What now seems like a long time ago, I had a conversation with Del Ramsey, owner/op, of MMP sabots. I thought at the time I was making a simple request. I wanted him to build a sabot that I could use in a 1-20 twist 45 cal. rifle with heavy charges of powder and heavy long 40 cal. bullets. Really I did not think it was an unreasonable request, Del did try to educate me though. I really did no know that it would take a completely different mold to construct this new 'Super Sabot' and I did not know that it could cost in the area of $10,000 to get a new sabot on line. Then to top that off while the 45 is Del's favorite cal., that is not so for America. The 45 cal. rifle is far below the demand for 50 cal. sabots. The percentage is extremely low. Because of this it would be very difficult re-coup the money spent on the development of the 'Super Sabot' considering the demand for this sabot would be limited to the long heavy 40 cal. bullets which very few companies offer. PR bullets, Barnes, and Lehigh/Bloodlines are the three that come to mind. I did send Del some of the longer Lehigh 40x200 grain and 40x230 grain bullets as examples of the bullets I needed the sabot for.
I was somewhat disappointed in my efforts and Del's explanation... but a few months later Del called and suggested that he might have a way to get the project off the ground. Really surprised me that he would respond to a request that might not even work, but he wanted to try it.
Fast forward to last month and Del calls again and says he has the mold ready and just needed time to run some test sabots. He was operating at full bore filling contract orders and did not know when he would be able to run them.
Well, last week another phone call and then a few days later a package of sabots were left at the door. The next day I headed to the farm...
The new red 'Super 40 Sabot' seem to be the real deal... I actually was trying to blow them up at least cause a failure - but of the shots that I took all of them hit their marks.
I did collect the sabots and as you look at the picture you can see that the very outer thin rim of the powder cup took a hit when they came out of the muzzle. But no matter how bad the sabot might look it did not effect accuracy of the bullet.
Now the
BAD news, MMP only made a very limited amount of these sabots for testing purposes. All of the sabots that Del had have been sent to other shooters for testing and there are not any left in stock.
More
BAD news, because if the limited demand that Del might get for these sabots, he is not sure if he can offer them as a regular product.
Good news... and depending what the other shooters report, from my pictures Del thinks he can thicken the outer-most rim of the sabot and reduce or possibly eliminate the fracturing of the edge that is happening.
Right now I am impressed with the results...
