~ History ~

History of CCS Sabots:

Established in 1990

Rewind 1980s my friends! Christopher Young was a home based gunsmith located in Trenton NJ. He worked alongside his wife Emma Young in the basement of their home. Emma was a Taxidermist so they worked hand in hand with their trades of choice! 



 I grew up in a house that was always bustling with hunters at all hours of the day and night! 1000s of guns and deer heads came through our front door! The kitchen table was a hangout for many; coffee, cigarettes, hunting stories, life stories and brain storming about loads, guns, hunting, fishing….life!

Around The Kitchen Table:

At the time many of the hunters had one thing in common when they would bring stories to that table….The slugs for shotguns were heavy, slow moving, no consistent grouping and never seemed to knockdown the deer. Many deer running off to the neighbor’s property or lost to another hunter even after “good hits”. Target shooters complaints, inconsistent groups, limited distances and slow chronograph speeds.



It became my father’s mission to design a slug that would work out of rifled barreled shotguns. A Slug that would shoot tight consistent groups, have the speed to shoot longer distances with less bullet drop and an impact that would shock the animal for a fast clean harvest.

Late Nights:

I remember trying to sleep at night and listening to his lathe running all night long. He would come in the house with long pieces of tube like plastic, spin them down to these little precise cups. Measuring and fitting with different bullets. Finally after about 3 years of this he came up with the design of the collect cup sabot.

The Breakthrough:

He initially fitted it with the .45 cal XTP Hornady Pistol bullet. He began testing different loads and shooting it out of a different shotguns, including rifled barrel he made from blanks on his lathe. 

The Result: a Sabot that held a stream line, accurate hard hitting, mushrooming bullet that could be shot out of Rifled barreled shotguns.

My Late brother assisted in the actual patent design and original reloading manual that you see on our website. Once the patent was approved production started. 

A Family Business:

After the first year with just word of mouth in the NJ Hunting and shooting community about these sabots my parents were not able to keep up with demand from his Lathe spun sabots dad bought a small injection molding machine. He created his own molds on…..you guessed it that lathe!

Single cavity molds, hand pressed sabots! 12 years old …I was paid $1 an hour to sit there and run it!

Once loaded ammunition sales really started to take off, Dad ended up buying two larger automatic, 1950s injection modeling machines. So at 13 I was unemployed…☺

Through The Years:

My Parents were featured in North American Hunter in the early fall. They had a hunting trip planned to Wyoming the week after the article was published. I being 13 years old was left to fend for myself as most Gen X kids were! Mom said some orders “might” come in while we are hunting…….”some” orders. She went over how to pack and send orders from the post office; sign the checks, fill out a deposit form and which bank to ride my bike to.  The good news was there was a Domino’s Pizza, Carvel and a Quick check on the way home so hoagies, pizza and ice cream gave me A LOT of Motivation.

Within the first week of the release of the story of the CCS Sabots and a picture of my parents both with nice bucks in our front yard….. The mail box was full! Orders from all over North American, mostly from Shotgun only states but A LOT of orders…. I did the best I could to keep up with them….a 13 yr. old kid riding her bike to the bank with a paper bag of checks to deposit and dragging along a little wagon of packaged ammunition heading to the post office, to ship out to the clients. My parents probably would have been arrested if that were today!

The Slugs and the Sabots became very popular across North America, which led to an infringement problem…First it was Remington Copper solid. Then federal light field…then Winchester. My parents hired a patent lawyer and did what they could do to fight these massive companies…..Over a 5 year span of lawyers, letters and delegations, Federal and Winchester made good…Remington did not…being a branch of DuPont their lawyers basically told my parents to back off or they would bankrupt them for good. The Remington Copper Solid continued to be produced and sold even though it was an infringement on Dads Patent!

Fast Forward 2002, my parents continued to produce the CCS Slugs and Sabots, sales were decent. In April of 2002...My father suffered a massive stroke. The CCS production halted for over a year. He came out of it paralyzed on his entire right side and had to learn how to use his non dominate side to compensate. He could no longer be a gunsmith given his disability but he was able to work the injection molding machines and continue making the sabots. With his families help over the next 20 years he continued to sell the sabots. The loaded ammunition became so expensive to produce he stopped all together making it. 

 In Late 2022 my mother suffered a stroke as well. My self, Husband and son took care of both my parents after this event as my mom was the soul care giver and life partner to my father, she now was incapacitated.  

We continued to help them with the sales of inventory over the next 4 years. I would give them tasks to help us like packaging the sabots. They made a little money to help pay medical bills and it gave them purpose.

During this time we had many discussions on what would happen to the sabots after they were gone…..I promised them my family would do our best to continue to supply customers and keep the CCS name alive! My son is in college for mechanical engineering, he spent many days helping my dad with the injection molding machines. He and my husband are very knowledgeable about the production of the CCS Sabots.  



In November of 2025 my mother passed away and in June of 2026 my father passed away. My family and I promised not to put them in nursing homes even though they had severe disabilities and the day to day care was an immense task. They both died peacefully in our home 7 months apart…..