The most recent (July?) issue of RifleShooter has a letter to the editor that
mentions the use of .358 caliber sabots to shoot .264 caliber bullets from a
.358 Winchester. This is a great idea for one rifle that can do essentially
anything. A big bore thumper that becomes a smallbore plains rifle with a
change of load. Using a sabot will deliver more work, therefore more energy
and velocity than you could get with the same bullet going down a narrow
bore. BUT... where do you get sabots for reloading in .338, .358 or .375 cal?
I want to try this out and see if the accuracy is any good or if the idea is not
ready for prime time (may require a special sabot designed for high accuracy).
Anybody know where you can get sabots for calibers other than .308?

If you are interested in accuracy, forget sabots.

I may not disagree with ricciardelli, but it depends on your definition of accuracy. I have developed simplex and duplex loads for .308 Win and 30.06 using sabots with .22 cal cavities. I use 55 FMJ and 70 grain RN bullets. In both weights, am able to shoot less than 2MOA groups always. An occasional 1MOA sneaks in.

For me, that is sufficient hunting accuracy. Cerrtainly it is insufficient to be competitive at competitive target shooting. Probably won't have people bowing to you on the Prairie Dog shoots either. However, pushing a 70 grain bullet out the muzzle at about 4430fps "salves my broken heart" over the certainty of "poor" accuracy with sabots.

Paul

[ 06-10-2002, 01:50: Message edited by: gitano ]

Conventional sabots performs badly due to weak material.

In one article evaluating a Savage .50cal smokeless muzzleloader, the conventional sabots failed to shoot accurately. Retrieved sabots revealed the base being burned or some splitted. However once they switched to better sabots made by a company called MMP(?, I'll get the actual info later), the sabots can shoot, worst being 2 MOA.

IIRC, the Swedish police forces is using saboted .22/.308 Win in their sniper rifles to take advantage of the shorter bullet flight time.

I know that sabots are capable of excellent accuracy because the military uses them in sniper rifles and it is the standard load in all tank ammunition now, but those are high precision multi-piece sabots that separate cleanly at the muzzle and it may be too difficult (or expensive) to achieve that in a small caliber (even .338 or .375 caliber). It sounds like the letter was just describing a notion, not something that is currently available.