Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Reloder 23 What's it do best?

Have an 8 lb jug on its way. As the 270 Weatherby loves it with the 130 TTSX. Seems RL26 is getting all the press, but the 23 is giving me outstanding accuracy, low SD & decent velocity @ good working pressure. So, what uses have you all found for this new powder?


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It is one of the more temperature insensitive powders around. It is a good upgrade from R22 in most of it's applications. Works for the 243 to 300 Win. Mag. and probably a lot of others. Seems a stand out for the 280 AI. But I have not started load work up yet. Many listed loads with R23 will come very close to R26 in velocity. I am still ringing out R26 in various cartridges but in spite of a nice and low linear increase in vel./pressure from 0-70 degrees it doesn't like temperatures above 80-90 degrees. R23 does not seem to have this fault. I want to hear more about R23s applications.

I have found it to be an accuracy powder and bought 8 lbs myself.

I have a ton of Norma MRP to use up and then I'll try RL 23 in 7mm magnum loads. I love RL 26 in .300 Weatherby.

Most accurate powder in my 270 Win with 140gr bullets.

In my experience RL-23 is more flexible than 26, and also a little more consistent in different temperatures. The last isn't totally surprising, as both RL-23 and RL-16 were designed from the get-go to be temp-resistant, while 26's resistance wasn't. (Many newer powders have turned out to be pretty temp-resistant, when they really weren't designed that way.)

RL-23's burn rate is similar to H4831 and RL-22, while 26 is noticeably slower and RL-16 is about like H4350/IMR4350. Consequently 23 works very well in a lot of cases, partly because like H4831SC a little more will fit even in some smaller cases. It's my powder of choice, for instance, with 140-grain bullets in the .260 Remington.

Thanks, MD

Good to know. Happy Trails

Interesting thread here....... Just wondering about any possibilities in a 257 Weatherby ?

Should work nicely with the 100-115 grain bullets IMO.

R26 is generally faster in everything I try it in but 23 is almost always far more accurate. Its a really good powder. 150's in 270 and 95's and up in 243 have been my best so far.

I bought a pound a year or two ago and initially didn't find any great loads right off the bat. It gathered dust until just the past two months when I decided to try it in the 7mm Rem Mag with both 162 and 154 grain Hornady Interlocks (which had also been gathering dust on my shelves). Both responded quite favorably to RL-23 and I'm now a fan.

I picked up some RL23 when my RL22 supply ran out early this year. Because the 23 is supposedly slower than the 22, I started out with an extra grain or two in my 7 Rem. mag (150-grain Ballistic Tips) and 300 WM (180-grain Accubonds). Wrong assumption! Both loads were at least 100 fps faster, so I ended up with 23 loads that were a grain or two lighter than the 22s to create equivalent loads. Don't ask me why; that's just what happened. YMMV

Generalized statements on burn rates can get turned around in specific applications as you've seen

I was looking at Sierra load data for the 6.5 CM and 130's. They show 44.4 gr. RL-16 and 43.2 gr. RL-17 for 2,900 fps. That would suggest RL-16 is slower than RL-17, at least in that application, as it takes a larger charge to reach the same velocity with the same bullet. There is a similar situation with 140's.

Interesting.

DF

Wyodogger,

Dunno where you heard that RL-23 is slower-burning than RL-22, but a close look at Alliant's .300 Winchester Magnum data indicates it is not.

The best way to compare various powders is to find pressure-tested data for the same cartridge and bullet. Alliant's .300 Winchester data does exactly that with the 180-grain Speer Hot-Cor spitzer. The maximum charge listed for RL-22 is 77.0 grains for 3055 fps, and the maximum charge for RL-23 is 77.2 grains for 3066.

This indicates the burn rate is just about identical, but as Dirtfarmer noted burn-rates are also dependent on application. The relationship between 22 and 23 could easily vary considerably in another cartridge/combination, or could also vary with different manufacturing batches of each powder. Both of which are why burn-rate charts are NOT very good indications of potential results.

I think it's the assumption, the bigger the number, the slower the burn rate.

But, not always...

DF

Yeah, apparently. But Alliant's site makes no specific claims about 23 being slower than 22.

I also suspect a lot of guesswork goes on from the results somebody got when "working up" loads according to traditional pressure signs, most of which are somewhat unreliable and one (primer appearance) is probably the least reliable--but used by more handloaders than any other.

I guess that least reliable way is akin to the "if you cross your eyes they'll stay that way"..That's what momma use to say and we all know "momma" was never wrong, at least mine wasn't, ask her!!! LOL

How would RL 23 work in a 22" barreled 6.5 Creed with 127 to 140 grain bullets, a 24" barreled 300 Win. Mag. with 175 to 200 grain bullets and a 23" barreled .338 Win. Mag. with 225grain bullets?