Kevin- how much re-15 in the M118LR load ?? also wonder why they don't use an "extreme " powder like varget for the M118LR load ? i do not reload for a the .270. RE-17 too slow for the 308 ?? what about the super powder from hornady?
Well, there's a story there . . . Lake City is what's known as a "go-co" operation; Government Owned, Contractor Operated. That is, the land, the buildings and the fence around it all, along every bit of the tooling used to produce all that ammo is owned by the US Government, while a force of operators is provided by whoever wins the government cotract bid to run the operation. Lake City is a US Army facility, and there's precisely TWO military personal on post; the post commander and his XO, period. All the rest of the thousands who work there are employed by the contractor who operates the plant. Back when Remington had the contract (late 60's early 70's) they also owned DuPont, who at that time produced IMR powders. Remigton did a lengthy series of testing and determined that (Surprise!) IMR 4895 was the ideal powder for the M72 and M118 match ammo, the M852 match ammo, as well as a lot of their other production. Sometime in the late 70's or early 80's, Remington lost the bid, and the contract passed on to Olin-Winchester. Yet another round of testing, and they determined that the be-all, end-all best powder in the world for that same M118 and later M118LR ammo, was an Olin product, WC-750. From that time forward, all their production was done with Olin propellants and extruded tubular IMR powders became a thing of the past. Fast forward to the present day. Some years back, Olin lost the bid and the contract went to ATK, who, coincidentally has Alliant Powders as one of their companies under the ATK umbrella. After yet another exhaustive series of tests, lo and behold, they found that there was no better powder in the world for the M118LR than their very own Reloder 15. By this point some connections should be apparent, if you're paying attention here. Go figure.
I've loaded (and certified for them in testing) TONS of bullets using their prescribed load of IMR 4895, and then WC-750, and still later Reloder 15, and they all shot just fine. I liked the Reloder 15 quite well, but frankly, there's not a helluva lot of difference between it and the other two powders mentioned in terms of velocity, accuracy or shooting charateristics. Bottom line is, you can turn out **** fine ammo with any of them. I should add that everything else was the same; Cases for such testing and certification were always provided by Lake City, complete with their M43 (match) primer and the ever present asphaltum sealant in the necks. Accuracy standards and velocity requirements were the same for all three, and all three met them just fine. Like I said, they're all good, and it's fairly difficult to screw up a combination that involves the 308 case, a match primer and a good bullet, no matter which powder you use. Hey, that's a good thing!