.22 bullets in .308 sabots

[Frank in the Laurels]

...God I remember BigGreen I think trying this back in the 70's with a variety of cartridges..didn't last long, no one came to the party if my old memory is correct..

 

[Gary in MD]

Yea, there is a reason why it didn't stick around.
Just buy yourself a good 22-250 and enjoy

 

[19elkhunter51]

When I was a lot younger I couldn't afford a dedicated varmint rifle. The Remington sabot 22/30-06 had rocket like velocity and was cheaper than a new rifle. Paid the blood money for a box of the fancy rocket bullets and went to the range. Wasn't looking for MOA at two thousand yards, just something out to maybe three hundred. Well I wasted a couple of days trying to get them on paper. Best I could do at a hundred was minute of foot. Not only did they not shoot, the made a gooey, sticky mess of my barrel. Didn't try again and started saving for a dedicated varmint rifle.

 

[Critter Picker]

I still remember the Remington "accelerator " in 30-06 and .308. Was kind of a flash in the pan. I always thought the accuracy would be questionable, bt it would be untraceable for forensics.

 

[hrhunter]

I still have a box of Accelerators in 308 from the 80's. I couldn't hit anything with them in my 788. It was a good idea but didn't work.

 

[Nimrodmar10]

I guess my question would be why? Why not just load a .308 110 gr. Varmint bullet

 

[19elkhunter51]

I did use a bunch of the 110's and the 125's. My problem was with performance and ricocheting bullets. Neither of the two "varmint" bullets were as frangible as a 55 grain 22 caliber bullet. Although I was always aware of my backstop I just didn't like the fact that once that bullet passed through an animal, I didn't know where the bullet would end up.

 

[hawlejr]

We had a young man join our youth hunt a couple years ago. He showed up with his grandfathers 742 '06 with a box of the old Remington Saboted ammo. I tried to convince him not to use them and we would sight his rifle in with 150gr ammo I had.

All I could think of was a wounded animal if he happen to connect. Since he was too young (14 yo) to hunt alone, one of our guys took him out.
The plan was to back him up with a 308 in case he connected.

He got an opportunity on a nice 8 point buck, connected at 80 yards. Dropped him like a ton of bricks. We were all shocked and happy for him.

So they do work, not something I would ever be interested in. But the proof is in the pudding.

I'm surprised the rounds would cycle the autoloader's action. They generally don't have much recoil as the payload is 1/3 of a normal .308 projectile. That said, I'm not surprised that it dumped the deer at 80 yards. The speed of the bullet rivals a .220 Swift, and 80 yards is ....well, 80 yards. My objective is to get a 2" group at 100 yards. Then it will be good enough for coyote hunting the way we do it with a call. All shots are within 100 yards.

 

[aschler]

I guess my question would be why? Why not just load a .308 110 gr. Varmint bullet

The ballistics would be better for a sub-caliber bullet of the same weight assuming you could get it to fly true.

 

[memtb]

I've been trying various .22 cal varmint bullets in .308 sabots. Accuracy and stability have been somewhat horrible! I've tried ramping up the velocity to over 4000 fps and even used some pistol powders to get it down to less than 2000 fps. Longer bullets (>65 gr) keyhole badly, which I understand because my 30-06 is 1-10" twist, but even the little 40 gr bullets are all over the place. I remember from the dim dark past that Jim Carmichel of "Outdoor Life" fame was able to give the things a thumbs up. Anyhoo, looking for any experience/advice I can get.

Over the past "many" years….I've never heard of anyone being satisfied with their accuracy!

But, I will wish you Good Luck! memtb