Questions about sabots

[bapfreak]

I have heard of people saying that you can shoot pistol bullets in a sabot.

Does this literally mean you can load a cast 45acp conical in a sabot into a 50cal muzzleloader?

If I were to want to cast conicals for loading into sabots what is the best type of bullet to cast for that purpose?

 

[Tsegoweleh]

Gulp !! :wink:

 

[rabjr]

Years ago the first sabot bullets were indeed pistol bullets. In the beginning it was generally .44 cal bullets used in a .50 cal. I don't use them, just going by memory but a lot depends on the plastic sabot used which will determine the bullet diameter used. I don't know if there is a .45 cal sabot/bullet available today or not for .50 cal guns. I do know though todays bullets made for muzzle loaders are far superior to pistol bullets, for hunting anyway.

 

[Stumpkiller]

Well, the question would be if you are going to load a conical to begin with why not cast a conical of the proper bore size and forego the sabot? IMHO a sabot is designed to circumvent game laws and allow a jacketed bullet to be used in what had been intended to be a primative season. So if you don't see the need for a jacketed bullet you might as well just cast a decent conical.

 

[Walks with fire]

Yes; you could use .45acp held in a sabot and it would probably be quite accurate from a 1/66 twist. The weight would still be around 185-200 grains so energy would not be much above a roundball. Those bullets would not be designed to push at the velocity that you would get from an 80-90 grain charge though.

If I want more weight from my roundball barrel I use the 240 grain Hornady PA conical. They are very accurate, easy to load and are about as long as will stabilize in 1/66 twist. These are about the most weight that you will get to group well from a .50 caliber slow twist. It's about the same as a .54 caliber ball in my opinion.

If you want to shoot sabots/bullets and what I consider the best weight conicals of 385-410 grains with outstanding accuracy get a GM 1/28 twist barrel. They are extremely accurate with these bullets and conicals. They are also extremely difficult to find right now and GM has no intention of making any more.

 

[Otter]

Gulp !! :wink:

Wuts a sabot? That ain't one of them knife thingys they stick on the end of a gun, is it? :surrender:

 

[Stumpkiller]

It's a special bullet used for sabotage. :wink:

So, I guess that makes them as shoots 'em "saboteurs".

 

[bucktales]

Gulp !! :wink:

:rotf:

 

[Walks with fire]

Hey saboteurs; I like that. Yep; I'm a saboteur! :thumbsup: :surrender:

 

[Len Graves]

Well the way I heered it sabot is a Frenchy word fer shoe. Now during some of the troubled times over there some of them frenchies stuck their wooden shoes (sabot du bois) into the gears of the wind mills and gummed up the works. Them fellas was called saboteurs. Least thets what I heered.

 

[Stumpkiller]

Close. Weaving looms, but that's the urban legend of 1750. ;-)

 

[Zonie]

bapfreak
Welcome to the forum.

As you may have noticed this Forum is aimed primarily at Traditional things and plastic sabots being fairly new inventions don't fit too well.
That said, your questions still need to be answered.

A few of the posts gave some good answers and now I'll give you my opinion about using pistol bullets in sabots in your muzzleloader.

Most of the muzzleloading rifles have fairly deep rifling grooves and plastic sabots tend to either foul up these deep grooves with plastic or not seal the bores well or both.
The guns that are made for shooting sabots usually have fairly quick rifling twists like 1:28 and shallow rifling grooves.

As was noted, pistol bullets are designed for pistol velocities. While the solid FMJ (Full Metal Jacket) bullets will work, the hollow point bullets when shot at rifle velocities tend to blow up on contact giving very poor penetration. In other words they shouldn't be used for hunting in these guns.

Pistol bullets are usually fairly light weight so they offer no real advantage over roundballs.

Pistol bullets plus the plastic sabots cost more per shot than patched roundballs or solid lead bullets.

Solid pure lead bullets will work in most of the guns with 1:48 twists and they offer better penetration than pistol bullets. They also are larger in diameter than a saboted bullet so the wound they create is larger in size and does more damage.

Hope this answers your questions.

 

[Dphar]

I have heard of people saying that you can shoot pistol bullets in a sabot.

Does this literally mean you can load a cast 45acp conical in a sabot into a 50cal muzzleloader?

If I were to want to cast conicals for loading into sabots what is the best type of bullet to cast for that purpose?

If its a traditional ML with typical rifling twist 66-72" its not going to shoot all that well with pistol bullets.
These things also do little to address fouling issues so shooting more than a shot or two is a PITA.
Conicals in slow twist MLs are generally less useful than the patched round ball for hunting due to instability based on what I have read from the past and the experiences of shooters/hunters today.
Being marginally stable they often tend to veer off course when striking flesh or bone. This was first noted by surgeons during the Crimean War when the Minie ball was first used in combat.
Bullets that do not track straight through a human make little difference to the military a wounded man is generally out of the fight anyway. Bullets that fail to track straight through game animals are a major concern and can result in wounded game that requires otherwise unnecessary followup shots or worse lost game.
If you want to shoot conicals you need at least a 30-36" twist for most pistol bullets or 2 caliber long ML bullets and this is about 1/2 the twist rate of modern 44 and 45 caliber pistols.
While 2 caliber bullets will often shoot well in a 48" twist they still have stability problems on impact.
The funny part is that the 44 caliber jacketed pistol bullets that are often used in sabots often have a very poor reputation for penetration even at pistol velocities in any game heavier than deer.

Dan

 

[mckutzy]

Gulp !! :wink:

Wuts a sabot? That ain't one of them knife thingys they stick on the end of a gun, is it? :surrender:

a sabot

..no u put them on your feet......

:blah:

 

[musketman]

As you may have noticed this Forum is aimed primarily at Traditional things and plastic sabots being fairly new inventions don't fit too well.

Historically, sabots have been around since the Civil War, maybe even longer. The word "sabot" means shoe. Civil war sabots were mostly used in cannons and made of wood.

This specimen of Federal spherical solid shot was never fired, as can be seen by the wooden sabot still attached with iron straps. It is 4.5 inches in diameter, which provided the necessary windage for the 4.62-inch diameter of the Napoleon. The groove in the base of the sabot allowed the powder charge to be tied to it, after which it would be referred to as fixed ammunition. This was the most common solid projectile used in the Civil War.

The scaled down version of plastic sabots is where history and modern design take a seperate path.

Now, if they only made the modern sabot out of wood... :hmm: :haha:

 

[Pigman]

Isnt a patch a discarding sabot?

Thanks,
Foster

 

[gmww]

I have heard of people saying that you can shoot pistol bullets in a sabot.

Does this literally mean you can load a cast 45acp conical in a sabot into a 50cal muzzleloader?

If I were to want to cast conicals for loading into sabots what is the best type of bullet to cast for that purpose?

I have used .45 Cal 300 grn hard cast pistol bullets in sabots from a .54 ML. The twist was 1:48". They were very accurate. I tried it on a nice buck and it went down where it stood. This was early in my ML experience.

Personally I prefer to use RB or Conicals now.

 

[Little Wattsy]

Yes you can and they shoot purtty good to...Just make sure that you get the correct sized sabot.

 

[arcticap]

There's a variety of different .50 caliber sabots that can accomodate 10mm/.399-.40, .429-.430, .451-.452 and .458 bullets.
There's also a variety of sabot diameters to accomodate tighter and looser bores to better fine tune their performance to an individual gun.
http://mmpsabots.com/

 

[musketman]

Isnt a patch a discarding sabot?

Thanks,
Foster

Good anology, I guess anything that surrounds the projectile until it is shot could be concidered a "sabot" in one way or another.