Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Competitive Shooting Reloader 15 & temp sensitivity; who has tested ii?

Maybe its worth looking at RL 15 again if I need to.... I just had lots of little quirks with it... made me wonder how John H got along with it all...

Whats the other wonder powder now.... RL17??

I think John makes a great point here that there are lot to lot variations some small and some large but I think some people mistake temp-sensitive with lot sensitive.
The origional poster GSSP mention's RL22 & RL25 as being temp-sensitive, to me I dont see them as being very temp-sensitive but they have perhaps the greatest lot to lot variations of any powder made. RL15 is not as bad as its slower brothers but it is a problem that plagues the entire Alliant line.
If you find a load that your gun loves with RL15 just buy as many 5# jugs as you can of the same lot and it will work well.
RC828

The best advice is above, IE regardless of what you use, you'd be best off to buy enough of that lot to burn out the barrel. Unfortunately that tends to be a fair amount of cash to most...

I buy match load powder by the brace of kegs (two 8 lbs kegs.) That gives me enough propellant for 2500 rounds of LR match 308. My barrel will easily last twice as long, and 32 lbs of powder for one rifle is a lot of powder to have at home, in my opinion.

What I think is better to do is do a quick check when starting to use a new batch. I find the difference to have been minimal with Varget for the last several years.

Primers on the other hand...

Primers... I went years without issues and then got nailed....

Problem with testing is then getting the same batch of anything....

I"m a bit more trusting(one reason I WON"T use AA anymore...) that I know powder/primer XY works in my combo, that I just buy enough for a barrel each time I buy a barrel.
Right now though my 7x300 is driving me nuts trying to find the right powder/bullet combo, but once I do, 80 plus grains X 1000 rounds and away we go for powder....

BTW what bit me worst on primers was exposure to loading room heat or age.... same perfect lot went bad.....

Mr B. Do you recall what time frame the improvements took place in? What powders performed well in your cold-weather tests? Here's a little aside. When the USMC was fielding the M118LR round, the Viht folk were pretty high on their chances of being the powder tapped for LR. In the end I'd heard there were concerns about sourcing a foreign powder because of wartime shipping and supply. What's interesting is in the end they still ended up with a foreign powder (Re15 is still made by Bofors from what I understand).

Jeff,
John H, Alonda, and a few other folks that have been winning consistently shoot Re15. I've been hearing about and seen the speed that VV brings, but the funniest thing was I couldn't think of anyone that's won big with the 5 series powders. Most recently there's been some activity in the Palma/MR side of the house with the 223 and 90's. They're finding that unlike 540 and the 20" AR, 550 in the long barrel is psychotic at the upper end of the pressure scale.

Chris, Brad Sauve has shot quite a bit of VV powder the past year. Few other guys I shoot with locally have also done well with VV also. RL-15 is a good powder accuracy-wise. I've found you have to push it hard or else burns a little dirty.

My latest five pounder is labeled "Made with pride in the USA" rather than Sweden like the older ones.

AJ300Mag, what caliber is Brad Sauve and the others shooting? Curious if they're shooting the 500 series (high energy) powders? The 223 experience for 540 was that you needed to push it hard to get it to group. It was surprising to hear of Jerry Tierney's experience with 550 and the very thin safety margin at the upper end of 550. Re, the burning dirty...I haven't seen that with Re15 in an AR Service Rifle and the heavies (69's, 77's, 80's and 90's). I did see it with Varget though.

mathman, thanks for the heads-up. I'm already paranoid when changing primer and powder lots...I'll have to pay that much more attention and do the due diligence when the USA made hits my pipeline. mathman, does your 5 pounder show a year on the lot # like my Bofors made stuff?

Several years back, I was told that we were down to one US powder manufacturer. I wonder if Alliant is going through St Marks, or has established their own manufacturing? Mr B?

Chris, maybe its because I don't shoot sierras XC, but we played with RL 15 just because John and Alonda won with it.... everytime we tried to step it up to get speed under it, it flopped the accuracy.... Now I"m not 100% sure here but i'd bet I ask more for accuracy and velocity than John and Alonda do, they just get a decent load and use their skill to overcome, you know I don't have that skill so I use other things to overcome.

Had heard N540 got squirrely, and have some old N550 from about 2002 to play with but haven't done so yet. Where did you get speed wise with RL15 and 90s?

It may be that even N500 stuff is too weird to be mainstream, but I know I could rely on my zero's and accuracy and more than a few TX folks ran it. Dunno but guess I"ll find out if I can manage to start up my 1000 yard service upper in the next year or so and start playing again.

RE Palma and the 90s, I often wonder if you simply have to have too fast of a twist to get them right and that goes to heck at 1000? Or maybe I need to just build a 22/6 and twist is to just barely stabilize the 90s and shoot. Of course I dont' even have a clue if Swampys bullets are as good as Jimmys, but I probably don't have more than 2-3K of Jimmys left.

Chris,

.308's. I'd have to ask on the powder (IIRC V-150). They've told me a dozen times, but it went in one ear and... All three of em are having their rifles re-barreled with Bartlein gain twist to shoot 185/190gr bullets. Don't know how VV powder will work out for them. Quickload values show RL-15 has lower pressure than Varget when shooting the heavies, waiting for warmer weather to continue testing.

Al

Swampy's bullets are MUCH better than Jimmy's bullets before Jimmy sold the business.

I'm waiting for my delivery from Swampy some time this week.

Chris,

I made some temperature tests in January 2000 and RL-15 did so poorly that I contacted one of my friends at Alliant, who told me of the changes and sent some of the new stuff.

Thats excellent to know. I saw one bad batch from Jimmy once, but I did not shoot anymore when he was selling... and had a guy here that would have loved to buy... along with me, I'd told Jimmy but evidently he forgot to tell me he wanted to sell... I could be self employed again having a blast...
Until the lead ban kicks in....

Friend of mine makes some good bullets. After listenind to him thinkin it's something I'd prefer to let someone else do...

Swampy is a good guy and I exchange emails with him frequently. I've spoken with him on the phone several times, but he does not remember me from one conversation to the next; he seems overwhelmed with orders and work. He does produce great bullets, very consistent, but you need to order way ahead and be patient.

Can you get an order within 12 months from ordering? And wasn't/isnt he a competitor??

I placed my latest order in September and it should be on its way now. I hear that Swampy has been innundated with 6.5 and 7mm orders.

Not bad, half a year I could handle with ease. Got used to buying stuff a year in advance anyway due to time to time issues like we just went through so not a big deal.