Powerbelt Bullets versus Plastic Covered Sabots in Muzzleloaders

It's a little late in the year to be writing about muzzleoaders, but there was one topic I failed to mention during the hunting season that I wanted to touch upon: What's the best bullet to use in a muzzleloader?

I think it's pretty safe to assume that we can all conclude that a round ball is not the way to go in today's modern muzzleloader rifles.  Therefore, most people use either the plastic covered sabot bullets, or the Powerbelt type bullets.  If you are not familiar with Powerbelt bullets, you can check out their website:

http://powerbeltbullets.com/

Instead of using a plastic sleeve, Powerbelts have a plastic piece attached to the back of them that does the job of the plastic sleeve in standard sabot rounds.

Now, I'm not going to talk about performance, and ballistics, and velocity or any other high tech bullet performance topic.  As far as I'm concerned, for hunting whitetails in Connecticut and throughout the Northeast, both plastic covered sabots and Powerbelt-type bullets are more than capable of killing a deer at most practical distances.  The biggest concern for me when comparing the two was ease of use.

I'm new to muzzleloaders, so upon first loading a muzzleloader with a plastic covered sabot I was amazed at how difficult it was to push the bullet down the barrel.  After a few shots it was nearly a two man operation to get the plastic sabot down the barrel.  Although I would not characterize them as easy, the Powerbelt bullets had a significant advantage over the standard plastic sabots in ease of pushing down the barrel.  Additionally, the Powerbelt bullets do not foul the barrel with plastic after shooting, so it's easier to push the Powerbelt down a fouled barrel.

To me, the Powerbelt bullets were significantly easier to use than the plastic covered sabots.  I reccommend anyone who shoots muzzleloaders currently using plastic sabots to consider trying out the Powerbelt-type bullets.