Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Muzzleloaders Barnes XPB in sabots

Anybody used the .429 200gr or 225gr XPB with BH209?? Would use them with the Harvester Crusher sabots in a CVA Optima. Partly because wife will use a low end load plus at full power even the 200 shouldn't have any problem breaking bone on deer. The 200gr TC Shockwave totally grenaded on a high neck spine shot on the last buck I shot so it's out. Deer was down but revived quickly and did quite a bit of dragging & flopping with the front legs before I ended things with a knife.

I had problems with poor ignition in two different guns using the .451s and Harvester Crush Rib sabots. T-EZs worked fine in both guns, for whatever reason. I'll use 777 or BP for the rest.

Another similar choice is the Fed Bor-Lok. My son just sighted in a TC Impact with those with no issue for his Colorado Elk Hunt. Whatamart has them for $19.95 per 15. They're all copper as well, and very easy to load.

Well got some XPBs and Harvester Crush Rib sabots on order and headed my way from MidSouth Shooter's Supply HERE . XPBs are .429 diameter and 200gr. Will be putting them on top of two BlackHorn209 loads in two different CVA Optima V2 muzzleloaders. One to approximate a .44 Mag low recoil load with BH209 and the other full up 84 weighed grains of BH209. Maybe a little more. The low end loads will be for my wife and the others for myself or my son. As I said before I need a low recoil load but the 200gr ShockWave (Hornady SST) didn't do well whacking the spinal process, upper ribs of the neck spine, at max load on a 170 #ish whitetail buck last year. It disappeared in a cloud of bone chips, lead powder & bits of copper, and shredded venison. Hope to do some shooting either this weekend or next. Minute of deer will be sufficient within a 150 yd perimeter.

Max loads of BH209 are a puzzlement to me. Max loads are stated by the manufacrturer but with seemingly no regard to bullet & sabot weight. Just my simple way of viewing things, but seems MAX LOAD would differ between 300 gr and 200 gr projectiles. But no, they are listed as the same charge weight. ??????? Black powder idiosyncrasies? extended to BP substitutes??

Should have got the regular Harvester EZ-Load sabots for that bullet. I use them often with the 45cal version of the XPB in a tight bore. They still load pretty easy. Lands in that rifle are exactly .500. 50x44 sabots compress a tiny bit more so they feel even easier to load. Most of the people i know use the Harvester smooth sabots instead of crushribs in the CVAs with great success.
https://www.midsouthshooterssupply....44-caliber-240-300-grain-bullets-50-pack

Have used the .50/.45 smooth Harvester sabot with Hornady 250gr SST. Found them to be overly snug especially for a reload on a ladder stand. That in both stainless and nitride barrel.

Barnes XPB and Harverstr sabots delivered today. First time I've examined these .429 200gr bullets. Holy cow what a hollow point. Reminds me of the old Flying Ashtray.45 ACP rounds. I think they might expand. Should get to run some Friday or Saturday.

SST is a .452 bullet. The 45cal XPB is not. Its only .451 at its largest point. All Barnes tend to run a bit smaller.

Neither of my rifles have lands at .500 Maybe yours is different. The ribbed sabot with .429 XPB loaded measures .505 at the bullet base just ahead of the sabot web. IIRC the green sabot base is .503. Best I can measure the barrel grove diameter with calipers they run .500 to .501. Pretty sure the load will seal. Hornady .45s in the black Harvester slick sabot measure .509 same place. While I was measuring I checked the TC Shock Wave.50/.40 with 200gr SST. It measured .511 at the bullet base across the petals. Tough loading but I don't know what sabot they use.

Not sure how you are getting those measurements but they are much larger than what i and others get. T/C uses the MMP blue sabot for their 50x40 sabot. Harvester offers a smaller one in a blue crushrib.

Lands are the smaller measurement and grooves are the larger in a bore. This would be a typical 50cal bore but lands are often larger. CVA barrels are usually in the .501 range plus or minus .0005 on the lands. My 50cal is a custom hand lapped barrel. Spot on .500 lands verified with pin gauges. A Harvester smooth black and a .4505 bullet loads smooth as silk in that barrel. A small woman could load that combo in mine.


All the Harvester black and green sabots run around .503-.504 loaded. Crushribs will load easier though than the smooth sabots. Never seen a Harvester black/green smooth or crushrib even remotely close to .509 loaded unless you use a .458 bullet.

I'm getting the measurements with a digital caliper. Zero then measure the sabot loaded or unloaded with the wide portions of the jaws as close as possible to the caliper shaft. Measuring the groove diameter with the blade portion of the jaws as deep into the muzzle as it will go without contacting the muzzle itself or riding up on the lands. Better ways to do it but seriously doubt I'm off by 10 thou. And I'm not going by a chart. The numbers are real sabots and real bullets actually measured. Don't particularly give a chit what buster n biggy show on paper. With Hornady 250 gr SST and the black Harvester sabots I bought our numbers don't match. When inserting a .452 SST into the black Harvester the petals can be observed spreading. And everything I've stated concerning that combination is based on one 50 pack of sabots and one box of Hornady bullets.

"All" and "Never" in my life experience never seem to cover all of anything.

i've used the 225 grain .429 XPB bullet in the crush rib sabot. That bullet does a great job on 200 -300 pound wild hogs. The powder i use is Black MZ.

Im sure it works but the issue here is the powder used and the rifle its used in. The Harvester green smooth sabot has a good track record in the newer CVAs and he is using Blackhorn powder. Just to play it safe, tighter is better with Blackhorn and i doubt he will achieve the same accuracy with the crushrib sabot. If the smooth green sabot is too tight, something is probably not right or at least not the norm for a CVA.