Musings on powder choice, any advice appreciated.

[Sim G]

Can’t get any of the Reload Swiss powders near me....

[Daryll]

I think one of my local gunshops is a RS stockist, I'll pop over at the weekend and see what they have... I'll go with N140, or maybe RS50...

At the moment, I'm still leaning towards N140, there is a lot more online data about that than RS powders.

[Maggot]

RS50 could also be a good option, especially if you don't need the extra velocity offered by RS52 (and, I would assume, the reduced barrel life that goes with it). I use RS50 for the vast majority of my .308 loading with 155 and 168 grain projectiles, with great results back to 1000 yards; I break out the RS52 only for specialist extra-whizzy long range loads. In fact, RS40 could be another option but, as I understand it, it's a real barrel killer.

Damn you Pete and Maggot.... I had it all sorted in my mind to go with N140... then you throw another possibility in...

Sorry!

No, Bob is quite right, RS52 is a double based powder. We use it because it is available and is pretty temp stable. My elevation hardly seems to change whatever the weather. It also tends to be less spiky than N140/RS50 so it less likley to give us a sticky extraction in our straight pulls which is pretty important if you want to cycle and avoid breaking position. My BAR15 cycles like a biathlon rifle. In short it works well for that application but we see barrels as consumeables. The only time I have had sticky extractions has been with N140 and some mill surp.

There is also an argument that as the CSR practices are so quick, the leades overheat and fire crack in short order either way but I would not like to argue that one. I am not beyond looking at RS50 the next time round as I am looking potentially to replace N140 with it if I can get the stuff at a decent price which is quite important when you get through the stuff at the rate we do.

I found (in terms of elevation) TR140 (RS50) to be about .5gr slower than N140 but otherwise it was a great powder...shame the price went up the way it did. Actually...I wonder if we could get a sort of frequent flyers card.... clapclap

[Pete]

Maggot, I recently bought a 10 kilo tub of RS52 to share between a couple of mates............it worked out at £70.02 a kilo (and was delivered to Bisley !!)

Pete

[Pete]

Correction: £70.20 a kilo............and other RS powders are available from the same source.

Pete

[Pete]

Which is: http://crispinengineering.co.uk/

David Crispin offers high quality gunsmithing. (He did our Savage 6.5, and is now doing the CG-RPA 6x47)
He's a competition shooter, often at Bisley, so very convenient for Bisley regulars.

Pete

[Mike95]

Maxam GDB111.....identical burn rate to N130...fine rod powder...£66 a kilo. Double base.

Mike95