Anyone use RL-17?

[drdougrx]

Was wondering what it would do in my 375HH, 30/06 and 243.
 

[bigswede]

It should work really well it is very similiar to 4350.  I have a load worked up with it shooting 225 gr Accubonds out of my 358 Norma. 

[84Jim]

I bought a lb. of it a couple of years ago to try in my 7.5x55 swiss.  All reports then was that was the powder used in GP11, blah blah blah.  IMO it wasn't as accurate as my IMR4350 handloads so I put it on the shelf.
Just recently a very knowleagble shooting buddy of mine read the hype and bought some to try in 30-06.  He told me the velocity SD's were thru the roof and was disappointed and doesn't plan to use it any more.
But ya never know until you try.  If you do be sure to report back.  I still have most of a pound jug in my cabinet

[gbjeep]

Same results here. Wanted to try it in 7mm-08, not as accurate as 4350. Haven't had a lot of time to try it out, but that was the initial impression.

[Lloyd Smale]

It seems to be a finiky powder. It does give top velocitys in alot of rounds  but to find one that gives those velocitys with great accuracy is tough. I have one load in one of my 300 mags that shoots a 165 bt with it that does great. A few other loads were fair in other guns but not great. It seems to be very primer picky too. Change the load one grain and a completely differnt primer does best. Sometimes standard and sometimes mag. So bottom line is it does what they claim but youd best be willing to put in some bench time and use some components to get it matched to your gun.

[Cheesehead]

I have long been a fan of RL 15 and RL 19. The RL 17 did not seem like a large enough leap to consider for my use, so I never did try it.

Cheese

[quickdtoo]

I've used it in my 260 Rem with the 120gr Sierra, accuracy wasn't the best and velocity was down in the short 20" barrel compared to top loads with other powders like IMR4320 which is accurate at 200fps faster. Since I have it, I plan on trying it in a 9.3x62 with 270gr Speers, QuickLoad predictions look really good.

Tim

[drdougrx]

Thanks everyone!