N120 and CVA V2 conversion

N-120 should work well, close to 4198, start in mid 50s if using a 275 and work up.

60gr n120 195bx, hlb clocks at 2,800 for me for years. Still stacking them up with this load

I love the barnes but hard to find with the rounded base that doesn't cut sabot.

Yep, same load you pioneered back in the day!

I still got a few leftover bullets, so havent bought any in years. I have a ton of the 200 sst that send bambi's to heaven good enough. Try Luke at Arrowhead, he used to stock the 195bx.

Same as you guys, now with hpr in IN, I havent advanced any in the smokeless game.

Can the SSTs be bought in bulk anywhere?

Unfortunately they can’t be purchased in bulk. Another route worth trying is buy Hornady 200 grain .40 cal xtp bullets instead. They are hollow point bullets and in my .45 (sabots) they shot tighter groups than the sst. They will also fly (vs 200 sst) within an inch of trajectory out to 400 yards as tested. The 200 SST only has a Bc of .160 and so does the xtp from my testing. I liked the performance of the hollow point round on animals. XTP stands for extreme terminal performance - it’s a good round to punch through with. It has decent expansion (not as much as the sst). You can buy a box of 100 rounds for $30 if you look around and sometimes less. If you don’t have a muzzle brake the 200 grain bullets are much lower on recoil vs the heavier rounds. These will also shoot decently in a 50 cal with an MMP sabot.

I have been using the knight BROWN HIGH PRESSURE MUZZLELOADER SABOTS. 45 cal for .400 bullets. I stocked up on a bunch of them and still using them -although not very often. I think they are still available on muzzleloaders.com.
I am shooting them at 2600 fps in a 26 inch barrel. Faster than that and I had sabot failures in cold temps. Dry patching between shots works best with dirty powders.
The MMP Blue HPH Sabot works well in 50 caliber for the .400 bullets but have found 2400 fps to be a max speed in cold temps as well. Just my experiences with sabots and speeds. Others push speeds faster with great results. I never annealed so that could make a difference.

There’s a generally accepted principle that when using DI after there’s an accepted HIS load, to reduce the powder amount 10% and then work up your load. 

Now, personal opinion. That above principle seems to be derived from larger amounts of slower powders used in 45 cal. My findings with 40 cals and using smaller amounts of faster powders and 225-253 g bullets are that the reduction of only 5% will result in about the same speed. 

Maybe.

Here’s something to think about: too much and/or too violent an ignition. We don’t want the primer force to dislodge the bullet or sabot/bullet and get actually a lower pressure burn or a lateral or even a burn from the bullet base back. The lighter the projectile, the looser the projectile, the shorter the powder column , the faster burning the powder(maybe) , the greater the pressure of the primer all can have negative effects.

What works for larger, heavy loads does not necessarily translate to lighter, faster powder, shorter column loads. I want an efficient powder burn, not an explosion.

Now that gun season is over, I will start retesting with my ultralite 40 with a 5x25 scope , my labradar and a target @ 300 yards. I’ll use 250g full sized bullets and various loads of VV130 and VV530. I’ll test with HIS and 0.030, 0.035 and 0.040 bushings, and with both regular and magnum primers. And will do the same with DI (mag and reg, and the various powder combinations).

The ultimate determinates will be accuracy @300 yds & cleanliness. As long as I’m between 2,700-2,850 , I’ll be pleased.

Hopefully this helped some and didn’t muddy the water.