Bullet Performance

[petey]

I shoot 240Gr Hornady XTP .44 mag (.430) Bullets with Sabots out of both my new inline and My TC Renagade Flintlock (for some time now)

I just got my Traditions Thunder Bolt this past summer and went with this combo since it's produced very good results in the past with my Flintlock. Out of the Flintlock I'm actually shooting 90 gr of 777 lose, and 100 grain of Pyrodex out of the Inline; pellets.

I've only had the opportunity to retrieve this bullet twice from deer. One came from the off shoulder hide of a 230 pound dressed "white" buck that Tom LaValle shot at Rathmel Run.

The second was from the doe I shot this past Saturday. I jumped her from her bed and she ran a little over 50 yards over a hill and turned to see what I was. Having just came from over the hill I knew my backstop. She was far enough over the ridge that all I could see was the head and neck, giving me only a forward-on shot. I place the crosshairs in the center of the neck and pulled the trigger.

The bullet entered the neck and rode the spine all the way until about 2" from the hind-quarter. Believe it or not I managed not to ruin any of those good ol' backstraps either. The result was a deer laying where she was when I shot and the bullet perfectly formed like you would see in an advertisement. I weighed the bullet and it came out to 219 grains, only losing 21 of it's orignal mass and mushrooming twice it's size. That's 91.25% retention!

This was my first with this gun but far from my first with this bullet, haven taken many with my flintlock. The mass majority never took another step. The accuracy isn't that great at a whopping 1-3/4" to 2" at 100 yards, but it sure puts them down.
Granted this doe wasn't a whopper, but meat is meat