308 Sabots - turn your 308 into a 4000fps 223

ksb

Well-Known Member
i read a thread about this type of bullet recently but i can find it. i was wondering how forensics would work with such a round as the actual bullet that strikes the target would not have any rifling marks to match to a particular barrel.
http://www.peterlawman.co.uk/reloading.php
keith
 
sorry just found the thread as well and seen that i already asked the question, there must have been red wine consumed that night as i dont remember asking it.:D
 
Remington made it commercially and called it Accelerator............................... it did not fare well as precision on target was very spotty it seems. I have a few rounds in my collection I believe although i have never fired any of them.
 
I tried a box of Remington Accelerator, avg of 3,414fps out of my rifle, 24" barrel.

Accuracy was excellent I never missed a piece of A4 paper at 100 yards! The normal 130g ammo was shooting 0.5" 3 shot groups at that time.

A 130 at 2958fps was fine on deer and foxes, I never had the confidence I would hit anything with the Accelerators.
 
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I've never seen one but it is an interesting concept.

However, Barnes are claiming 3,600fps for their 110 grain TTSX out of a 308. I'm tempted to get some just to see if they will really do that as the ballistics would be pretty flat and my money says they would work well on deer. It is not that I need a 3,600 bullet out of a 308 but it sounds like fun :)
 
We bought a bag of those from Lawman's approx 8yrs ago! Tried them on the Fingringhoe Range, Essex.

Just something to try - something new. Accuracy was terrible. Even at only 100yds!
 
I've never seen one but it is an interesting concept.

However, Barnes are claiming 3,600fps for their 110 grain TTSX out of a 308. I'm tempted to get some just to see if they will really do that as the ballistics would be pretty flat and my money says they would work well on deer. It is not that I need a 3,600 bullet out of a 308 but it sounds like fun :)

Just remember that it don't matter how fast the bullet is traveling when it misses the deer. Speed only kills when it hits ;)
 
Years ago I got 500 of these sabots from Remington. They were a waste of gunpowder fired from my 30-06. Like all saboted rounds, if the release of the sabot isn't perfect -and it never is- it causes some pretty inaccurate shooting. I could get FAR better accuracy from a 95 grain bullet for a 32-20 revolver at 3500 fps, or 100 grain spire points at about the same speeds.~Muir
 
tried them in both 30-06 & 308, all I can remember was that it was a bit of a fad and I gave them all away to someone I didn't lke.
 
I spent considerable time experimenting with .30 caliber sabots. Like all of the above posts, I found them dis-satisfying with respect to precision. I loaded these in .30 M1 Carbine, .308 Win, .30-06 and .300 Win Mag. I developed a few duplex loads, (simplex and triplex loads could not achieve similar MVs), that got 50-grain bullets well into the mid-4000s. The case that provides the highest muzzle velocities in a 24" barrel is the .308 Win. It gives higher velocities than the larger cases because you can't get all the powder from a larger case burnt in a 24" barrel when the velocity at the muzzle is in excess of 4300 f/s - even with multi-powder loads. I was able to get 80-grain bullets just up to 4000 f/s. If velocity was the goal, a much longer barrel, duplex loads, and a bigger case might get the 50-grain bullet to approach 5000 f/s. The BEST precision I was ever able to achieve with the fastest loads was about 3 MoA. Muzzle blast is EXTREMELY loud with high velocity loads, and moderators are eliminated from consideration regardless of MV.

There are reasons to use sabots other than "speed" or eliminating "forensic" information. When the bullet is seated properly in the sabot, and the velocity 'sweetspot' found, sabot'd bullets can provide better than average HUNTING precision - meaning MoA-ish. However, if speed is the goal but precision is desired, I seriously question their practical use for hunting/stalking.

Regards,
Paul
 
i got some of these once and don't use with a moderator,first shot and a bloody big bang,mod like a peeled banana :eek:
 
A friend used to shoot Remington accelerators in both .308 and .30-06 years ago. He insisted that they were great on foxes but when we tried them on the range it was like he had shot the target with a shotgun, 4" groups at best. Funny it seems to have slipped his mind and he hasn't mentioned them for quite some time now. :D
 
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