Norma 217 VS Retumbo

[Jeffrey Bird]

First off be gentile. I'm new and I'm full of questions.
I'm Jeffrey Bird and I'm from Utah, avid hunter and just beginning to have a few custom guns made. Yes all kids are out of the house.
My question is about Norma 217 powder. I am experimenting with it in my 6.5 x 284. I loaded up Retumbo and found that 56.5 gn seems to be close to what I'm looking for(Nosler long-range 139 gn). Read a little bit on the 217 and that it burns close to retumbo, so I started low at 55.5 gn and saw zero pressure in my cases. grouped OK, now i need to tweak.
So question is has anybody tried 217 in a 284 and what was your results, how many grains can i go to safely. Or am I going down a path I shouldn't.

 

[johnnyk]

I'm surprised someone hasn't welcomed you yet. So, welcome to LRH Jeff. Glad to have you onboard.
Your question got me looking in to Norma's 217. I have never seen or used it before but from reading Norma's website I get the impression it was develped to compete with other slow burners like RL33, for use in overbores and 338's. They did say it's not temperature sensitive, which always a plus with the LR crowd.
Love the 6.5-284 and use Retumbo in mine with 140gn + bullets. I'm currently running 56.5gn (Retumbo) with the 147gn ELD-M, BR2 primers and Norma brass. I'm getting an average velocity of 3018fps with an ES of 14 and SD of 7'ish. That's through a LW 28" barrel.
I recently did testing with RL26 and 140-147gn pills and it's got everything else I've tried beat as far as velocity goes. I got over 3100fps with the 147gn -M! Even more impressive was the same speed (3100+) in my .300WinMag with 212gn -X's. That was too hot of a load and had to back her down.
Anyway, good shooting and let me know how that Norma 217 performs for you. I may have to give her a whirl. JohnnyK.

 

[Jeffrey Bird]

I'm surprised someone hasn't welcomed you yet. So, welcome to LRH Jeff. Glad to have you onboard.
Your question got me looking in to Norma's 217. I have never seen or used it before but from reading Norma's website I get the impression it was develped to compete with other slow burners like RL33, for use in overbores and 338's. They did say it's not temperature sensitive, which always a plus with the LR crowd.
Love the 6.5-284 and use Retumbo in mine with 140gn + bullets. I'm currently running 56.5gn (Retumbo) with the 147gn ELD-M, BR2 primers and Norma brass. I'm getting an average velocity of 3018fps with an ES of 14 and SD of 7'ish. That's through a LW 28" barrel.
I recently did testing with RL26 and 140-147gn pills and it's got everything else I've tried beat as far as velocity goes. I got over 3100fps with the 147gn -M! Even more impressive was the same speed (3100+) in my .300WinMag with 212gn -X's. That was too hot of a load and had to back her down.
Anyway, good shooting and let me know how that Norma 217 performs for you. I may have to give her a whirl. JohnnyK.

Great info. Thank you for the sharing . I'm going to go get some RL26 and give it a try. Love the velocity that you are getting. I may not quite get thaty since i'm shooting a 26" shillin.
More testing this weekend!

 

[johnnyk]

I don't think you'll be that far off my mark. Shilen makes great barrels.

 

[Jeffrey Bird]

OK.
I shot the Norma 217 this weekend and found it to shoot better than Retumbo. I had more consistent groups. My load was 57 grains Berger 140 VLD hunting (and Nosler AC Bond 140 ) with 210 primer. Velocities is what I waited to see and I was very happy to see that my Velocity was 3034. Now I'm not into target shoots but interested in a round that I can get out to 600 yards as fast as possible while still able to kill that animal. It just kept hitting that 12 " plate at 600 while a 10 mph wind pushing left to right.
I also ran 58 Gns while pushing 3065 and still nice groups at 200 yards.
There were zero pressure signs in my brass.
So far so great.
Question is am I missing something that my newbie self is not recognizing.

 

[johnnyk]

What you got will certainly do the job. 140's @ 3040ish is right about where you need to be with the 6.5-284, IMO. Some guys (competition) like it at 2950ish, but 3000fps has always been my "bar" for most everything I've shot or loaded for.

 

[WildRose]

I'm surprised someone hasn't welcomed you yet. So, welcome to LRH Jeff. Glad to have you onboard.
Your question got me looking in to Norma's 217. I have never seen or used it before but from reading Norma's website I get the impression it was develped to compete with other slow burners like RL33, for use in overbores and 338's. They did say it's not temperature sensitive, which always a plus with the LR crowd.
Love the 6.5-284 and use Retumbo in mine with 140gn + bullets. I'm currently running 56.5gn (Retumbo) with the 147gn ELD-M, BR2 primers and Norma brass. I'm getting an average velocity of 3018fps with an ES of 14 and SD of 7'ish. That's through a LW 28" barrel.
I recently did testing with RL26 and 140-147gn pills and it's got everything else I've tried beat as far as velocity goes. I got over 3100fps with the 147gn -M! Even more impressive was the same speed (3100+) in my .300WinMag with 212gn -X's. That was too hot of a load and had to back her down.
Anyway, good shooting and let me know how that Norma 217 performs for you. I may have to give her a whirl. JohnnyK.

I tried some 217 a few years back when I was just completely out of luck getting RL33 and H1000. I wasn't thrilled with it but it was consistent in both the WM and Rums running 180-210gr bullets.

Retumbo can be temp sensitive but very predictable and thus consistent. The problem is that it's absolutely the dirtiest powder I've ever used so I avoid it.

Like you I've really been amazed with RL26 in the large case magnums as it generally outruns the others easily from 50-150fps or more running lower pressures. It's also got their proprietary treatments which really help with preventing copper build up and other problems.

It's become my powder of choice and with my love affair with H1000 that's hard to admit. H1000 had been my go to since they quit making H870.