Encore 45/70 smokeless barrel shooting sabots

Why? What happened? Please enlighten us.

Lately, we have used saboted loads as well as sized bullet loads,
although not out of .45-70 conversions.

Years ago I had a Savage 10ml not the ml2. This rifle did not have accutrigger so the trigger pull was terrible. The powders that i had for it were VVn110 and H-lilgun could never shoot a good group with it. I called MMP and they told me what I should be using so I went up and down the scale with charge weights and still no joy! Plastic fouling was always an issue and the breach plug was another story all together. I sold the the rifle and bought an Austin Halleck with 777 and that rifle shot really well for what it was. Thats when I decided no more smokeless under sabots. I later got into Encores and a buddy of mine brought up the smokeless subject and I told him my thoughts on it. That very night I went home and got on the web exploring the topic. I found this sight that had this big bald guy talkin about how good his smokeless Encore shot, then he proved it! I musta watched that video 500 times. Smokeless, no sabots, sign me up!!! Now I quite possibly have the most accurate rifle in my arsenal and its an SML. Smooth sizeing is where its at for me. If somebody else wants to put plastic in there rifle and can get the same level of accuracy I'm gettin the more power to ya. Since the Savage days I've always thought that sabots are a week link in the smokeless game JMO.

X2
A good quality barrel makes all the diference in the way a saboted round fouls.
a sabot in a .45 barrel can work very well for practical hunting distances, lived there for several years but these days I would rather shoot sized bullets, JMO.
with the new .40 cal bullets these days it's not a bad option at all.

I'm shooting a 20" TC Katahdin barrel 45/70 conversion with a Savage plug and yes, ventliners.  Antique I know.  But that was the going thing then.  The hot ticket was Harvester smooth blue sabots and Hornady 200 grain XTP's or SST's in .40 caliber (10mm) with H4198 at 55 grains.  There were duplex combinations as well.  But I found that this worked so well that I finally decided not to change anything.  N110 in a moderate straight charge is super accurate as well for me.  Got a really nice deer with that load this year.  I nearly got bit by the bug to upgrade, which will happen the more you read around here. Sounds like a lot of fun and very tempting.  But in the Indiana woods where I hunt, you almost never get a shot as far as 100 yards and this old fashioned set up is my best shooting firearm off the bench at 100 yards and I can hit the neighbors 8" gong at 130 yards all day long practically with my eyes closed - well almost.  Can't help but exaggerate a little.  Point is - as much as I've tried I can't find a reason to change.  And that barrel is not the smoothest thing I've ever seen either.  But it doesn't chew up sabots.  The fit is nice and tight which I think is a plus.  And there's just no fussing with it and nothing ever goes wrong if you keep it maintained as you would any of your fine firearms.  You've got a lot of good advice here.  And if Jeff put that gun together for you, I would bet it will shoot sabotless or saboted quite well either way.  But I'll chime in and say if you don't mind being a little behind the times, there's nothing wrong with shooting sabots once you find the right combination of powder and bullet to go with it.  Probably depends on how far you need to shoot and what your hunting conditions are - but as for me, I'll stick with the old tried and true until she lets me down or I croak - which ever comes first   Gotta love all the good help I got from these guys over the years!

I must have been very fortunate with the ml2 I had which was made in 2003 ss and though you could visually see chatter marks in the bore it only shredded sabots when I either shot too hot a load or too hot a powder. I bulged that barrel and was bummed cause it shot moa or under most of the time. Bought a used barrel with about 70 rounds on it from Russel and it was about the same as my original except the best I could get was about 1-1/8" @ 100yds. still very good deer accuracy. I have parted with it and the 50cals for 45's now and sabot-less exclusive, nothing wrong with sabots just made the switch.

I made a post under “same old story” by deadeer concerning his saboted load in relation to Pressure Trace, Quick Load and his findings. It might be of interest to some.