Thread: saboted 54R bullets

Retrieved: 12/23/2014
Last Post: 02/05/2014

EABCO makes .223 plastic sabots for .308" cartridges, so you can reload your own Remington Accelerator style bullets into any common ".30 caliber" case.

I sent a few to a friend, who promptly discovered that they're a force fit into a *fired* 7.62x54R case. He's planning to load some 54R and see how they perform.

Since "Bob Time" is similar to "TRX Time", I'm mentioning this in case anyone with a 54R, .303, 7.7 Arisaka, or 7.65x53 Mauser gets the urge to experiment.

viper5243
November 23, 2013

My buddy loads these into and 62gr SS109's into 7.62x25 brass and 300 Win Mag. He gave me a bunch of the Tok ones, I just haven't had a chance to shoot em yet.

1biggun
November 23, 2013

I tried those in 7.62 x 39 years ago not a lot of luck poor accuracy

nd_guy
November 24, 2013

I shot some 308 saboted rounds a friend squeezed together. Shot gunners would be jealous of the "pattern" but lacked rifle accuracy.

TRX
November 25, 2013

I've read a bunch of comments about the sabots, a few positive, mostly negative. Two friends who have used them said they'd turn a 1MOA rifle into a 3MOA rifle; still good enough for minute-of-deer, but not as accurate as standard ammunition.

Remington's own propaganda claims high accuracy... and I think they might be telling the truth, more or less. I'm pretty sure they were doing their testing with new barrels and crispy-fresh rifling. In practice, a ".308" barrel can be anywhere from .307 to .310, depending on who made it, when, and how much it's worn. Rifling depth also varies between .0005 to .002", again depending on the manufacturer's ideas. Finally, while most older .30-06 rifles were 1:10 twist, modern '06s and .308s are more likely to be 1:12 or so.

My theory is that, if the barrel isn't tight with deep rifling, the plastic sabots just strip instead of spinning the bullet up, and the under-stabilized bullet wobbles its way downrange.

Invicta Project
January 19, 2014

If your theory is right, then a lot of Mosin Nagants are going to be unhappy with those sabots -- my Mosin slugs at .300 bore, .313 groove, nice, deep rifling, but bigger than anything sold as .308, so unless the sabots are sized for .303 British or 7.62x39 (i.e. at least .312 diameter), or have a conical recess at the base to allow them to upset into the rifling, they aren't likely to work well despite the 9.5" twist in the Mosin barrel. From what I read, those also work well only in a bore that's very smooth; if the bore has pits or tool marks, it's likely to tear up the plastic and produce the stripping you refer to.

trenches
January 19, 2014

I tried them in the 7.62x25. Wasn't impressed.

Ted22
January 19, 2014

Only positive I can imagine is if you we're in a bind and didn't have anything else... A cast lead round must be more accurate, and cheaper.

Does sound interesting, don't see the practical side though.

pellethuntr
January 20, 2014

The reason I have interest in them is for this reason:

When I go on a deer hunting trip, like most people, I take a .30 caliber rifle. I also do a LOT of predator hunting at night, being able to load up some .223 caliber ballistic tips in my .30 cal rifle brass means I only have to take one gun on my trip :P

Invicta Project
February 05, 2014

That kind of use (small game, predator, varmint shooting with a big game chambered rifle) is pretty much the express purpose of sabot loadings in .30 bore -- one rifle to do two jobs. Getting varmint rifle velocity out of a common hunting rifle, they do well. Apparently, they're only accurate in a few guns, though. For pot hunting during a pack-in hunting expedition, I think you'd get better results with some cat-sneeze loads (light bullet or round ball over a tiny charge of pistol powder); but for varmint or predator hunting, all you can reasonably do is lap your bore as smooth as possible to try to make it work well with sabots.