Hornaday SST

[Upperbay]

Looking for info/ opinions. Unable to retrieve first deer this past season in many years. 100 yd shot. 100grs triple 7. Hit looked good. Very little blood which disappeared quickly. Went back next do to look again. Question now. Has anybody had issue with expansion with this sabot? I was talking with co-worker and he stopped using them because he had issues on 2 occasions where he lost deer using them. I have 3 boxes and need to make decision on whether to keep or get rid of and find replacement.

 

[Inigoes]

Lead core can always separate from the copper jackets.

I would suggest monolithic bullets. Their known issue is not expanding at lower velocities.

Hornady has the CX
Barnes has the TSX, TTSX, and LRX. LRX is the latest solution for monolithics bullets that will work with lower velocities.

 

[outrider58]

T/C Shockwaves are known killers. I have plenty of bullets removed from deer showing great expansion. I use 150g of 777(three pellets).

Do they still run that sabot 'stem' through the pellets? I never liked that idea. You need that channel open for better powder burn, I always felt.

These 250g bullets went all the way across the chest cavities, being caught just under the hide on the opposite sides. All energy was expelled inside the chest cavity.

 

[tosainu1]

You didn’t specify which weight SST? The 300 grain is great, 250 less so and the 200 even less so. I’ve been using them for over 15 years with no issues if I use the 250 or the 300 especially.

 

[Tacswa3]

I use the Hornady SST's in my 12ga deer gun, 300 grain. Only had one deer I couldn't find. I wasn't sure on the exact hit placement but had a good blood trail for a bit, but never recovered. Bagged many others with the SST's and have no complaints. If they didn't drop right there, most they went was 60 yards or so.

 

[DaveP]

Love them in shotgun, was not impressed at all with old XTPs in MLs.

Granted, I RAN from them decades ago after a few jacket separations and other failures. I'd HOPE Hornady had improved ML offerings since rhen

In inlines, our go to is Knight all lead HP over 90 gr 2F.
Taken in the neighborhood of 100 deer with this load, RARELY recover a bullet, but those we do look like this.

 

[Blacksmith101]

I LOVE MY.45 CAL 'SHROOMS !​

I LOVE MY.45 CAL 'SHROOMS !

I recovered these samples from my bullet trap while doing some shooting yesterday. These are my cast .45 Colt bullets sized to .451 final 340 grain and inserted in Harvester Crush Rib .50 sabots. Also using 100 grains of Hodgdon RS at 50 & 100 yards. I simply love the way they mushroom. I shot...

www.mdshooters.com

Be sure you are using 30% Antimony see starting at post #7 and the continuing discussion.

 

[E.Shell]

...Hit looked good. Very little blood which disappeared quickly...

Not familiar with the bullets in question, but the type of hair at the impact site and the type of blood found in the blood trail is extremely important to diagnosing hits. Different impact areas can require a differing follow-up.

"Very little blood which disappeared quickly" is normally one of two impact types:

1) Muscle hit, where no vital organs are hit. This sort of hit can be a neck, leg, shoulder, a little high, between the spine and lung, a ham, etc.... A small amount of very dark blood begins as a decent trail, but tapers off quickly to just a few drops here and there and can disappear completely. There is most often a bit of brown body hair left at the impact site. Muscle hits are seldom recovered unless a major artery is severed, but that will show a profuse amount of bright blood.

2) Gut shot, where stomach/intestinal contents and/or fat deposits can plug the wound and stop major bleeding. This starts as a small amount of blood that is often light colored and can be mixed with stomach contents and/or clear abdominal fluid. This sort of trail usually starts with sparse blood and can taper off pretty quickly, but usually doesn't stop completely. There is very often white hair found at the impact site, although a high hit that is too far back will leave dark hair. This usually calls for pulling off the trail to let the animal calm down, bed down and stiffen up. Otherwise, it becomes a game of jumping the animal off their bed, following a tough trail, then jumping the animal again when you get close. If one waits for 6-8 hours, the animal often cannot or will not get up and can be dispatched on the bed.

Bright red blood with any sort of bubbles or foam is typical of a heart/lung shot and your trail should be short.

Much can be determined while following the blood trail.
Frequency of drops compared to the gait of the animal can be telling - a fast moving animal leaving drops a few feet apart is bleeding much more heavily that a walking animal leaving the drops at the same frequency.
Note where the blood is left besides the ground.
Blood left on vegetation can give a clue as to the height of the hit, plus finding more blood to inspect can help diagnose hit location.
A very light spray of blood on the tops of higher vegetation often indicates a lung shot animal blowing mist from its nose.
Blood more than a foot off the side of the trail often indicates arterial hits, as the pressurized blood escapes when muscle and skin perforations can briefly align.
Blood drops or splashes left only at the bottom of a leap is often a peripheral muscle hit, where the animal expels a little blood on impact of landing, but bleeds little otherwise.

A good heart/lung hit will usually leave brown hair and tiny lung fragments at the site, then bright foamy blood along the trail. Anything else is suspect and should be trailed cautiously. Heart shot animals often jump/pop straight up and 'click their heels' as they take off running.

 

[Upperbay]

T/C Shockwaves are known killers. I have plenty of bullets removed from deer showing great expansion. I use 150g of 777(three pellets).

Do they still run that sabot 'stem' through the pellets? I never liked that idea. You need that channel open for better powder burn, I always felt.

View attachment 402481

These bullets went all the way across the chest cavities, being caught just under the hide on the opposite sides. All energy was expelled inside the chest cavity.

Up to this point I have used T/C mag express sabot with similar results. Getting pass through with muzzle loader isn't always the case. But when bullets expand correctly they usually aren't far. Not in this case.

 

[Upperbay]

Not familiar with the bullets in question, but the type of hair at the impact site and the type of blood found in the blood trail is extremely important to diagnosing hits. Different impact areas can require a differing follow-up.

"Very little blood which disappeared quickly" is normally one of two impact types:

1) Muscle hit, where no vital organs are hit. This sort of hit can be a neck, leg, shoulder, a little high, between the spine and lung, a ham, etc.... A small amount of very dark blood begins as a decent trail, but tapers off quickly to just a few drops here and there and can disappear completely. There is most often a bit of brown body hair left at the impact site. Muscle hits are seldom recovered unless a major artery is severed, but that will show a profuse amount of bright blood.

2) Gut shot, where stomach/intestinal contents and/or fat deposits can plug the wound and stop major bleeding. This starts as a small amount of blood that is often light colored and can be mixed with stomach contents and/or clear abdominal fluid. This sort of trail usually starts with sparse blood and can taper off pretty quickly, but usually doesn't stop completely. There is very often white hair found at the impact site, although a high hit that is too far back will leave dark hair. This usually calls for pulling off the trail to let the animal calm down, bed down and stiffen up. Otherwise, it becomes a game of jumping the animal off their bed, following a tough trail, then jumping the animal again when you get close. If one waits for 6-8 hours, the animal often cannot or will not get up and can be dispatched on the bed.

Bright red blood with any sort of bubbles or foam is typical of a heart/lung shot and your trail should be short.

Much can be determined while following the blood trail.
Frequency of drops compared to the gait of the animal can be telling - a fast moving animal leaving drops a few feet apart is bleeding much more heavily that a walking animal leaving the drops at the same frequency.
Note where the blood is left besides the ground.
Blood left on vegetation can give a clue as to the height of the hit, plus finding more blood to inspect can help diagnose hit location.
A very light spray of blood on the tops of higher vegetation often indicates a lung shot animal blowing mist from its nose.
Blood more than a foot off the side of the trail often indicates arterial hits, as the pressurized blood escapes when muscle and skin perforations can briefly align.
Blood drops or splashes left only at the bottom of a leap is often a peripheral muscle hit, where the animal expels a little blood on impact of landing, but bleeds little otherwise.

A good heart/lung hit will usually leave brown hair and tiny lung fragments at the site, then bright foamy blood along the trail. Anything else is suspect and should be trailed cautiously. Heart shot animals often jump/pop straight up and 'click their heels' as they take off running.

Blood was bright what I found. Just splatters at point of impact. Few drops for about 30 yds. Then nothing. Did grid search for next 150 yds. Still nothing. If bullet expanded proper I expected her to be down with reaction and blood color. I contributed to marginal shot till I spoke with someone else who had multiple issues same bullet. Both of us are experienced hunters.

 

[Upperbay]

You didn’t specify which weight SST? The 300 grain is great, 250 less so and the 200 even less so. I’ve been using them for over 15 years with no issues if I use the 250 or the 300 especially.

250gr

 

[tosainu1]

That’s very odd the only thing else I could think is maybe it’s the bonded ones because they may be a little less expansion and a lack of a blood trail with those

 

[wgttgw]

The .452 SST muzzleloader bullet was tweaked and is now used in one of their factory offerings for the 450 bushmaster. I don't know for sure but I think it's the same bullet as TC uses in the Shockwave.

I shot the SST into water jugs this past season before opening day because there was a lot of talk about the bullet not expanding and being made more for the 450 bushmaster.

With 100 gr of pyrodex The 250 gr SST bullet expanded but did shed it's jacket. The core was found in the fifth gallon jug. The jacket in the forth.

I shot a 10 point opening morning. He ran approx 100 yards and dropped just after crossing through a turn row between 2 fields. No blood trail to speak of, but looked like a blood bath where he fell.

It did the job but would have liked a better blood trail but honestly I have never have good blood with a muzzleloader. I've used lead balls, maxi ball, SST, XTP, TC, Winchester Sliver tips and power belts. All kill but if they aren't DRT they test my tracking skills for sure.

 

[Jerry M]

A little fat and the exit wound gets blocked. Deer bleeds out 'internally '. I've been on more then one track where the blood trail petered out. But a continued search found a dead deer.