30cal. Sabots

[coxhw]

Has anyone tryed to load 30 cal.sabots using 22 cal bullets for use in the
M1A? I don't have any idea of where to start or if it can even be done safely. If anyone has a load that would like to share it, it would help. If it can't be done safely don't hesitate jumping my a--.

 

[Picknlittle]

A friend of mine came across a couple hundred of these "zippies", as he called them. They were fast, maybe flat, but not very reliable if actually hitting a target was the goal.

One to two hundred yard targets looked like they'd been hit with a twenty yard shotgun blast.

As I understand it, you can't even buy the components to load them now. They are frowned upon because there are no barrel markings left on the bullet.

 

[schmidtbender]

I think Remington still makes them in some factory ammo. My friend's 788 30-30 shoot them very well (1.5"@100) but in my 30-06 721 it was a 6" 5 shot group. My guess is the Sabot worked better at lower velocity as they do in muzzle loaders and shotguns.

 

[Ben Shepherd]

They do work better at lower velocity(kinda self defeating ) . Why?

I think that what happens is the plastic/nylon outer shell isn't strong enough to hold the lands and grooves at higher velocities. So it ends up being a high speed musket, instead of a rifle.


That's my thinking on it anyway.

 

[Ben Shepherd]

Another thought:

I doubt that they'll cycle well in a semi auto. I think that the action of strippng them out of the mag and into the chamber will be a little too rough on them. Never tried it though.

 

[coxhw]

Hey thanks for the input. It does make sense that it would work better at lower velocity's which makes them useless in something like a M1A. Didn't really think about it. The part about stripping them from the mag. makes good since. The M1A is a little hard on bullets. Thanks for the wake up.

 

[Sunray]

Schmidtbender got lucky. Sabots can still be had, but the accuracy is usually poor.