7mm rem mag with sabots for 6mm?

[johnmventers398]

the thought had crossed my mind recently that i want to shoot things with stupid fast ammunition.. i was thinking of re-barreling in 6mm-7mm rem mag. but that involves licence changes and paying the police and re sizing brass yada yada yada... then it struck me! how about i grab some 105 hpbt and stick em in a sabot.. problem solved! or is it?...

has anybody done this? if it happens i would be expecting around 3500 according to shooters notes.

so anybody have some home truth's about expectations vs reality or issues that may arise?

if this comes off it would be a good way to blow some money..

and talking of blowing things.. would the sabot prolong barrel life at these stupid velocities? that would be an added bonus!

 

[savagedasher]

Remington made them in 06 case . I tryed a couple a hundred not impressed . Savage used smokeless muzzloader that uses sabots and you can melt the sabots . Larry

 

[johnmventers398]

Remington made them in 06 case . I tryed a couple a hundred not impressed . Savage used smokeless muzzloader that uses sabots and you can melt the sabots . Larry

thanks for the reply. out of curiosity what was the velocities?
i suppose with careful machining i could make sabots out of something less melty... like delron or something obscure like that..

 

[Sniper338]

Sounds like a good way to blow a gun up to me

 

[Berger.Fan222]

The Remington load was .308 diameter saboted down to shoot .224 bullets. One of the supply houses still sells sabots. http://www.eabco.com/remington-accelerator-sabots.html

I'm not sure you can get 7mm down to 6mm sabots.

Having shot MLs for many years, I have noticed better accuracy potential with thinner sabots - not as big a difference between bullet and bore diameter. If this trend carries over to centerfires (maybe, maybe not), a 7mm down to 6mm sabot may be more accurate than 7.62mm down to 5.56mm.

If you've got the machining skills, I'm sure you can do a great job on the sabot. Please report your findings here, it is a fascinating idea.

In a 30-06, light .224 bullets can be pushed to near 4000 fps, and you can push them to 4500 fps in .300 Win Mag.

When I think of 105 gr (ish) bullets saboted in a 7mm Rem Mag, I would think velocities could be achieved comparable to the 110-120 grain jacketed lead bullets (3200-3500 fps). Maybe higher, because sabots have a lot less friction than jacketed lead bullets, but I would not push it.

 

[CJ6]

Accuracy with the 308 Win. Rem Excelleraters was not that good 1 3/4"- 2 1/2" @100. I think the sabot/bullet separation was part of it. On some of the sabots I was able to find not all the petals were opened.

 

[johnmventers398]

The Remington load was .308 diameter saboted down to shoot .224 bullets. One of the supply houses still sells sabots. http://www.eabco.com/remington-accelerator-sabots.html

I'm not sure you can get 7mm down to 6mm sabots.

Having shot MLs for many years, I have noticed better accuracy potential with thinner sabots - not as big a difference between bullet and bore diameter. If this trend carries over to centerfires (maybe, maybe not), a 7mm down to 6mm sabot may be more accurate than 7.62mm down to 5.56mm.

If you've got the machining skills, I'm sure you can do a great job on the sabot. Please report your findings here, it is a fascinating idea.

In a 30-06, light .224 bullets can be pushed to near 4000 fps, and you can push them to 4500 fps in .300 Win Mag.

When I think of 105 gr (ish) bullets saboted in a 7mm Rem Mag, I would think velocities could be achieved comparable to the 110-120 grain jacketed lead bullets (3200-3500 fps). Maybe higher, because sabots have a lot less friction than jacketed lead bullets, but I would not push it.

so my take it.. with care this is a good project. i think i am going to go down the rout of machining my own sabots..

dont exspect anything soon but ill keep you posted

 

[snert]

I tried the EABCO ones in a 308. If you want to shoot pumpkins at 50 yards, it might work....then again you may miss.

 

[XTR]

I too shoot a MLII smokeless ML. For hunting I would not trade it for any other ML, unless I got a smokeless custom built on a Ruger #1 action. That said, most of the smokeless ML guys who push the envelope are shooting sabotless loads. They use a special die made from a piece of the barrel to pre-swage the rifling into the bullets.

Plastic sabots are the weak link in the saboted scenario. For single shots they will fail/leak due to high pressure if you are pushing too hard. In longer strings they soften and fail due to barrel heat. Great for hunting deer, bad for shooting groups in less than an hour. (I usually shoot one shot about every 20 minutes when I'm working up loads)

Machining sabots that will reliably and consistently release s going to be another issue. Big Green (US Army) has spent more than one basket full of money at APG getting the sabots for the main gun on the Abrams to function correctly, and that's with a tube 17x bigger than the one you are looking down. Slightly less sensitive to variation in tolerances.

 

[fredo]

this thread made me think of this...
"paper patching, state of the art: 1870s Africa"!

"The world ain't it seems, it is, Gunny?"

 

[XTR]

I think of Levon in that scene every time I cut paper patches for my 45-70.

 

[357Mag]

Johnm -

Howdy !

+2 on what Bergerfan said...... I don't think a sabot for 6mm bullets in a 7mm cal barrel would be readily do-able.

Note:
The US Army tried-out shooting flechettes from the 5.56 case, using
a " directionally solidifed liguid-crystal polymer " as the sabot materiel.
Flechettes tend to be somewhat lighter than tylical bullets weights, for a given bore. I think the flechette just mentioned ran around 37gr.

With fin stabilization, flechettes can be shot from a smooth bore.
The US Army has Armour Piercing Fin-Stabilized Discarding Sabot
( " APFSDS " ) rounds on-hand for use in the M-1 Abrams tank.

And currently, the US Navy's " rail gun " uses foil and a sabot to get the projectile out of the bore @ hyper velocity.

With conventional bullets, the path forward on high velocity is very often use of a comparatively long barrel.
The Germans used a 90' long 8.3" calibre barrel w/ a 13' long chamber for their WWI-era " Paris Gun ", designed to shell Paris @ a range of 75mi. MV was reported to have exceeded 5,000fps.

Ultra-high velocity is an " expansion ratio " driven area of internal ballistics. Running some numbers through Homer Powley's " Powley Computer " will help one gain a better understanding of the physical and practical limits to chamber & bore capacity for any given calibre.


With regards,
357Mag

 

[JLT]

Gee, I don't know . . . .

Back when I wore green to the office, I sent more than my share of M903 SLAP (Saboted Light Armor Piercing) rounds downrange out of .50 BMGs. The red translucent sabots seemed to hold together without a problem, even out of M2s during sustained fire, and launched the tungsten pills in the neighborhood of 4,000 fps, resulting in some absolutely crazy downrange ballistic performance.

Materials science is the big deal here. I believe Cytec produced the sabots for the M903 out of some whiz bang thermoplastic. It has been done. The 120mm APFSDS tank round uses an alloy sabot body with drive bands made out of some sort of nylon, and these things leave the smoothbore tubes at around 5,000 fps. M2 barrels and 120mm tubes get no-kidding-around HOT and the materials used in these applications perform pretty darned well.

Ya just have to find the right materials.

 

[ab_bentley]

I'd look at the bore rider bullets before any sabot.

Adam

 

[ebb]

If you want to miss in a hurry, a sabot should be just what you are looking for.

 

[Ringostar]

You can get 7mm bullets in 100-120 grain range. Why not just try that first?

 

[johnmventers398]

Johnm -

Howdy !

+2 on what Bergerfan said...... I don't think a sabot for 6mm bullets in a 7mm cal barrel would be readily do-able.

Note:
The US Army tried-out shooting flechettes from the 5.56 case, using
a " directionally solidifed liguid-crystal polymer " as the sabot materiel.
Flechettes tend to be somewhat lighter than tylical bullets weights, for a given bore. I think the flechette just mentioned ran around 37gr.

With fin stabilization, flechettes can be shot from a smooth bore.
The US Army has Armour Piercing Fin-Stabilized Discarding Sabot
( " APFSDS " ) rounds on-hand for use in the M-1 Abrams tank.

And currently, the US Navy's " rail gun " uses foil and a sabot to get the projectile out of the bore @ hyper velocity.

With conventional bullets, the path forward on high velocity is very often use of a comparatively long barrel.
The Germans used a 90' long 8.3" calibre barrel w/ a 13' long chamber for their WWI-era " Paris Gun ", designed to shell Paris @ a range of 75mi. MV was reported to have exceeded 5,000fps.

Ultra-high velocity is an " expansion ratio " driven area of internal ballistics. Running some numbers through Homer Powley's " Powley Computer " will help one gain a better understanding of the physical and practical limits to chamber & bore capacity for any given calibre.


With regards,
357Mag

thanks. some real good info to look in to here

john

 

[johnmventers398]

You can get 7mm bullets in 100-120 grain range. Why not just try that first?

the thought had crossed my mind however i'm interested in clutching on the the speed for as long as possible with the 105 a-max's awesome B.C the idea just scratched that itch y'know?

 

[XTR]

The other question is how fast do you think that you can get them? There is a limit for gunpowder based projectiles. Look up the Eargesplitten Loudenboomer.

 

[Ringostar]

The other question is how fast do you think that you can get them? There is a limit for gunpowder based projectiles. Look up the Eargesplitten Loudenboomer.

Here I thought it was Das Firespittin Loudenboomer