Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Winchester Collectors RL-26 in 348 M71?

I have been enjoying my 2 Model 71s, in fact I enjoy them so much I have another on the way. My question here is this, I have a friend who shoots a lot of 338 WM and love Alliant RL-26. He is convinced it would do outstanding in 348. It is also supposed to be very good in 270 which I have a very nice 270 I like to shoot as well.

Anyway, I can find nothing at all about people using RL-26 to reload 348 and I have no clue what 26 is actually designed for. I have good success with RL-19, Varget, IMR 4895, and have played a bit with RL-15 but not much. Playing with bullets ranging from 175 up to 270 grains. Would love to have gotten some of those 220 grain loads that North Fork made but they have shutdown business. This has all been based off of loads that others have worked up either on here, many from Jorge and his spreadsheet but also from articles such as RHs article in Handloader. Anyway just curious if anyone had tried RL-26 in 348 or elsewhere and had an opinion on it for 348?

Stick to 4895, Varget, and RL-15. Doubt you'll get enough RL26 into a .348 case to match those three.

But 348 is bigger than either 270 or 338 and both of those calibers by all reports do great with 26. Heck I was reading about people using 26 in a 257

Never tried 26, but, you can easily get enough RL-17 or H-4350 in the case to push 250's to 2400 fps if you want, I have backed all mine down to an easy 2300 fps, plus, even at that lower speed, it will kill about anything and still be plenty flat enough shooting for 200 yard bolt peep shooting at game animals.

Oh it's not a matter of pushing the bullets any faster, he just was talking about it today so I was curious if anyone had done it. I know jack squat about 26.

It's more about expansion ratio (case capacity to bore size/volume) than relative case capacity. 4350 is the slowest powder I've seen loads listed for the .348 Win.

Ten fo King.

If 22/H4831 will work it’s likely 26 would as well.

I don’t have QL up at the moment but someone may be able to run you a profile to give you an idea.

Looks like I will stand corrected..........by Ken Waters and KC's friend. Waters' considered H-4831 the most accurate powder, on balance. He did not get top velocities with 180s, but it matched other powders behind 200s and 250s.

Of note, the article pre-dates IMR-4831 and Hodgdon's replacement H4831.

Still have about 5 cans of the original surplus H-4831. Pretty close to RL-22, 26 and the 7828 burn rate.

I have handloaded some for an acquaintance who ownes a Model 71. I load the 200 grain Hornady Flex-tips over IMR 4350. He is thrilled with the accuracy. I think I got the idea from an old Lyman reloading manual dated somewhere around 1970. RL-26 is a bit slower than IMR 4350, but might be worth a try, especially with 250 grain bullets.