.30cal Sabots for .224 Bullets
About ten years ago I saw an ad for some .30 cal sabots and figured I'd try some. I was halfway through testing some "accelerator" loads in a .30-30 Contender Carbine barrel when someone "just had to have it" just before deer season for considerably more cash than I had in it and I sold the barrel. Accuracy results were acceptable, but I never followed up testing them in anything else. IIRC I sent the last of those loaded rounds to J1 to shoot up in his Contender Carbine because they were to long to work in any lever or bolt rifle and you couldn't pull them without destroying them.
Anyway I found the bag of sabots yesterday while searching for something else and the wheels started turning in my brain.
Does anyone remember the .22 Johnson? It was a .30carb necked down to .22cal. They actually chambered it in newly made M1 Carbines and sold both rifles and factory loaded ammo for it. I remember thinking at the time that it was a fantastic idea. The .30carb, while it is a joke as a rifle cartridge would be an excellent small game round in .22, not as fast as the .222, but way outperforming the Hornet. Unfortunately the idea did not catch on and it dwindled into obsolescence. (Now the same chain of thought made me realize back then that the govt had really screwed up on the .223 also, as it would have been a much better all around cartridge for 2legged varmints and deer sized game if it were only in .30cal. I was right about that, even if it is too long for the AR platform.)
For me, I have found the .30carb to be an excellent target/small game handgun round, way more accurate in my 10" Contender than in any GI carbine I have ever shot, and for that matter the Universal carbine I own that was made in the 60's which will also outshoot any milsurp rifle, but as good as it is, it is still not in the Contender's accuracy class. My carbine will shoot 2-3" while the Contender is MOA 5shots @ 100yds rested with several different cast and jacketed bullets. So the barrel is already proven accurate enough to make the test interesting.
So.... Why not try some .30carb "accelerators" a la .22 Johnson? I loaded up 125 test rounds this afternoon with 55gr HP's in sabots into .30carb cases over some 820 surp (AA#9 equivalent) for my Contender and for that nifty little .308/.30carb chamber adapter I got last month for my deer rifle. Both barrels are 1:10 twist and the sabot has about the same bearing surface as a 165gr .30cal bullet, so there's a good chance one or the other or if I'm really lucky maybe even both of them might actually like the sabot loads. I will shoot some of them the end of the week and report back.
