Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Muzzleloaders Sabot Question

I received a .50 cal Wolf 209 Magnum from my employer for Christmas in 2006. I'm more of a bowhunter, but I used it to take a couple deer when I had arm surgery years ago. It took a while to find a load that shot well, but when I did it was surprisingly accurate for a cheap gun. It was 90 grains by volume of loose 777, a 777 primer, and a 250 gr Knight Red Hot. Spit patch, dry patch and it was dead-on every time.

Because of OTC tag availability, season dates and my work schedule, I am hoping to hunt with it again next month. I bought 250 grain Barnes Expander MZ's, which I believe to be the same projectile, but I can't get them to group worth a darn. The only difference that I can see is the sabot. The old load had an orange "EZ Load," these have a black one that, indeed, requires a bit more effort to load.

I've been on the MMP website and can't find an orange sabot. The Knight Red Hots seem to be discontinued. I have not measured the bore diameter of my rifle, but I am seating them at the same depth as I used to. I tried 300 grainers with the same black sabot; no bueno.

Anybody got any suggestions? Thanks in advance.

240 gr 44cal xtp green sabot tried n tru

They were on sale at Midway, so I ordered two boxes. If memory serves, I think that I may have used those to get two deer about 14 years ago. Thanks for the suggestion.

The MMP sabots are their high pressure line of sabots and are for bullets .458 in diameter:

https://mmpsabots.com/store/orange-hph-sabot50-pcs/

try a lead bullet with out a sabot

Have you looked at the Harvester website to see if maybe those sabots are from them?

Thank you!

Plus, U need to find the sabots after shooting them and see how they are torn up or not, if all leafs are intact, load is probally good, if a petal or 2 are torn off then some adjustment either up or down in the load is called for...I like the gray sabots in my wolf

Thanks, I'll try that. It looks like NE sold out of ML tags, so it might be next year.

Stupid question #2: I thought that I had two types of primers in possibles bag, standard copper/silver colored Winchesters and nickel/black 777's. Upon closer inspection, some of the former seem to have a red coating or seal on the inside face of the primer. Almost looks like waterproofing. Is that a third brand/type of primer? Thanks in advance.