7 PRC and US869

[waldedw]

I have a swack of US869 that I used in my 7 RUM which I don't have anymore, anyway I have been trying to find some load data for US869 and the 7 PRC to no avail. I have a load for my 6.5 PRC with US869 and the 142gr NABLR which are now as hard to find as RL26 I think they are ferry dust. That load is very accurate however it's about 75 FPS slower than the load with RL25.

I see US869 is about 4 notches slower on the burn rate chart than LRT, there is load data available for LRT for the 7 PRC with 175gr and any data I find for any cartridge that shows both LRT and US869 in every case the max charge of US 869 is the same or 1 gr more. Keeping with that LRT shows a max 80gr with the 175gr in 7 PRC and I was thinking I am going to load some test loads with US869 starting around 74gr and working up 1/2 gr at a time until I start to see pressure.

I measured an empty case for the 7 PRC and filled to the base of the neck I can get 83gr US869 in it so should be able to load near max loads without to much compression.

I've been loaded for 50 years now but have always used published data as a starting point and going from there, am I on the right track here fellows or am I peeing into the wind, seeing that Alliant has suspended powder manufacture for a while anything RL is going to become more scarce than it already is, I have a couple loads that show promise for the 7 PRC with RL25 and H1000