Sussex amoury Sabo pellets

[CannonFodder]

I've got a couple of tubs of these too, great idea but rubbish really, hence they stopped making them.

I remember shooting at a piece of steel we used to use as a backstop/target holder with a BSA Meteor back in the '80's. Normal pellets would dent it, the SABO went straight through, but accuracy was pants.

I'm sure someone will want them for posterity though.

[Geezer]

No, this was a wildcat centrefire rifle round, pretty sure it was the .22/250 and the muzzle velocity was 10,000 fps, hence the ability to hit flying insects. Barrel life must have been short.

The thing you mention was described to me as a 'flechette round' by some young guy that came to my rimfire club in Fife in the 80s. He had a SPAS combat shotgun and claimed to have certain 'military rounds' for it, including some kind of 'bolo' thing with three balls held together by steel thread that would chop a man's hand off, some nasty slug the purpose of which I cannot remember, and the 'flechette' round which must have been the thing you describe. He was in the TA and lost interest in the rimfire club when we told him he couldn't fire his SPAS or his Mini-14 on the 25 yard range. He even had a black transit van, maybe he thought he was in the A-Team. I thought flechettes were the darts delivered by artillery or aircraft, but apparently they can be fired from a shotgun as well. Very nasty idea whoever thought of that one.

The SPIW programme ran from the roughly late 50s to late 60s and was aimed at producing a revolutionary military riflle, including sabot fired flechettes. It failed.

As for your acquaintance, yes, some makers offered flechettes in 12-bore, and buckshot with wire between the pellets, and weird loads that shoot fire. Some still do, in the US. But, basically, they are gimmicks. The kind of thing that a Walty SPAS-12 owner might like, given that the SPAS-12 is arguably the most Walt firearm ever made.

[eyebull]

...The thing you mention was described to me as a 'flechette round' by some young guy that came to my rimfire club in Fife in the 80s. He had a SPAS combat shotgun and claimed to have certain 'military rounds' for it, including some kind of 'bolo' thing with three balls held together by steel thread that would chop a man's hand off, some nasty slug the purpose of which I cannot remember, and the 'flechette' round which must have been the thing you describe. He was in the TA and lost interest in the rimfire club when we told him he couldn't fire his SPAS or his Mini-14 on the 25 yard range. He even had a black transit van, maybe he thought he was in the A-Team. I thought flechettes were the darts delivered by artillery or aircraft, but apparently they can be fired from a shotgun as well. Very nasty idea whoever thought of that one.

Check out 'Taofledermaus' on youtube, he shoots all kinds of nasty experimental shotgun rounds.

[Part451]

I remember reading a review of the Accelerator in Guns & Ammo. There is also somewhere an article on a necked down .22-250 which fired some kind of .10 calibre needle, apparently used for shooting dragonflies on the wing. Who would want to do that?

I thought that was an April Fool - the suggestion was licencing for needles.

[greenwayjames]

Back to Sussex Sabos. I used them in my old HW77 and found them to be accurate. It had a standard HW rifled barrel. A current test, with now no commercial interests influencing matters, would prove interesting. The story goes that the Sussex Sabo infringed certain areas of the Prometheus patent and legal action was threatened unless they were taken off the market and all tooling destroyed?

[MartynB]

This is certainly an interesting thread, I too had a pack of them but can't remember what happened to them (they may still be lurking somwhere )

[bighit]

Check out 'Taofledermaus' on youtube, he shoots all kinds of nasty experimental shotgun rounds.

Demolition Ranch did too. Though Matt has removed them all due to the changing youtube rules. Making ammunition on youtube is to be banned along with other things.


Matt explains it here https://youtu.be/pDM7EP7NAgc?t=10m20s

Flechettes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMPOGYRZ3Hw

[Hsing-ee]

Demolition Ranch did too. Though Matt has removed them all due to the changing youtube rules. Making ammunition on youtube is to be banned along with other things.


Flechettes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMPOGYRZ3Hw

The flechettes are silly.

[bighit]

The flechettes are silly.

Exotic stuff sells though . surely all the "silly" pellet designs will show this . People will buy them to see if they work and then they may become sought after in later years as the "Sabo" thread has shown.

I bet there is loads of "silly" ammunition making good money between collectors .

[gavinfdavies]

I recently paid £30 for a very full (111 pellets) tin plus an assembly pen, including post. Mainly for curio use. I did offer them AGW/AG experimental use - the offer was actually printed as a readers letter a couple of months ago!

[ballisticboy]

The flechettes are silly.

Flechettes are meant to be used in large numbers from shells, bombs etc, they are not supposed to be fired from guns. The flechette is a simple, cheap, crudely made dart which is not meant to be an accurate projectile, using numbers to achieve hits. A long rod in contrast is meant to be a single accurate projectile fired from a gun against a single target. The US work on small arms seemed to make the mistake of trying to use flechettes in place of long rods and thus could not achieve the required accuracy. Properly designed and made long rods could achieve the required levels of accuracy and simplify aiming at long ranges but would be expensive.

[dayglowfroggy]

airarmoury on vYouTube has just reviewed this .

[rhyslightnin]

Or you could try offering them up to BTDT (Jim Tyler) to give a proper modern test in springers and PCPs in his 'Bright Ideas of Yesteryear' series in Airgun World.

Now that would make a good read... He could try them in a BSA mercury with 6 inches of pre-load washers, against a transit van or a concrete filled metal dustbin

[Rickenbacker]

Tins? My Sabos came in a plastic container with a hole up the middle for my assembly pen thingy.

https://goo.gl/images/wcVx9e

Via my Webley Vulcan, they'd shoot through and through a stone building - if you could hit it.