44 Caliber 265g FTX--80g Blackhorn

This morning an attempt was made to catch this bullet. It veered off, and went out the left rear corner of the fifth jug. The sixth jug, was left intact. The load was 80g Blackhorn, the errant bullet, green crush rib sabot, and W209 primer. The first three jugs were severely damaged; the fourth jug was left with a bad bad leak. Seemed like i hunted for the bullet for about an hour. Out 46 yard, i found two missing bullet from last summer, but never did find this bullet.

She went out looking for eggs, more jugs, and a pizza.

She came home with more water jugs; allowing another attempt to catch the bullet.

Thank you Ron. Looks like it performed pretty good.

I'm sure it will do even better with a more realistic charge of 100 gr and upward, but it's nice to know it will work beautifully even at slower velocities like this. Out of my .444's they average @2140fps with great results on deer so I imagine this bullet would be perfect from this level upward to max loads and still have fantastic integrity.
I have several boxes of these and I might order some "green" sabots to try in my .50 this summer. Too bad someone doesn't find a way to make a .45 sabot for .430 bullets, as I'd love to use these in my .45 Elite. 1:30 twist is fast enough and I'm sure 130gr BH209 would take it above 2000fps for a really wind resistant pile driver out far as well as have the integrity to hold together on close shots.

cljohnson24 said:

I'm sure it will do even better with a more realistic charge of 100 gr and upward, but it's nice to know it will work beautifully even at slower velocities like this. Out of my .444's they average @2140fps with great results on deer so I imagine this bullet would be perfect from this level upward to max loads and still have fantastic integrity.
I have several boxes of these and I might order some "green" sabots to try in my .50 this summer. Too bad someone doesn't find a way to make a .45 sabot for .430 bullets, as I'd love to use these in my .45 Elite. 1:30 twist is fast enough and I'm sure 130gr BH209 would take it above 2000fps for a really wind resistant pile driver out far as well as have the integrity to hold together on close shots.

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I get 1945 fps on my chronograph with the .430 265 gn FTX, Harvester smooth green sabot and 100 gn BH209 out of my .50 cal Accura V2. 130 grn of BH209 would probably be pushing the muzzle velocity close to those in your .444. I would add that this is the most accurate bullet I have shot out of that rifle and also an Optima V2 I shoot.

That is impressive performance. I might have to try this one.

This bullet gave me an average muzzle velocity of 2106 FPS out of my CVA Accura V2 LR using 120 grains of Blackhorn (by volume), a green .430 MMP sabot, and a standard CCI primer.

Looks good, remember that it is rifle bullet and is tougher than a pistol bullet. That is one reason I choose to use them.

Hornet22savage said:

Looks good, remember that it is rifle bullet and is tougher than a pistol bullet. That is one reason I choose to use them.

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I think this bullet would be the perfect performing bullet for MZ's. I'm glad Ron did test at slower speeds with 80gr because I was curious how it would do perform at 250+ yds once slowed down.
FWIW - I know of 444 guru's who has been able to get this bullet above 2200fps (although the factory load claims 2325fps out of a 24" barrel...it's simply not happening). The 444 marlin guys average 2150fps with this bullet from factory load or handloaded and have had very good results on deer(and some elk/hogs)with it. I think it's tough enough to do the job in close/high speed as well as soft enough to expand/penetrate at long range slower speeds and Ron's test kinda reinforces that.

Ron do you have any idea what speed 80gr BH209 is pushing this bullet at?

My best guess would come from the Blackhorn Load Data page.

So probably about 1650 fps muzzle velocity and about 1500fps at 50yds. This would be the same terminal velocity at 200 yds of the factory 444 Marlin load(in my guns anyway) and therefore this it is very nice to know that the bullet will still perform nicely at longer ranges.
I'm definitely going to buy some green sabots for my .50 this summer and try them in hopes to replace the .452 250 & 300 SST's as I think the 265FTX is a much tougher bullet than the 250SST and IME is equal to 300SST's BC of .250(despite .225 advertised BC) without it's recoil. Hopefully it will shoot as well above stiff loads of BH to get it into the 2150fps range, and flatten out my .50's trajectory with the same or less recoil as the 300SST.

cljohnson24 said:

in hopes to replace the .452 250 & 300 SST's as I think the 265FTX is a much tougher bullet than the 250SST and IME is equal to 300SST's BC of .250(despite .225 advertised BC) without it's recoil. Hopefully it will shoot as well above stiff loads of BH to get it into the 2150fps range, and flatten out my .50's trajectory with the same or less recoil as the 300SST.

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Do you mean that you think the BC of the 265 FXT is .250?

IME the 265 FTX's and 300SST have the same trajectory when shot at the same velocity out to 200yds(farthest I've shot them).
Both bullets are nearly the same length so the 300SST's added 35grns is offset by it's increased frontal diameter much like a .30-06 vs .270.
I've taken numerous deer with both bullets at similar velocities and will say that they perform almost identically perfect on game with pass throughs and nice proportional exit holes indicating beautiful expansion.

The 250SST is another nice bullet but too small of a shank for the SST's thick jacket to keep it together when pushed beyond 18-1900fps into soft tissue let alone bone. At 2000+fps the core will smear and the jacket will separate and mangle with both parts most often lodging somewhere on far side without exit.
The 265FTX & 300 SST almost always exit.

For anything larger than deer, I would look at Hornady's .430 265gr FP which I've used on Hogs and they are pretty tough or stick with the .452 300 SST.

So it looks to me like that bullet didn't mushroom out much.

I used this bullet to shoot two deer recently and had little blood and no recovery. I'm wondering if I'm getting pass-through without much energy transfer?