Seating saboted bullets & results

[mike nelson]

My experience with these various bullets and sabots has previously been with my own and my sons TC Omega 50 cal. inlines. Have not used all of them on deer but do have good or less than desired experience with some as far as bullet expansion goes and also being able to start and seat some of the combinations without excessive force in the Omega rifles. Now am trying to find which bullet/sabot combinations that will properly seat in my newly purchased Ruger 77/50 without undue force. Bore condition is like new as is the condition of the entire rifle. Results as follows and would like your opinions. My goal is to use the 209 ignition/ BH209 propellant and the Barnes Expander MZ as I've had excellent bullet expansion results on game.

Bullet Sabot Bullet diameter Ease of starting and seating
TC Shockwave Bonded Core blue tip/blue sabot .452-.453 easy 2 handed
TC Shockwave " " yellow tip/yellow superglide sabot " easy 1 handed ***
TC Jacketed H.P. black sabot " hard 2 handed **
Barnes Expander MZ black sabot .451 2 handed ****
Barnes " " Harvester crushed rib black sabot " real easy 1 handed *
Barnes " " TC black sabot " 2 handed
Barnes " " TC yellow sabot " 1 handed
Federal Trophy Copper B.O.R. Federal bullet/sabot NA real easy 1 handed *
* denotes: so easy that rifling doesn't leave any marks on sabot while seating (The Federal B.O.R. was so easy that might move off powder charge if rifle is bumped after loading).
** rifling leaves marks on sabot during starting/seating and hard 2 handed effort needed, loading a needed follow-up shot may be an issue.
*** rifling doesn't leave any marks on sabot while being loaded/seating
**** quite managable two handed loading in the Ruger. Almost impossible in a clean TC Omega barrel.

 

[GoexBlackhorn]

You desire the Barnes bullet, so I would say the easy guess would be the yellow sabot in that Ruger. Really, every bore is different sized. The one built on Friday morning may be different than the one built hours later. There are no mandates on muzzleloader bore sizes/diameters.

So head over to the range with 4-5 different options at-least and see what works best.

 

[ENCORE50A]

Nothing wrong with using two hands to load and seat the bullet. BH (IMO) should have a tighter fitting bullet/sabot, seated firmly.

Having the proper tooling to verify, my T/C Pro Hunter loaded with 52# force and I seated the bullet on BH with 106# (foot pounds force)