Does anyone have any experience using powerbelt bullets in a Savage muzzleloader using smokeless powder?????Thanks

Power belts work great with black and pyrodex and triple seven but not with charges of smokeless. Might work with reduced smokless but full charges blow the skirt out with resultant erratic velocity and groups.
Hillbilly

Bwana1,

You may be able to shoot it w/ mild charges of AA5744 but, the Savage is not intended to fire non-saboted bullets. It is only intended to fire saboted bullets.

The Power Belts are very soft (just copper washed lead) so, you are probably going to have trouble w/ accuracy if you try to get high velocities w/ them. They should do fine at Pyrodex/777 velocities but, even then, you may have trouble w/ the triple pellet loads.

You should ask the guys on the Savage Muzzleloading Message Board. Many of them have tried the Power Belts.

Good Luck!

Reloader

Fill the bottom hollow Powerbelt cup/base with bore butter. Shiny, silvery fouling will be lead from the Powerbelt bullet. Enroute to your paper target, check the plastic bases for damage. If they remain intact & accuracy is good with no leading problems.... you are good-to-go!

Start with a moderate load & increase powder volume very S-L-O-W-L-Y until you find your max... then back off a grain or two.... or three...lol

T7 how many have you shot like that sure looks like you would have a mess of bore butter left in the barrel.Don't think I want all that bore butter in the barrels of my smokless muzzleloaders.
Bwana 1,You may want to try the sst or shock wave they work real good on deer.

I do not even own a smokeless muzzleloader. Sometimes, I report on what others have used in theirs. If you do not care to experiment.... that's fine with me. To the best of my knowledge, it's there to protect the base. It does not splatter on the walls of the bore. When you retrieve a spent base after firing, you'll witness what you installed. Not intended for maximum charges or hottest powders. Works fine in some cases. All you can do is try it ... or not try it!

I was not impressed with the penetration of the 348 gr Powerbelt on my 6x6 bull at about 100 yards, or my buddy's 5x5 at about 125 yards. On a quartering shot, they might not have worked. We only got about 20 inches penetration, and no exit on a high-chest broadside shot. The bullets were completely flattened all the way to the base. This was with 110 gr of Pyrodex.

I would think penetration would be even less at the higher velocity possible with smokeless powder.

You might be able to get the skirt hold together if you use a sub base with it, but what have you got against sabots?

quote:

Originally posted by bucktail_:
You might be able to get the skirt hold together if you use a sub base with it, but what have you got against sabots?

........and/or Wonder Wads. WW's do seem to
help protect sabots......dunno about the plastic
base of powerbelts.

Went to the range this morning and shot one of my savage muzzle loader and thought I would post of 2 three shot groups so you could see the difference that different sabots make.I have found out that mmp makes the best ones for the smokless powder.They were making them for hornady and T/C but I saw that they were going to start making their own so don't know if they do now or not.I use the sst and shock wave for hunting but these groups were with using a hornady 250 gr xtp.

Many thanks to all for the great info and advice.....

Has anyone tried the 50/40 sabots with smokeless? I had good luck with them with 777. I thought that they should work well with a sub base. Would 200 grain XTP's hold up to these velocities?

http://dougva.proboards34.com/index.cgi
You can get a lot of info on this savage board.
I shoot the 50/40 using a 200 sst in my encore but have tried lots of loads using them in my savages and gave up on them.I think the pressure is too great for them in the 50/40 sabots but some of the guys on the savage board had better luck with them than I did.