Anyone try RL-17 in .35 Whelen?

[Black Jaque Janaviac]

My appologies if this topic has been covered, but for some reason the search tool proved useless.  I could not even find a thread on Reloader 17 at all.  I tried RL-17, Reloder 17, Reloader 17 all sorts of variations but could not find any discussion on Alliant's "new" powder.

Anyway, I'm curious if RL-17 would work in the .35 Whelen.  Rl-15 is supposed to be great, but I noticed Alliant has dropped their maximum charges to render the Whelen a bit less than it ought to be. 

[Black Jaque Janaviac]

Here's some info from a range session:

Weather 65, sunny

Powder RL-17
Bullet Hornady 250 gr. RN, R-P 35 Whelen cases

Pwder grains  Velocity
58                2361
59                2350
59.5             2377
60                2395
60.5              2398
61                2403
61.5             2425
62                2479
62.5              2484
63                2498

Primers began to flatten with the 61 grain charge, however these were all from full-length sized cases and I suspect my gun gets flattened primers due to headspace.  I'll get flat primers w/ factory loads.

[drdougrx]

Might be a might slow.  I'm in the RL-15 camp.

[Mckie Hollow]

Try the 58 gr. load with RL15. See what You get.  Black Jacque - Where have you been. Haven't seen a post from You in a couple of Years?

[Black Jaque Janaviac]

I dunno.  2490fps for a 250 pill ain't exactly slow.  Not as fast as the Whelen can go with RL-15 I agree. 

These were not exactly scientific either.  Just one shot each.  I was mainly looking for pressure signs and velocity.  If the velocity can approach RL-15 without pressure signs I'd say RL-17 would be worth spending the effort developing a load for accuracy.

I might try just neck sizing a case and starting over at 61 grains to see if the primers are rounded.  If that happens I may proceed to see if RL-17 can produce any accuracy. 

If RL-15 can push these things at 2550 fps and RL-17 is just 60 fps behind, I wouldn't just dismiss RL-17.  I'd have to consider other potential benefits of RL-17 first. 

[Black Jaque Janaviac]

I haven't been shootin' much.  Or at least took a hiatus from cartridge reloading.  I got back into muzzle loading.

I had a case separation in my Rossi '92 a while back and gouged the chamber pretty severely trying to get the stuck piece out.  I know, in hindsight it was a stupid, bad mistake.  The '92 still ain't fixed, and it was one of my favorite shooters.  I guess the episode took the wind out of my sails for a bit. 

[quickdtoo]

FWIW, here's a fella "says" he's getting 2750fps with RL17 and 250gr bullets, no barrel length listed tho.

http://www.reloadersnest.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=11733

Since you hinted that headspace may be an issue, you might want to consider a rechamber to an improved Whelen version, either an Ackley if you want to be able to shoot factory ammo, the Brown-Whelen or just an improved-improved version as my gunsmith calls it, rechambering without setting the barrel back, he does lots of them for Alaskan hunters, I have an H&R single shot that he did for me, I get ~2640fps with 250gr Hornady RN with RL15 in the 22" barrel. I bought some RL17 to use in the 260 Rem, will try it in the Whelen sometime before next fall, QuickLoad software indicates a little improvement over RL15, but not much, ~50fps in my chamber and barrel length, so it's well worth a try.


Tim

http://35cal.com/loading.html

http://35cal.com/loading.html#vz24

[Black Jaque Janaviac]

Well I just tried a few more rounds only I didn't full-length size them.  That seemed to do the trick - primers look more rounded. 

To continue on with the velocities, today I got:

63 grs     2536 fps
63.5 grs   2526 fps
64 grs      2528 fps

Kind of funny that the 63 grain shot was faster than the others.  I'm happy with 63 grains of RL-17 behind a 250 grain bullet.  I don't know how much that one guy was stuffing into his cases to get 2750 fps, but he had to be compressing them quite a bit. I didn't have much compression, however these last three loads I used a 3-foot drop tube. 

Next I'll load up a bunch with 63 grains and see what kind of groups I can print.  Then I'll see how sensitive this is to volumetric loading.  In other words I'll just use the Lee dipper to throw the charges, but I won't correct the charges to the nearest 1/10th grain.  Maybe just set the scale at 63.5 grains and make sure the charges do not exceed that.  Should make reloading a bit less tedious.