Cast Bullets VS Sabots

[scrat]

Ok i was reading on another forum. A guy was having problems with miss fires. He was using R.E.A.L Bullets. I believe this is the mold for Lee. Behind that he was using 2 50 grain pyrodex pellets in a 50cal inline. Federal 209 primers. He was reading the phamplet in the pryodex box and it shows that he should be using a fiber wad behind the conical bullet and the powder to prevent blow by. Well the guy switched to Sabots to give it a try. He has not had any miss fires since. He is thinking about going back to conicals with a fibre wad to see what happens.


My question. I have seen a lot where you would use almost any type of cloth to wrap around a muzzle bullet. then press it in. Would this help in this situation. Or should you use a fibre always behind a conical bullet. Give me the scoop tell me everything as i have both conicals and sabots and am planning on going shooting on sunday. I dont need to have miss fires.


http://www.thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=269868
link above

 

[arcticap]

His Pyrodex pellets were old and these could have caused him to have poor ignition & performance problems. Pyrodex does need compression to perform and wads could help with performance, but I'm not so sure that not using wads would cause misfires.
But the problem with wrapping conicals is that they are usually oversized to to begin with. Add the thickness of paper patching and they may be a bear to load.
That's why most paper patching involves using round balls which are generally undersized and would fit and load in the bore easier.

http://webpages.charter.net/fam-strick/web/PaperPatch.htm

If you want to avoid misfires, keep the powder fresh and dry, and the flash channel clear. Compressing the powder load and using wads will help to produce consistant velocity. Using tight fitting sabots should too.

 

[Zeke/PA]

In my opinion, the twist rate in most inlines is a bit fast for ANY cast bullet.
The rifles shoot best with the sabots for which they were designed.
Zeke

 

[scrat]

Ya but then you get into the situation of having to clean the barrel after every round. Heck im a reloader and a bullet caster. I have been doing it for years. I really like the look and feel of this in line. However if i knew it would be limited to Sabots i would have thought differently. I still am planning on shooting it with Cast. It has a barrel its rifled. Then it should be able to shoot cast bullets. If the statement that rifled barrels cant shoot lead cast. Then please dont tell my Win 94 that. She loves cast 150 and 170 grn Cast. 30-30.

 

[Mark whiz]

You definitely can shoot conicals out of an in-line. However, I wouldn't do it with pellets, just loose powder. As was previously said, the pellets need some compression from a tight bullet to ensure ignition, especially when using 209 primers rather than #11 cap like I use on my old Knight rifle.

I've shot maxi-balls, mini-balls, Hornady Great Plains, and the "No Excuses" conical bullets with my Knight without any incident. My rifle didn't like the maxi's or mini's, but the No Excuses bullets were impressive in the 460gr version.

One thing to remember when you shoot conicals is to not overcharge with powder - 90 to 100gr of loose powder would be the max charge worth trying, and you would probably find best accuracy in the 70 to 90gr range, depending on the weight of the bullet.

Using wads with conicals is only useful if the bullet has a flat base, otherwise it is just blown into or around the boat-tailed or concave section of the bullet and won't contact the bore walls.

That's just what I've found in my testing with conicals.

 

[Wildfire]

mark is right

Hey there,
Mark is right . The cast bullets will shoot better with loose powder. And you may find that a slightly fouled bore will work better yet. T/C makes a bore button. Part number 7021 for the .50 cal. Powder first , Bore button , then cast or lead bullet. They claim it helps. I tried this in my Encore and still could not get them to shoot right. I shoot sabots only now.
As far as the miss fires, you may have bad powder or primers or that cast bullet is not down all the way , but it should still go off.
That may not be a good thing with pellets. That bullet must be against the powder.

 

[AntiqueCollector]

I'm a much bigger fan of roundballs but old fashioned lead bullets are better than any sabots in my not so humble opinion. Avoid pellets like the plague. Use loose, real blackpowder if possible (if not, loose pyrodex). No wads are necessary with a conical. To reduce the chance of a problem, fire some caps with the gun unloaded first before loading, to ensure there's no blockage from oil or whatever. Conicals need fast twists so a modern inline will shoot them okay once you get the load right. Conicals are pretty fussy about their charges and you need to experiment to find the right charge for your conical in your gun.

 

[Wildfire]

No pellets.

Hey again:
AC, Has a very good point. Conicals are very fussy about charges. If you stumble on to the right load, you will love it. If not, You will get even more frustrated. The bore bottons I mention in an earlier post are only an option.
Some claim they improve accuracy. I Have not proved this. Certain conicals were made so the base would expand upon ignition. The faster twist barrels are a must. The 1 in 48s have a hard time tossing a conical. The faster the better. Loose powder is the only real way of testing a conical. Pellets have a hole thru the middle and the fire from the primer blows thru that hole to the base of the bullet. This was suposed to give better surface area for more positive ignition. Pellets are probably the hardest to ignite. Black Powder is the easiest to ignite. Pyrodex is in the middle. T/C tested the primer to pellet ingition thing and I have no problem with their findings. They found that normal 209 primers will actually start the bullet moving forward before the powder has a chance to get full ingition. (With Pellets) This in turn places that bullet in a different place in the barrel every shot. Which in turn gives poor accuracy.
They then tested (and so did I) The new Low PSI high volume 209 ML primers
by Remington. These did not move the bullet forward before ignition and improved accuracy. This is what I found after testing hundreds of loads this year and last. I shoot the Encore which is a very solid rifle. It has a closed breech system. The Rem> 209 ML primers work awesome. My groups went from 1" at 100 meters to all holes touching. This is now with 3 different bullets. I wish I could get a conical to shoot like these saboted loads do. I would switch yesterday. The photo shows the groups I get now. Hope something said by anyone here helps