Some hunters need a devoted rifle for each goal. Others say they like a single gun that may do absolutely anything. Most of us land someplace within the center, however Remington was aiming for the one-gun crowd when it launched the .22 Accelerator in 1977.
The .22 Accelerator stuffed a 55-grain, .224-caliber soft-point bullet right into a .30-06 Springfield cartridge. But it surely didn’t modify the neck dimension of the aught-six. As an alternative, it fitted the bullet right into a 7-grain, six-fingered, plastic sabot after which loaded that bullet and sabot into a normal .30-06 case.
This design allowed the consumer to fireside super-fast, .22-caliber drugs from the .30-06 rifle they already owned. With the discharge of .30-30 and .308 Win. variations in subsequent years, the .22 Accelerator gave hunters the power to chase all the pieces from moose to prairie canine with a single rifle.
“Now your 30-30 deer gun can double as a varmint gun. With the ballistics of a .222 Rem.,” reads a 1979 Remington catalogue. “For less than pennies extra per cartridge, you may broaden your rifle’s game-getting potential. And your looking or goal taking pictures enjoyment.”
How Did It Work?
Sabots are a little bit just like the wad utilized in a shotgun shell. However as a substitute of cupping a cost of BBs, a rifle sabot cups a single projectile. Shotgun and muzzleloader hunters are most likely extra accustomed to this idea than anybody else. Sabot rounds are one of the crucial widespread sorts of muzzleloader projectiles, they usually can be loaded in a shotgun shell and fired–precisely sufficient–by means of a rifled barrel.
The sabot, reasonably than the bullet, contacts the rifling and spins the projectile to realize stability in flight. Upon exiting the barrel, the sabot within the Accelerator separates from the bullet about 14 inches from the muzzle and may be discovered 40 to 100 yards downrange, in accordance with “Cartridges of the World.”
As you may anticipate, the Accelerator did certainly speed up bullet velocities above and past the unique cartridge. In keeping with a 1979 Remington ammunition catalogue, the .30-06 Accelerator may push that 55-grain bullet a whopping 4,080 feet-per-second (fps). The .30-30 model clocked in at 3,400 fps, which continues to be quicker than most .223 Remington masses utilizing the identical projectile.
Remington management understandably surmised that giving hunters the power to show their .30-30 into an efficient varmint rifle can be an especially engaging proposition. The corporate launched a number of variations after the unique .30-06, and the idea appeared destined for business success.
Not Properly Sufficient
Alas, that was not the case. The Accelerator line suffered from a number of maladies that, so far as I can inform, restricted its manufacturing run. It was launched in 1977 and was nonetheless going robust in 1980, in accordance with a listing from that 12 months, which listed the .30-06 and .30-30 variations. The .30-30 was highlighted in that catalogue as “new for 1980,” so I assume it continued manufacturing for a number of years after that.
But it surely wasn’t destined for greatness. Accuracy was essentially the most often cited drawback with the Accelerator. Because the rifling interfaces with the sabot reasonably than the bullet, some customers reported inconsistent bullet rotation. This might generally trigger the bullet to wobble or tumble mid-flight, which is rarely a recipe for constant groupings.
Not everybody reported accuracy points. In truth, Frank Barnes’ expertise was that the Accelerator rounds wouldn’t shoot a lot worse than a normal cartridge out of the identical gun.
“The Accelerator cartridges seem to group about the identical as the usual .30-caliber cartridge does in the identical rifle. That is simply what the manufacturing facility says it would do. In different phrases, in case your rifle ordinarily makes 3-inch five-shot teams at 100 yards, it isn’t going to do any higher with the Accelerator,” writes the writer in “Cartridges of the World.”
This was fantastic for taking coyotes at 75 yards, however turned extra of an issue focusing on prairie canine at 300. Whereas the “varmint rifle” idea is fluid, hunters are normally searching for one thing that shoots small bullets rapidly and precisely. The Accelerator checked the primary field however generally struggled with the second. A rifle that shoots three-inch teams at 100 yards most likely received’t be making many pictures on a squirrel-sized critter at distances a lot past that.
Rifle shooters additionally weren’t followers of the plastic fouling left behind by the sabots. Plastic, being a lot softer than metal, doesn’t harm the barrel by itself. However some nervous that plastic fouling may lure moisture, which could result in corrosion.
I’m undecided whether or not this concern had any actual advantage. However in case you had been already on the fence concerning the Accelerator, studying a couple of new materials to scrub out of the bore gave hunters one more reason to offer Remington’s new rounds a cross.
Some have additionally claimed that the federal government and anti-gun activists pressured Remington to halt manufacturing as a result of fears concerning the bullets being untraceable. Because the sabot contacted the rifling and never the bullet, the speculation went, forensic ballisticians can be unable to review rifling marks and decide which rifle a bullet got here from.
Whereas I haven’t been capable of finding any proof to again this up, it sounds just like the form of argument the gun management foyer would have made. In any case, they tried to persuade lawmakers within the Eighties that “plastic weapons” like Glocks must be banned as a result of they had been invisible to metallic detectors (they weren’t). Calling the Accelerators an “murderer’s bullet,” as I’ve seen claimed, appears proper according to that tactic.
The place Are They Now?
Nonetheless, I don’t suppose Remington stopped manufacturing as a result of strain from the federal government. Extra probably, they stopped manufacturing as a result of the Accelerators had been questionably correct and didn’t fill an actual want. A devoted .223 Rem. or .22-250 rifle is way more efficient, and a reloader can work up a reasonably good varmint load utilizing light-weight .30-caliber bullets.
That being stated, in case you’re intrigued by the concept, you may nonetheless get your arms on previous packing containers of Accelerator cartridges. Web sites like GunBroker normally have some on the market, although you’ll pay between $40-$80 for a field of 20.
You can too roll your individual. You should purchase the sabots by themselves, and with a bullet seater and case neck expander, you’ll be properly in your option to creating your individual .22 Accelerator cartridges.
And who is aware of? Relying in your proficiency on the reloading bench, you might clear up a few of Remington’s accuracy points and create an actual big-game/varmint do-it-all rifle.
