sabots / flechettes

[TinMan]

BCB and all, a buddy bought a box of the Remington factory saboted loads back in the day. They were 30-06 loaded with a 55gr bullet as I recall. He shot one round through his Chrony to see how fast they were going. The bullet went through at 4100fps, but the sabot wipeout the front sky screen. This was one of the very old Shooting Chrony with the cardboard screens. As I recall, the remaining rounds shot around 3 inch groups at 100 yds.

[Daryl]

Sabots and Flechettes - 2 entirely different "animals".
Seems I recall some saying accuracy in the '06 Rem stuff was around 1 1/2 to 3" depending on the rifle and the bore condition. They have to be clean of copper fouling to start with.
Not of much use for varmint hunting, as they supposedly were designed for.
3" at 200yards at best is just not good enough, even for fox.
Just checked out the loading data on saboted 55gr. bullets - .300 Win Mag 5,100fps, 5,300fps in the Wtby .300.
Think they'd SPLASH on a coyote - or just not make it to the yote?

[johno]

Re Sabots, my favorite rifle at the moment and one of my last three rifles is a CZ 527 carbine in 7.62x39 deadly accurate, low recoil, light and punches well above its weight I wish I could a 22 cal sabot for this cartridge I would need nothing else

Johno

[Bayou City Boy]

Originally Posted by Daryl

Sabots and Flechettes - 2 entirely different "animals".
Seems I recall some saying accuracy in the '06 Rem stuff was around 1 1/2 to 3" depending on the rifle and the bore condition. They have to be clean of copper fouling to start with.
Not of much use for varmint hunting, as they supposedly were designed for.
3" at 200yards at best is just not good enough, even for fox.
Just checked out the loading data on saboted 55gr. bullets - .300 Win Mag 5,100fps, 5,300fps in the Wtby .300.
Think they'd SPLASH on a coyote - or just not make it to the yote?

I fully understand and I assumed that most everyone knew that they are different. That is why I began my post about the Remington attempt with sabot rounds as they were called with: "Just for informational purposes:" since it was a poorly conceived attempt to make varmint rifles out of 30 caliber rifles that seemed to have some application here at Saubier. No comparisons to anything else was intended.

A "sabot anti-tank round" (in A1 Abrams gunner speak language) from an A! Abrams tank uses the sabot concept that Remington tried with conventional bullets but its paired with a phosphorus tipped steel flechette. The sabot itself is a 3-piece aluminum muzzle diameter cover that breaks away about 150 yards from the muzzle of the tank smooth barrel leaving the lethally tipped flechette to travel on to the target. Early Abrams tanks had rifled barrels. The newer ones all have smooth bore cannon barrels and the projectiles are "rifled" to turn once its out of the barrel to improve accuracy.

-BCB

[Daryl]

Cool on the tank rounds. Rifled projectiles? Not just fins?

[Bayou City Boy]

Originally Posted by Daryl

Cool on the tank rounds. Rifled projectiles? Not just fins?

Don't take everything literally.... please notice that the word rifled is in quotes.in my post. Predictably I figured someone would think 22 Hornet and bite. You might want to Google kinetic tank rounds versus heat rounds.

Edited to add: Now that I'm not using my phone, I'll be a bit more specific. A typical kinetic sabot round fired from the 120 MM smooth bore cannon on an Abrams tank is a multi-piece device. Most simply it includes a 3 piece aluminum sabot that seals the round in the bore but breaks away aerodynamically and INDEPENDENTLY from the fletchette (which typically do have fins and is not spinning in kinetic rounds) once the round is out of the barrel.

Again, I used quotes around the word "rifled" in that the 3-piece sabot aerodynamically, but slowly, spins once it leaves the bore and is still around the surface of the kinetic projectile which is not spinning. The light aerodynamic spin on the 3-piece sabot facilitates the separation of the sabot from the war head/projectile, (for lack of a better term), which then speeds on its own to the target. So tongue in cheek, the sabot is aerodynamically "rifled" if you will........

-BCB