Harvester 260gr PT Gold

Due to our state laws, we are not able to use sabots during muzzle loading season in Colorado. Now i still like to get an assortment of popular selling bullets sold these days and so i contacted Harvester after reading some bad information on these bullets. These bullets supposedly exploded into hundreds of tiny little pieces in ballistic gel.

Well, Ballistic gel is very expensive and so i take advantage of our poor quality southern Colorado sandy soil. Making sure i get out as many imperfections "Small rocks and twigs" as possible, i fill up a Five gallon sand bucket, add a couple gallons of water and stir it up into a nice wet mixture. Sand of course is much harder on Bullets than say Ballistic Gel, but when you have plenty of it and its free, you use whats handy.

Once i received the 260gr PT Gold bullets and Crush Rib sabots for testing, i decided to use my brothers CVA Accura V2, Set up a new Birchwood Casey Dirty Bird target and see how they shot before i did any testing.

Starting at 100 grains of Blackhorn209 i was able to shoot a decent group at 153 yards, but i figured it was worth a few shots with 110gr Blackhorn209.

I was happy that i did because my group improved greatly, down to 1 1/4" with two shots touching. I didn't think it could get much better.

Taking the rifle back to the 50 yard range i went and loaded up a smaller sized Three gallon plastic bucket with a cement like mixture of sand-water and proceeded to take one shot so i could recover a bullet shot at a much closer distance. I wish i had been filming because that bucket shot straight up into the air and flew back a couple feet after it was all over with.

I sadly was disappointed once i saw that half the face of the bucket had been blown off, half of the sand thrown about in small chunks and a nickel size exit hole to top it off, in the back of the bucket. I don't think i ever have lost a bullet when shooting into this mixture.

Wanting to see if i could increase the Accura V2's accuracy even more, my brother and i decided to up the charge from 110 grains, to 120 grains Blackhorn209 just for giggles and see how accuracy would be. This is called a Magnum load and normally do not provide the most accuracy, but it is well worth trying. My brothers Three shot group at 153 yards measured under 3/4"! Never count the Magnum Load out until you actually give it a try in your rifle. Accuracy so far has not been an issue in the Accura v2!

Update: March 31 2011, Even though im sick, i had a real bad itch to go shooting and see if i could catch a bullet. I set up a Five gallon bucket that thankfully was already filled with clean sand and decided to use my Nephews CVA Wolf with 110gr Blackhorn209, CCI 209 Magnum Primers, 260gr Harvester PT Gold in a Long Black Crush Rib sabot. Starting off at 100 yards i took Two shots and went to recover the bullets. Again, dumbfounded as they passed completely though my sand bucket! I don't know how the heck i am going to stop these bullets but i think having two five gallon buckets lined up in a row, i probably would have better luck.

Looking behind my target i was able to recover the Two bullets on the ground! Happy as heck that i was at least able to recover them even though one had smashed into some near by sand stone rock, But even then, it retained 212 grains!

The best bullet recovered "pictured" weighed 224 grains and

was found Approx.
Four feet behind the sand bucket.

After recovering the Two bullets, i decided to take a 50 yard shot into the same sand bucket and see if i could recover it now that i had the bigger five gallon sand bucket. Like the first test at 50 yards, when i walked up to the bucket, there was no bullet to be found. I will need to upgrade my sand buckets and make them a little more heavier duty it looks like, especially when shooting the PT Gold's!