Browning A-Bolt Gold and Rem Buckhammers

[mparks]

I did some shooting with the A-bolt slug gun awhile back and finally got around to scanning some targets.  Pretty good shooting gun with the right slugs. After 4 or 5 boxes of Winchester Supreme Partition Golds that shot great in the Marlin, I couldn't figure out why 2-3" at 50y was the best I could do(that was expensive at $12/box!). I bought a box of the new Remington Buckhammer's and whala, cloverleaf groups.  I gotta say those Buckhammer's cut a pretty hole in a target.  About like 1 1/4 oz wadcutter.  Take about a meplate!  The Lightfields were just about as good accuracy-wise.

Here's a 5 shot group.  I think the recoil got to me and I flinched that flyer out of the group:


I was a little suprised that the big 1+ ounce slugs out performed the smaller 385 grain Winchester slugs.  

My Marlin 512B has a twist of 1 in 28" and likes the 385 gr Win slugs but wouldn't shoot the big 1 1/8 and 1 1/4 oz slugs like Lightfield and the Buckhammer. The A-bolt has a 1 in 35" twist and is the opposite. It did best with Buckhammers and Lightfields.

Must be something wierd with the sabots. Generally, a faster twist is needed to stabalize bigger bulltes. By the perfect holes those Buckhammer's cut I'd say they're plenty well stabalized!
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[TH]

mparks,
  I had the same problem in my 870 Wingmaster with a Hastings barrel with a 1 in 34" twist.  I could only get about a 5-6 in group with the Partition Golds and a three shot group with Hornaday H2K's (300 gr) resulted in only one hole in the paper (Ouch!!!).  When I tried the heavier sabots (Lightfields and Winchester BRI sabots) I was able to shot <1.5 groups at 50 yards.  The only thing I can figure is that the lower twist rate, 1 in 34" versus 1 in 28", is not enough to stabilize the lighter rounds at the higher velocities.  I looked long and hard for a high twist rate barrel for my 870 for just this reason but could not find one.  Oh well, I think it will be interesting to see the poor deer's reaction that is on the recieving end of one of the Lightfields I am going to use!!

Trace