting lighter .40 bullets to speed without blowing the bases or fins, from sabots made with the same material. Add a wider diameter base to the same diameter bullet and bases blow when you try to crank the speed.

From what I've read here some have tried washers under the bullet, sub-bases, etc with mixed results. I have a few ideas I want to try once I get my SMI barrel.

[mike3132]

Aluminum washers under the bullet and sub-bases glued to the sabot are two. Edge did a lot of experimenting with the aluminum washers. Most found they sacrificed accuracy to make them shoot. Mike

[DBinNY]

You may also find that the standard twist rate (1 in 24) is too slow for some of the bullets that you envision shooting. Edge or SW could comment on that.

[edge]

First, a 1:24 will stabilize a 35 caliber 180 grain spitzer bullet, a 200 grain is pretty stable but I found them on the edge, no pun

IMO, the easiest way to shoot them is with some sort of a duplex type sabot WITH a washer in the base. I have never seen a PR Bullet duplex sabot so I don't know if you could add the washer.

I machined/molded a piece of plastic with a 0.452 od and a 0.358 id and then split them in half.

They were accurate and I did take a deer with the 180 Hornady SSP bullet several years ago.

My setup looked like this:



Without a washer, the sabot will blow almost every time!

edge.

[rangeball]

edge. what speed did you get them to?

[jims]

Falcon, that is a name out of the past that used to post here that I have not heard from in several years I think.

[edge]

I don't recall velocities, it was with fairly heavy doses of Lil'Gun...and a long time ago!

edge.

[dave d.]

:)edge i think i remember 2800fps for your load.i should have seperated my sentence.i was just refering to other mods that were done to washer sabots.yours was definitely before the .40/50 washer sabot.

rb started using washers cut into the base of the .40/.50 sabots and they worked great.i started making some myself and shot the .40's to over 2800fps in the .50 and had great accuracy at 100yrds but for some reason 200yrd groups fell apart.i saw this to many times and gave up.then i switched to .45 and never looked back.

[edge]

Using the washers with 40 caliber bullet was much later.
As a matter of fact Falcon never even made it to the Old Board!
So I guess that I used the Falcon insert in the 2003 hunting season...hard to believe that it was that long ago!
That plastic insert is nylon.

edge.

[jims]

;D Edge: I guess my memory is not as good as I thought, is that the first thing to go, I forget?

[edge]

Jan 22, 2009 21:09:16 GMT -5 jims said:

;D Edge: I guess my memory is not as good as I thought, is that the first thing to go, I forget?

I can't remember ;D

I recall that Harolds daughter was pretty sick, and that was the end of 2003. Old Green went by the wayside July of 2004, and I don't recall him ever registering on the ProBoards site.

edge.