Sabot bullet tumbled out of barrel?

[conwaydave]

My son and I decided to shoot our Bighorn's yesterday. We put up a sheet of plywood about a 100' out, I shot and was OK with shot, my son shot, and his sabot bullet made a perfect bullet impression through the sheet of plywood.
It blew right through, but you could tell it hit sideways. Any ideas?

[Dan-o]

Did it sound normal - no pffffft sound?

I was just wondering if you got a good BOOM and standard velocity?   What causes bullets to tumble:
  *  Lack of adequate velocity to stabilize.
  *  Wacky right from the get go (pardon my use of technical jargon).

I can't think of any other reasons bullets tumble, but I'm no expert.

I just know a few times I got the slow burn (the pffffft) and my bullet tumbled.

[et1702]

How old is your son?  Did you load a smaller charge in his gun?  Low velocity is usually what causes tumble.

ET

[Sabotloader]

My son and I decided to shoot our Bighorn's yesterday. We put up a sheet of plywood about a 100' out, I shot and was OK with shot, my son shot, and his sabot bullet made a perfect bullet impression through the sheet of plywood.
It blew right through, but you could tell it hit sideways. Any ideas?

I think I can tell you what happened but I can tell you why it happened without more information.  Was the shot 100' or 100 yds?

What happened? - the bullet failed to stabilize, it never reached a rotations speed fast enough to spin it without wobble or tumbling.

Why... not enough powder, bullet to loose in the bore, bullet to long for the twist even possible the sabot could have failed...

Guess we need more information..

[conwaydave]

It was 100 ft. that is the only for-sure answer to some of the questions. I could understand that it could be a number of things! We will have to shoot again and see what happens. I thought I would throw it out there today because I thought it was pretty strange. It's OK though, every time we shoot our ML's we learn something new!

[Sabotloader]

It was 100 ft. that is the only for-sure answer to some of the questions. I could understand that it could be a number of things! We will have to shoot again and see what happens. I thought I would throw it out there today because I thought it was pretty strange. It's OK though, every time we shoot our ML's we learn something new!

I guess the only thing that I might think is strange is that you did not notice something strange before you looked at the hole in the board.  I guess I am thinking there might/shoud have been a pre-warning... like oh-oh!! there was something wrong with that shot.

It really would be interesting to see if it happens again.

But then again let's hope not...