Was shooting Retumbo thru my 300RUM at the range. Wow, I gathered a crowd. In a 26" barrel, it makes a huge fireball out of the muzzle when shot. Slowest powder I have used in this gun was Re25, and H1000. Never seen the huge fireball before. It was cool. And accurate. Didn't really recoil any more than anything else.
Range officer stopped me for a moment. He thought I might be way over pressure. But I showed him my cases. So he said ok. Was only shooting 90gr-94gr Retumbo with 190gr Matchkings.
I believe it just cause I am not up to pressure yet. Working up my loads from starting and not finished yet. Fireball doesn't bother me unless accuracy or pressure is bad. And niether are.
I use Retumbo in a 7mmSTW and a 300Rum with no fireballs in either rifle.Retumbo produces very good groups in both rifles .What primer are you using? I think you want a mag primer for large doses of slow burning powder .I am using the the Fed 215.
Bigcountry I am loading 92-95 grs of Retumbo in rem cases,fed 215 primers and 180 gr Barnes x bullets. Barrel is 25 1/2 in and 95 is near max with the X bullet in my rifle. Bullets with a shorter bearing surface than the X bullet may take a few more grains of powder to reach max.Hope that helps.
I shot some 178gr A-Max bullets with 97-99gr Retumbo OAL 3.710" and velocity on the Oehler 43 was 3260 fps. Didn't load any others yet, group sucked though. RL22 and RL25 are sweet in my rifle though. Shot some 220gr SMK's with 87-90gr Retumbo and PSI was at 63k but bolt got sticky at 90gr. This was very odd. I'd never seen a sticky bolt under 70k psi before. Group was horrible with the 220 as well. Need to "seriously" evaluate this powder farther. Others have reported good results with it too, but I think I'm getting better velocity at lower pressure with RL25. Something about the low M43 indicated pressure while showing excessive psi signs with Retumbo don't quite set well with me, never seen any powder do that before.
I've used it in my 270 WSM. 71g behind Barnes XBT 140 bullets. Very good groups. and no pressure signs. POI stayed pretty close even when changing between Noslers and Barnes.
Posts: 232 | Location: Utah | Registered: 09 February 2003
I'm using Retumbo in my .240 Incinerator and 8mm Rem Mag.....with respect to the latter, group size tightened up and top velocities were improved over that of RL-25.
Talked the guys at Sierra. They said they saw the same fire shoot out the barrel. They think it might be the coating on the powder. They said their accuracy was ok, but H1000 did better for them in the 190gr and 200gr matchkings. They saw the same thing where the fireblast was less at higher pressures. Time to try H1000 again.
