Alliants RL23

DGW

DGW

New member
Gent I shoot with gave me a pound of the new RL23 powder last Sunday. He had three pounds of it, but had not done any reloading with it. He shoots a very accurate custom 6.5x55 A.I. rifle that the powder should work in. But doesn't want to bother with experimenting with it, since his present reloads shoot so well in the rifle.

Like him, I was aware of this new powder and that Alliant has little about it and the RL26 powder introduced at the same time not that long ago. Heck, check Alliants site and you will not find the powder shown in their powder products section. If you click on a particular powder in this section, it'll lead you to load data for the powder.

Last night I perused Alliants load data for a number of cartridges I reload and did find two loads for the RL 23 powder. Both were for 6.5x55 military action rifles (Swedes) using either 140gr Sierra or Hornady bullets. I've used RL22 in my 6.5x55 Swedes with decent results, but prefer the slower burning Ramshot Magnum powder in this cartridge. LOL, but try to find any Ramshot powder these days.

Anyway, few comments I've read about the RL23 powder concerning its similarity to RL22 suggests using RL22 load data for the RL23 powder is not wise. Well, just compared some reload data for RL 22 with RL23 load data from Alliant for 140 gr bullets in a military action 6.5X55 and max load is a higher with the RL23 for both bullets....around 2 grains different Max loads between the Sierra and Hornady 140 gr bullets. More grains of the RL23 (around 2 grs) used than what would be suggested if I were using RL22.

Just curious if anyone has used any of the new RL23 Alliant powder and how does it compare to the RL22.
 
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In general using a slower power in place of the data for a faster powder(23 for 22) shouldn't get one in trouble. I'm talking about similar powders in a rifle cartridge. There may be other issues with a somewhat inefficient load, depending on other factors.

My slowest rifle powders are a few versions of 4350, so RL-23 would be off my radar screen. It seems a bit strange when the powder companies can't keep the old standby powders on the shelf, but they have enough time to introduce new powders?
 
I have been using RL22 in my 300wsm behind a 208 amax. I recently bought some RL23 and ran tests with the same bullet and I arrived at the same powder charge when I load the RL22. The bullets impacted in the same place with either powder. Time will tell when the temperatures start to warm up.

Mr. O
 
I just ran some through a 7 mag with 140-grain Noslers and 139-grain Hornadys. The charges were similar, but for the Noslers, I had better accuracy with the Re22. The Hornadys shoot so well in my rifle, that the difference there is splitting hairs. Overall, I think it is a fair substitution for re22.
 
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