I tried a pound of R16 just to try it out. The rifle used was a Model 700 Remington short action and chambered in 308Win. The barrel was a 23 inch custom with a 1-12 twist rate from Ted Gaillard. The profile was slightly heavier than a #2 and the rifle has always been consistently accurate without being fussy.
Here's what we found.
First the powder was best with bullets 165grns and over. It gave very consistent velocities. There was a bit of difference at 17 C and 32 C. Not enough to worry about though. Velocities were measured over a magnetospeed.
The first thing that was obvious is that the published start loads didn't deliver published velocities by quite a margin. It wasn't until we approached max loads that velocities started getting close. When we were very close to maximum, the loads became compressed because of the seating depth we were restricted to by the short mag well and short throat, velocities came close enough to published data to be acceptable.
The compressed loads were also the most consistently accurate out of our rifle.
Now for the conundrum. The 308Win, just like the 7.62x51 work best with the bullet weights they were originally designed for, 150 grains. It will tolerate lighter bullets and even heavier bullets but IMHO it really shines with the 150 grn range bullets.
RL16 is perfectly acceptable but is just a bit to slow for best performance when velocity is the consideration.
RL16 is another one of the new powders that is supposed to cover a wide spectrum of individual powders that were specifically designed to shoot a narrow range of bullets in a narrow range of cartridges. If you want more, then you will have to go to one of the powders designed to suit your particular needs.
I can see why the producers of powder are trying to put together a line up of powders which might number a half dozen or so. Keeps costs down and makes it much easier to maintain lot to lot consistency.
