Surplus Powder for 30-06

[Rattlesnake Charlie]

Anyone familiar with this powder from River Valley Ordnance?
Surplus Powder for 30-06
M2 Ball Ammunition
Lot Number BAJ47288

I'm working up some loads for 150 gr flat base FMJ designed for 30-06. Seems to be taking a lot of powder to get velocities up to normal. 53 grains to make it to 2500 fps.

Looking for other's experience with this powder.

294439

[FLINTNFIRE]

Mine was rvo-62 and some other powders , been a long time ago now there are data sheets if you google for them

https://www.shootersforum.com/threads/powder-data-sheets-rvo-river-valley-ordinance.240464/

Mine was good stuff , wished I had bought more .

[Jaaymar]

Sounds like it is burning too slow.

Do you have a moisture sensor?
Could be the powder picked up too much moisture to maintain a good burn.
Johnny’s reloading bench on YouTube did a velocity test using “damp” powder (sorry, I can’t find the video).
The powder was left out for a few day then loaded & velocity’s recorded.
I believe he is located in Missouri, 60-70% humidity can go as high as 80%.
After which he uses desiccant packs to dry it (30%) and the test was repeated.
It showed a gain of velocity. I don’t remember how much.

Maybe through some desiccant in the keg & retest in a few days.
Or could be some 50BMG powder got mislabeled.:kidding:

Jaaymar

If you make people think they are thinking they will love you.
If you make people actually think they will hate you.

[Rattlesnake Charlie]

Jaaymar
It was an unopened jug with seal I had to peel off. Moisture in my house is usually 16%. I do keep the jug closed tightly.
Charlie

[Rattlesnake Charlie]

FLINTNFIRE
The data in the link you sent appears to be mirroring what I'm seeing. Thanks for that info.
Charlie

[Rattlesnake Charlie]

I did more googling and found what I was looking for on a CMP site. Turns out it does take a lot of powder to get things moving.

294440

[unique]

I have a bunch of that powder with that lot number from RVO. Here's what I can tell you. The powder was made in 1973 for military contract.

I use Win785 data for 30-06 and use H450 data for 7x57m & 6.5x55 swede. Both powders are similar but I suspect the H450 varied over time as different lots were purchased by Hogdon. The powder is very temperature sensitive; a load that is normal at 60F will be very mild at 30F and cratering primers at 90F.

This powder has a good feature and that is it produces great accuracy even though it is temperature sensitive. I use magnum primers with it or otherwise I will get an occasional click-boom which is never good. Looking over my notes I see that this produced the best accuracy in 30-06 with 165gr running between 2550 fps and 2750 fps temperature dependent.

All in all I really do not like using this powder since it is finicky and I recently been thinking about making some rocket engines out of it.