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Picture Page

January 2012

Ballistic Research Industries sabot bullet cartridges......

A couple of weeks ago, a gentleman was kind enough to send me a group of cartridges and several cartridge boxes that he had accumulated while serving as the production manager of Ballistic Research Industries (BRI), a small California ammunition company that was involved in developing sabot bullet cartridges. BRI was eventually bought out by Winchester Corp.

I include here his remarks regarding the company and its products, his descriptions of the items he sent, and a Guns and Ammo article that discusses the company and its products which he found on the internet.

Without bravado, I feel we pioneered a new era of shotgun slug hunting. With a scoped rifled shotgun barrel, 3" groups of 5 were the norm at 125 yards. A regular iron sight smooth bore in our guns yielded 3" groups at 50 - 75 yards. Much depended on the shooter, as always; on some days I may as well have thrown rocks. I will give a brief background of BRI.

I was a local ammunition reloader commercially in Santa Cruz, California in the late 1970's. I was contacted by a San Jose attorney to inquire about partnering with him to develop the BRI sabot round, which he had acquired from the original inventors, and which still needed improvement. Later, I became a partner with him and another person in developing and marketing this product. It was a trying process to fine tune it to achieve the needed results. Just changing the dye color of the sabot produced a variance in accuracy. We had many colors; neutral worked best in 12 gauge, but sucked in 20 gauge as I discovered later. A year later we were ready with the final product, later expanding to 20 gauge, also. We tested many cases, settling on Fiocchi, who also offered to design a much needed upgraded loader. Fiocchi engineers designed our loading machine for heavy production around their shell cases, which we purchased from them with our logo and headstamp. Our operator and I went to Italy for 3 weeks of training on the machine when it was ready. They were wonderful folks at the plant. We were treated to a very in-depth tour of the munitions plant, as well as various cultural outings after hours. If you don't drink wine, you might as well jump under a bus.

During production years I focused on quality control and testing at the range. Firing hundreds of rounds a week which was not always a pleasure, especially the magnums, continually testing various guns, components, and powders. Experimenting was enjoyable generally though. We had many letters from hunters who recounted satisfactory hunts of game for which the round was not intended nor recommended. Grizzlies, African game, and some I would not want to hunt with anything. This was a deer slug, but the penetration was indeed impressive. The mainstay was the 12 gauge round but the 20 gauge was a close second, very accurate and a light recoil. The 16 ga. was almost impossible to make conform to acceptable standards for accuracy. Many times I wanted to trash it but we had to get it to work. After getting a new component for wad composition, it was on track and acceptable. Subsequently, Winchester bought the corporation and I went on to other things.

I have not followed any shotgun slug development since those days, shotgun ammunition just has never held my interest at all. I have not saved many materials, regrettably, just a few items:
Photo #1 (with his descriptions):
   1. On the left, a red sabot armor piercing projectile developed for police. At 100 yards this would penetrate a 1/4 inch steel plate . This one is missing the base plug. The plug lightened the tail for better trajectory on any slug,
   2. In the middle, the white sabot slug is the standard configuration for a regular deer slug, also missing the plug. This slug is not as shiny and bright as our standard slug was; this is actually a reject.
   3. On the right is a Gualandi slug designed by an engineer at the Fiocchi Ammunition plant in Italy, as I was informed. This was a very accurate round up to125 yards . We loaded this also and marketed it as the12, 20 and 16 gauge Gualandi.

.

Photo # 2:
1. Uncrimped 12 gauge AP - The APs were only available in 3 inch magnum.

2. Uncrimped 12 gauge BRI Gualandi cartridge.
3. Crimped 12 gauge Gualandi loaded at the Fiocchi plant

4. Crimped 12 gauge BRI deer sabot slug, 3 inch magnum.
5. Yellow hulled 20 gauge BRI 3 inch magnum sabot slug
6. 410 gauge - This is a round ball on a piston wad. We did not have a real market in the sabot design, just was not practical, but so many wholesalers wanted " something" in 410 so we selected this design.

Photo # 3:
1. An empty blue hulled 16 gauge case. This was never very popular, but again our dealers pressed for it so we made it.
2. A green tubular slug in a very unusual design. I got a few boxes of these in Italy, very accurate at 25 feet (lol) with nice light recoil.

The two BRI 12 gauge (.500) sabot bullet boxes pictured below are early examples that were obtained by the gentleman who sent me the cartridges from the original inventors of the sabot slug cartridge, Ward L. Kelly and William L. McAlvain. Kelly and McAlvain filed the patent application for their sabot bullet on May 10th, 1970, receiving their patent on April 10th, 1973. I have included the patent drawing and specifications below, also. The labeling on these boxes suggest that they were produced sometime prior to 1963, based on the lack of a 'keep out of reach of children warning' and the company address with no zip code.. The US Government mandated the use of this warning on all ammunition sold in this country beginning in 1962. In addition, there is no zip code in the company address; Zip codes were required by the US Postal Service beginning in 1963. This may indicate that Kelly and AcAlvain began work on their design at least 8 years prior to applying for their patent. Note that the labeling on both boxes fails to include a patent number or any indication that a patent had been applied for. The shells in both boxes are headstamped REMINGTON PETERS 12 GA.

The following is the 1984 Guns and Ammo article:

BRI 12 gauge .500 sabot bullets.

Ballistic Research Industries is now producing a 440-grain .50 caliber bullet that is loaded into a shotgun shell. Made in 12 gauge only, the BRI 12 Gauge/.500 has many advantages to offer over an ordinary shotgun slug .

The BRI projectile is better described as a bullet than a slug, since it more nearly resembles a bullet in both design and performance. The BRI bullet is encased in a two-piece plastic sleeve (sabot) that separates and falls away after firing, allowing the bullet to continue down range on its own. The sabot expands slightly under the force of firing, sealing the bore and centering the bullet precisely in the barrel. Bullet shape is critical, since it does not rotate, but is stabilized aerodynamically in flight. Wasp-waisted in shape, BRI bullets utilize air flow over their rear sections to achieve flight stability.

BRI bullets have over twice the sectional density of a typical shotgun slug. Sectional density of the BRI is .251, versus about .107 for a common slug. What this means is that the BRI will retain its velocity longer, and have more energy remaining at the target. In fact, at all ranges from zero to 300 yards, BRI bullets deliver more energy than a .45-70, .44 Remington Magnum, .300 Savage, .30 Remington or .30-30 Winchester--to name a few. A hard lead alloy is used for making BRI bullets that assures adequate penetration. The flattened conical tip of BRI bullets imparts maximum shock, yet contributes to good overall aerodynamic performance.

Accuracy is far superior to the typical rifled slug. One-inch groups were the norm at 50 yards from our Remington Model 1100 Slug Barrel Many hunting rifles could do no better.

BRI claims 1,500 feet per second (fps) for their 12 Gauge/.500 bullet, so we decided to check this out on our own custom Chronograph Model 900. We found, however, that it was necessary to move the chronograph screens down range about 25 feet to keep the departing sabots away from the screens' sensitive areas. If the chrono intercepts a sabot, a false reading is assured. An instrumental velocity average of 1,228 fps was recorded. For comparison, a Federal slug was clocked at 1,378 fps, while a Remington stepped out at 1,420 fps. BRI makes a hotter load, for police use only, that registered 1,313 fps. When corrected for distance from the muzzle, chronographed results will not quite yield a muzzle velocity of 1,500 fps for the BRI bullet, but it is not too far off the mark.

Components (bullets, sabots and wads) are available for the handloader, so we just had to load up a few rounds to see how they worked. Since full investigation of pressures developed in the loads that were used has not been carried out, the author is reluctant to make specific recommendations of powder charges for BRI projectiles. We did, however, achieve velocities greater than those of loads without obvious signs of excess pressure.

An experienced reloader should have no difficulty loading BRI components. Loading is quite simple. A cardboard wad and a plastic gas-seal wad are used between powder and sabot. The loaded column is held in place by a roll crimp which we applied with a Lyman crimping tool .

BRI 12 Gauge/.500 shells should be fired only from barrels with choked cylinder or improved cylinder, according to the manufacturer. Firing in a full choked barrel is definitely not recommended.

Loaded shells and components are available from Ballistic Research Industries, Dept. GA, 6000B Soquel Ave.,Santa Cruz CA 95062.

COPYRIGHT 1984 InterMedia Outdoors, Inc.
Copyright 1984 Gale, Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.