How worried should I be?

[darth_ritis]

I bought a 1 lb bottle of Reloader 26 to try a couple loads. I tried two in my 6x47L. One was Nosler 105gr RDF and the other was 115 DTAC RBT. I’ll be damned if I can find any pressure signs on the cases, but these speeds are really high. Could the LabRadar be that far off?

 

[XLR308]

I've read multiple reports similar to your results with RL-26 and the 6.5 Creedmoor.
The speeds seem to be really high but no pressure signs on the cases.

 

[steve123]

How long is your barrel?

 

[Precision Underground]

I get 2850 from a 147gr and a 23" barrel so I wouldn't say thats too far fetched with that light of a bullet.

 

[darth_ritis]

How long is your barrel?

25” - a wonderful Pac-Nor 3 groove 1:7” twist heavy Palma contour. If it’s wrong to love a barrel, I don’t wanna be right.

 

[darth_ritis]

I use QuickLOAD and it usually is a bit optimistic on velocity. With this I’m getting 100+ FPS more than QL thinks I should.

 

[steve123]

For the fun of it one time, in my 6x47L, I incrementally loaded R17 in my 28" 8 twist using 95gr SMK. I stopped at 3500 + fps, even though the bolt wasn't sticky yet!!!

I'm thinking 25" myself for the next barrel.

 

[darth_ritis]

Follow up:

8/24 I ran a new batch of 10 rounds with a tenth less powder (down to 43.0 gr) and a new seating depth of 0.003" jump.

* 3153 fps
* 20.81 e.s.
* 5.89 s.d

I had 15 rounds left from a batch of RL16 / 105 RDF I made in the spring, so I ran them past the LabRadar just to see what it would show, since I was having a hard time believing a 115 bullet was going faster than a 105. Previously, that RL16/105RDF load had run 3107 fps with an es of 17 and sd of 6.3. This time I got:

* 3185 fps
* 29.3 e.s.
* 6.23 s.d.

I'm surprised it ran about 80 fps faster than before, in weather about 10 degrees cooler than before. Has the barrel gotten faster coincidentally at the same time I started testing RL26, or is the RL26 having some kind of effect even for following rounds which use a different powder?

I'm thinking I should get the barrel borescoped and see if it either is incredibly fast for good reasons or if I'm blowing out my barrel prematurely. Without pressure signs, I don't know what to think.