Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles RL17 + .30-06 - interesting results today

I had to whip up some loads for my .30-06 last night and decided to stick with the good old 60.0gr of H4831SC under a 180 grain Partition. But I kept looking over at the pound of RL17 and 175gr LRX and figured I might as well put 2 sets of 3 rounds together just to see what it would do.

There isn't much info out there on this combo so I did some figuring based on H4350, IMR4350 and Barnes 180gr TSX data. I also considered SAAMI's relatively low pressure limits on the .30-06. The 175gr LRX is obviously a bit lighter, plus it has one less groove. I have some data that was pressure tested (found on the internet so who knows?) with 180gr TSX and RL17, but that was with Lapua brass and I had R-P brass.

At any rate I decided to give 55.5gr and 56.0gr a try.

The 180 Partitions shot well, printing 3 shot groups in the 0.625" range. More than "good enough". The Oehler 35P said the velocities were hovering around 2630 fps. A bit slow, but hardly an issue. Interestingly the primers were flatening but there was no ejector mark and the bolt lift was very easy. That was probably the quickest and easiest load developement ever!

So I grab the 175 LRX and 55.5gr RL17 load. I shoot and whoa...very obviously heavier recoil. I don't see a hole on the target. Darn. I look at the read-out.... 2990fps. Holy smokes. I lift the bolt - very easy and not a hint of sticking. The primer is flattened a bit, just like with the 4831SC, and no ejector mark. Was it a erroneous reading? I hold at the bottom of the target, which is a haywire way of doing things and shoot again - 2929 fps and the bullet hole is 5" higher than the point of aim. The third shot is 3013fps and the hole is 1" from the second shot.

The mean velocity was 2977fps. I decided against trying the 56.0gr load. Velocity wise this is, imo, very high and even though there were no signs such as sticky bolt or ejector mark I decided to let it be. Of course I can't say much about accuracy for the obvious reasons noted above.

At any rate I am going to drop down to 54.0gr, 54.5gr and 55.0gr and take another look at this combo as it does appear to have some promise.

I was using R-P brass, F210 primers and COAL was 3.370"


Rifle is an Ithaca LSA 65 (Tikka). Altitude is approximately 2200' ASL and it was a very warm day at 29 C (which is about 84 F).

Your results are similar to mine. I've had good velocities with RL17 in the 30-06 too.

Moly'd 208gr AMax at 2720 fps via 55gr, and 22.5" bbl.

moly'd 130gr TTSX at 3430 fps via 67gr, and 24" bbl.

No signs of excess pressure in my rifles, but always start low and work up, as I did.



One of these days I'm going to work up a load with RL17, and moly'd 155gr Scenar.

moly'd 130gr TTSX at 3430 fps via 67gr, and 24" bbl.

67 grains of powder in a .30/06 case?
Is that a compressed load or a mis-print? Not trying to be a smart ass, I just didn't realize you could get 67 grains of powder in a .30/06 case.

It was a bit compressed, but made it in there.

RL17 packs pretty dense as powders go.

I was using fireformed/neck-sized Win brass.

Arac, they are interesting results. Whoah they are fast speeds.

I would be tempted to drop it down even further to about 52g and work up from there, but in any case I am interested to hear what your further tests reveal if you don't mind updating us?

R17 is available here and could be a good back up when I can't get H4350/AR2209.


Montana Marine, have you ever developed a 30-06 load with non-molyed 208 Amaxes? Keen to develop a 208 Amax load in my 30-06 but I think I would need to be making over 2600fps to make it worthwhile. I have a 23.5 inch barrel.

bob' No I haven't tried non-moly'd. I've wondered how much difference it would make though. Just a guess at 1-2 gr less powder, and maybe 30-50 fps less velocity.




For a visual reference, attached is a pic of a Win 30-06 case, holding 67gr of RL17. The 130 TTSX has a fairly short boat-tail, so it didn't take too much depth to seat them well.

Thanks for the info. I have some RL-17 but didn't realize how dense it is. I'd like to try some more experimenting with it in the .30/06. I loaded a few rounds with both the 200-grain Partition and the 200-grain Accu-bond but haven't done much beyond that.

Arac, yeah, when ya get a 300 fps velocity jump, it does attract attention eh?

Last year I was loading my proven .25-06 load, and tried a new bullet/powder combo... Very quickly I was getting .257 Wby velocity and wondering what pressure that load was really generating... I went back to the old load. Suspect my rifle thanked me for that.

With the .30-06, I've long been running H4350, and before that IMR 4350. Starting to mess around with Hunter, and I like what I see so far, on target and on the chronograph. When that load gets sorted out a little better, I'll post up.

Hard to go wrong with a 180 gr Nosler Partition isn't it?

Regards, Guy

60 grains of H4831 and 180 grain bullet sounds a bit warm??

Mine have always liked H4350 and IMR4350, with Re 19 very close.

I have had good luck with R17 in 270, 284, and 30-06.
My experience is you can use around 4 grains less than 4350 with similar velocity and good to great accuracy. So a can goes further and there appears to be less stress to the brass.
Supposedly 17 moves the pressure curve a little further down the barrel.
jmho
Tim

Arac,

Ever since RL-17 appeared there have been reports of amazing velocity gains, though most of those disappeared once a lot of pressure-tested data appeared. The magic gain of 200 fps or more at the same pressures never appeared in the piezo-electronic or strain gauge measuring systems used by almost all ballistic labs these days.

The maximum charge with 180's listed by Alliant powder is 54.5 grains, for 2762 fps using the 180-grain Speer boattail, a bullet that creates relatively low pressure. There usually is some wiggle room in .30-06 data, since the maximum SAAMI pressure is 60,000 psi, 4000-5000 psi lower than most other modern cartridges like the .270 Winchester.

When handloaders start experimenting on their own, however, by loading to "apparently safe" pressures they often add another 5000 psi, since cartridge brass usually doesn't show signs of distress until around 70,000. (Primer appearance has exactly zip to do with judging pressures.)

My guess, based on the stated velocities and a couple of ballistic formulas, is that your handloads are around 70,000 psi. That's not necessarily dangerous, though it doesn't provide much wiggle room for other factors, but it wasn't accomplished purely through the chemical magic in Reloder 17.

Hi MD - thanks for the comment. It was after hearing your advice that I came to appreciate that flattened primers are not a good indicator of pressure. I wouldn't mind up to 64,000 to 65,000PSI, but 70,000 seems pretty darn high. I didn't fire the 56gr loads due to the very high velocity of the lighter charge.

There was a fellow that did some pressure testing with RL17 and the .30-06 a few years back. Have you seen his data? I think I have a hard copy and will scan it in a bit.

I'd be very interested in seeing that.

There's a guy over at accuratereloading.com that did alot of 06 pressure testing. His conclusion was that he could match heavy charges of re22 w/re17 but really couldn't excede them to any degree. Basically same pressure and same speed w/hvy charges of both w/hvy bullets. I guess the argument to be made would be re17 could get really good speed for mid wt bullets cause you'd run out of case capacity w/slow burners.

I do remeber a post a while back from a shooter that was burning alot of re17 that he had come across a significantly hotter lot of re17 when replacing. So I guess just like any powder...be aware!

They are in PDF format and my scanner also scans to PDF. I can't upload a PDF to Photobucket. How can I post it? I tried to convert it to a jpeg, but no joy.

kraky111 - the data I have shows, in addition to other stuff:

180 Partition
RL17 - 2837fps @ 60,100PSI
RL22 - 2850fps @ 62,500PSI

200 Partition
RL17 - 2703fps @ 61,900PSI
RL22 - 2703fps @ 62,000PSI

Do a "screen shot" of the PDF. On a PC, you hit the Print Screen button. This saves a pixelated bitmap (BMP) of your computer screen, included the PDF you have open. Then paste - control V - the bitmap into a program like Paint which comes will all PC's loaded with Windows. Crop up the BMP screen shot and save it as a JPEG. Then load it to Photobucket.

MuskegMan - I hit the print screen button and nothing happens. That button has a line in the middle and also says "SysRq". I tried holding the shift button, Ctrl button...it still doesn't do anything.

I got it sorted out. Thanks MuskegMan.



Still not ideal though....

Here is a LINK to that file.