First Report - Lehigh 45 cal Sabotless

[sabotloader]

I posted these over in the ML section, but a question popped up about smokeless - so I thought would share these 3 reports here also....

Several weeks ago I talked to Lehigh Dave about the possibility of producing a sabotless bullet. He had already thought about the process and I guess I just spurred it on a bit. I indicated that I might like a 45 cal sabotless bullet.

We are now in the experimental phase of this project. I recieved in the mail today a box with a group of Copper sabotless bullets and to my surprise a group of Brass sabotless.

I did some weighing and measuring and these are the results... Please remember I am an ameture at working a micrometer so just consider the measurment close.

As you can see the base of the bullets does have a cup and as you move up the bullet you get to what I call the engraving rings. These rings should be engraved by the lands on the bore as you push the bullet down.

The one measurment that I failed to put in the pictures is the mic'ed measurement just above the rings. For me it read 449/50".

They really are awesome looking bullets and I really hope to get some fourther information out as soon as I can. I really wanted to remove a breech plug tonight and push them down, but just have to many other things I am suppose to be doing.... 2 more weeks and I get to go back to semi-retirement and will be able to get back to the more fun stuff...

[edge]

They look awesome, can't wait for the smokeless results.

edge.

[Richard]

They do look good! But, unless they are "affordable?", he will not sell many. Yes, if they shoot good guys will buy a small quantity and use them just to hunt with. He will not however, sell a lot of bullets. Guys may hunt with the expensive Barnes Original, but will most often practice with the much cheaper Rem. bullet.
I personally shoot over 1,000 ML bullets each year but probably less than 5% are the 195 Barnes MZ's.....Why? Cost! Yet if I were to hunt, that is the bullet I would most likely use. A box of 100 .40 200 gr. XTP's runs around $21 per 100 vs. $20 for 24 Barnes. For me, its a matter of economics!
Richard

[sabotloader]

edge

The pictures do not even do them justice... they are awesome.

Remember these are the first run bullets and Dave is a perfectionist - so there will be improved versions.

After I did my target shooting and realized that the scope was very close to being dead-on, I started picking target on the rock wall. The wall is 100 yards from my portable bench. One of my chosen targets was a basalt rock, probably 3"x 3", sitting on top of a larger basalt rock. Remember Basalt is a fire formed volcanic rock, only Grainite is harder.

I shot the rock... hit the rock, but because of the smoke I did not get to see the hit - just that it was gone from it's perch. I figured I just knocked it off and it would be laying behind the bigger rock... I could not resist i had to go down and look... I am pretty sure i found it or at least the pieces. It litterally broke into several pieces could have been 1" minus gravel. Even with only a 100 grains of powder - these bullets put a lot of energy down range.