Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Reloder 17 and a 180-gn TSX in a .325 WSM

Anyone have load data? I don't have any manuals new enough for RL17. Barnes and Alliant aren't any help.

Don't need a lot, just a published max powder charge and velocity figure... if such exists...

Thanks!

With everything I developed you could pretty much start with a beginning load of IMR 4350 and work up from there

Jeff,
I also did some fooling around with IMR 4350 as a guide. No chrony info. Don't own one. Didn't have any pressure issues.
My rifle didn't really like well as far as accuracy went. Hopefully yours will.

wsmnut

Curious on this one as well. I've sent several 180 BT's and 200 gr AB's out of the 325, both shot very well.

Seems the 180 TSX at around 3150 would make a good "one load for everything" load.

Bill

Alliants data can't be right on this cartridge. They have a 200grn bullet listed at 65grn max with RL17, the next bullet they list is a 170grn of the same construction and also list it at 65 grn max.

knowing that a charge of 65grns is safe with a 200grn bullet I would think that something around the 70grn area would be "safe"..... probably

Heavywalker, yeah, that confused me too!

TSX's have less bearing surface so one would think that played into things, too.

I have some loaded from 65-67 grains. Shane ran a Quickload simulation for me, and things topped out around there... we'll see...

With H4350 I can get them to 3070 fps with good accuracy. I'm hoping for another 50 fps over that. We'll see. I'm headed up there right now as a matter of fact.

Heavy... maybe I'll go pull a few and load them to 68 grains, just in case... grin...

Real quick-

RL17, 180 TSX, .325 WSM, 24" barrel

65 grns- 2950 fps

67 grns- 3060 fps

68 grns- 3120 fps

Bolt lift was a bit sticky, not bad but a bit, on one of the 68-gn rounds. Accuracy was marginal; not as good as my H4350 load. But I didn't play with OAL's at all.

I'm almost out of 180-TSX's and the only guy who has them locally seems to think they are made of gold, so... gonna regroup here, take a breath, sort out my next move. I've got good accuracy with low-BC bullets, and not so good with higher-BC bullets. Frustrating.

Whoops!..........No 8mm VLDs,,,,,,,(yet)!!

Someone mentioned on another thread that Barnes bullets have more bearing surface against the bore and that he wasn`t getting the velocities from his rifle (forgot the cartridge) that he was hoping for using Barnes.

Looks like you`re getting very good velocities with Barnes and the RL17.

Jeff, just put 73grs of RL19 under that 180gr TSX and call it good! 3100fps and under moa in my rifle.....This is a light compression load so pore the powder slow or use a drop tube....

What's another 50 FPS, or even 100 going to buy you? By the time you get out to 500-600 yds it's probably only a 25-40 fps difference. The accuracy will matter more regarding killing than a few extra fps in my opinion. I had been doing a similar thing with my 338-06. Tough to beat the accuracy of H4350. The Mag primers seemed to bring the RL17 alive in terms of accuracy and the 338-06. I suspect you're already there though.

Hey Randy!

My notes from a couple years ago show that I tried 71.5 grains of RL19, for 2925 fps...

Wierd how different rifles are, eh?