ultra light .308 bullets

[VVelox]

Just got my Lee Deluxe Die Set in for .308 Winchester and when I was looking at the paper included with it it had a load for a 57 grain jacketed bullet on it. This struck me as odd as I've never seen a bullet that light for .308. The smallest I've found meant for it a rifle is 100 grains. Then if I look at hand gun bullets, I can get down to 90 grains.

Any one ever see one?

 

[tightgroup tiger]

Only the old Accelerator loads I think Remington was selling somewhere around 20+ years or so ago. I don''t know exactly when but I tried them when they first came out. I don't know if they still sell them but they were a 50 some grain bullet in a plastic sabot.

 

[rcmodel]

Maybe some old .32 ACP bullet.
Hornady makes a 60 grain XTP.

But I'm more inclined to think it is a typo / mistake.

The Lee 2nd. edition reloading manual makes no mention of any bullet that light in .30 Luger, .30 Mauser, 7.62 Tokarev, .30 Carbine, or .308 Win.
And it lists 22 different bullet weights in .308 Win, with 100 grain being the lightest.


The Remington sabot does sound reasonable as far as weight, but I don't think Remington ever sold the sabots as reloading components.

How does the powder & charge compare to the other listings?

rc

 

[VVelox]

The charge is notably lighter than others.

Powder: v-N110
Starting Grains: 27.6
Max Grains: 34.5
Velocity (FPS): 3993

 

[rcmodel]

Sounds like a Remington Accelerator sabot with a 55 grain .224 bullet in it tightgroup tiger mentioned then.

http://www.ammo-one.com/RemingtonAccelators.html

http://www.eabco.com/remington-accelerator-sabots.html

rc

 

[kingmt]

I have some 19gn.

 

[beagleman911]

I know this is slightly off topic, but I am helping a friend complete a vast collection of different cartridges. He currently lacks a specimen of the .30 Luger. Do you have any or know anyone who has some of these and is there any way I could arrange to have 1 shipped to me?

 

[rsrocket1]

I doubt that anyone with this will do so because it is so off topic from the original post. Not wrong, it just won't draw the attention of anyone who might be willing to send one to you. You should start a new thread and also put one in the classified section.

 

[hueyville]

I use that bullet weight in .308 often and posted before about it. It is for loading 22 caliber bullets using sabots. Follow the link and you will find and entirely new world of handloading to ponder.

http://www.sabotreloadingpro.com/products

 

[hueyville]

Imagine this SS109 full metal jacket lead core with a carbide penetrator clocking somewhere in the 4,000 feet per second range. Then think about 20 to 40 more coming right behind it if a bad guy decided to take cover behind anything other than an M1 Abrams. It would suck to be on the muzzle side of a hail of these suckers.... so now you see some manuals actually try to help keep weirdos on track with some basic info to work with.

 

[Trent]

^^ nail on head.

You have to think "sabot" when going below 90gr.

 

[hueyville]

When you start upping the ante things can get weird. You take a standard sabot and put a 70 grain bullet in a 300 win mag and you can get goofy results. The sabot will actually strip the rifeling like pushing a lead bullet too fast. You can also get the sabot spinning so fast it slips the bullet and you don't have enough spin on the bullet to stabilize it. There are tricks. You can chuck the sabots in a lathe and machine them to allow yo to crime gas checks on them. You can experiment with adhesive materials to keep bullet twisting at same rate as sabot but will still allow bullet to release when it exits muzzle. Glue is very fineky for this. Old fashioned paper patching to tighten the bullet in the sabot combined with addition of gas check can work well. Another option is to make sabots out of bullets. Machine center out of bullet, put smaller in and run through bullet swage die. This is for when your looking to reach light speed. Also the parent bullet for the sabot needs to be inherently light to get the velocity you are looking for. Don't be surprised to determine your sub caliber bullets vaporize just due to friction with air. That is when you look to Barnes copper solids. These experiments are dangerous and use a private range. Amazing some of the failures you will have if you really push the limits.

 

[chuckpro]

hueyville

Have you fired any of those, and what kind of accuracy do you get? I was going to try to load some sabot loads but a reloading mentor at the time talked me out of it because he said the were very inaccurate. That has been several years ago and wondering if technology has changed.

 

[Trent]

I watched an old friend take a coyote with a 60gr 223 sabot in a 30-06 fired from a 1903 Springfield one night, at an easy 450 yards. Blew that dog inside out.

I don't know what sort of precision he gets. He don't shoot groups, just strays.

 

[rsrocket1]

Wow, I would like to have seen that.
But as a consolation, here is a YouTube video of the Accelerator hitting ballistic gelatin.

You can see the sabot flying past after the impact.

 

[hueyville]

Chuckpro, it takes a lot of experimentation but they will shoot good. Load pictured shoots 1" at 100 yards out of an M1a. Had to make it cycle the action too. I have some turn bolt versions that in my tactical 308 will group 1.5" at 250 yards. I have a 300 win mag load using 90 grain vld that zaps ground hogs at 600 yards. That being said, can do same thing with my 22-250. But if on hunting trip for large game using big rifle/heavy bullets and a coyote sticks his head up way out range for heavy animal bullet, nice to drop a sub caliber sabot round in the rifle and watch him explode. Most my work has been mainly for personal knowledge. When I trip across something that works, I keep a few laying around. Some day going to figure proper twist to stabilize sub caliber light bullets in a 300 mag or similar and build a specific rifle for sabot loads. I think with correct rate of twist and using all the tricks learned to date, a 5,000 fps 70 to 90 grain load is not impossible. Think how flat that would shoot.