How's everyone else doing with Reloader 17?

[watercam]

Hi All,
Well it's been a year or so with Reloader 17 in a 6XC/Broughton barrel. Shooting all year in temps from 45 deg. to around 95 deg.. While accuracy is great and I'm happy I am not seeing the velocity to go with the hype. Same with my new 6.5/284 Norma. Slightly better (less than 75 fps) but nothing like others on this forum who have had spectacular results. Is 5R rifling the difference? Tried CCI BRs and Fed. 210Ms with similar results. Basically takes the same weight load as with H4350 and pressure signs after that. I'm open to any ideas!
Thanks, Mike T.

 

[audredger]

In my 300WSM RL-17 shows little improvement over IMR 4350 untill I push the limits. Only 50-80fps in moderate loads and 100fps in near max loads. Other than being easer to measure, I'm not overly impressed.

 

[limbic]

129SST in a 260 shows a pretty good increase. Atleast 100fps probably 150.
43.4 grains with MV of 3000fps. I didn't go any higher because accuracy was outstanding. .3's
Max I suspect 43.8-44

I don't know how temp stable it is. I've only started using it this Oct. FWIW

 

[Bugs]

Have been able to realize fairly significant velocity increases in a 6.5 swede, a .243 Ackley and also a 6 x 47 Lapua. Problem (at least in my trials) was that accuracy suffered in all three cases. For example, the swede is a viable 1/2 minute sporter with 140 bergers at around 2650 fps. Accuracy deteriorated to well over one minute at 2850 fps.

 

[Steve Blair]

Reloder 17 has performed very well in my 6BR Savage 12F.

32.5-33.4 produced 2907-3011 from a 30" barrel with Sierra 107 MK.

Where I have seen problems is in temperature dependency. The same load, 33.0, produced 2979.8 at 95f and 2866.7 at 55f. This is a drop of 113 fps over 40 degrees, or 2.8275 fps per degree. The ES/SD figures, excellent at 95f, increased to numbers I recorded during load development at much lower loadings.

My conclusion is that I need to do more experimentation at various temperatures and learn what load is required for a given temperature range. Best accuracy with RL17 seems to occur at high pressure.