View attachment 245836
Heres an image of a xtp that had slowed to a modest velocity that retained most of its weight. Right around 238 or so grains if memory serves me correctly.
Charge was 42g of SR4759 and a MMP HP sabot. Energy dump was also sufficient to grass a mature whitetail inside 40 yards at about 192 paces.
Blood loss was almost non evident where impact occurred and fortunately tracking wasn't difficult due to soft ground conditions and because of the short distance the animal traveled before completely expiring.
There was a small bit of blood puddling on recovery but no extraordinary amount of sign that would have allowed difficult tracking measures to be overcome in other circumstances, such as the intermittent presence of water or heavy foliage/overgrowth like in a cut over during darkness.
I do not recall measuring how much the bullet expanded outside of its original diameter because I felt it had worked as intended. What I did do was weigh it, capture an image for comparison and throw it in the dross pot to reclaim the metal.
Other bullets of this type have displayed complete separation of jacket and core with substantial degradation,combined with substantial loss of retained weight. This has become evident when bullet strike has occurred at an angle at reduced ranges, or when they have impacted dense shoulder tissue or bone.
I love my Savage, it's the reason I adopted my screen name 10 years ago on a different forum. The 9 pt I shot this year was taken with that rifle. the bore is really tight on mine I really have to work to push a regular mmp sabot down the tube. I bought their thinner wall black sabot I'm going to try now that this load has been shot. I was lucky enough to buy a 2nd one a friend of mine was trying to sell a few years back for $450 and used it to take a 4 pt last year.