John - I recently picked up one of the Ruger 77/17 Hornets from Capital Sports and have been trying to work the bugs out. Mine's been pretty frustrating - I haven't been getting the stellar results that Huntsman has. A pard of mine here swears by his and he's only shot factory loads in it and isn't interested in loading for it because it shoots the factory stuff so well.
I believe my problems may be related to inconsistent head space from a very sloppy bolt. Primers do back out noticeably on factory loads, but not so much on handloads after partial sizing. Accuracy has been pretty erratic with both, but I'm not ready to give up yet.
I've worked with Lil Gun from 9.7 to 10.0 and have had the best results at 9.9 with 20 gr Noslers. One thing I've noticed with Lil Gun is that with any charge weight, the bolt seems to want to stick. Not on bolt lift so much, but pulling the bolt back to extract the fired case. My pard experienced the same thing with his when I had him try Lil Gun. I've been reading some on the Saubier site about the 17 Hornet and it seems to be a concensus over there that Lil Gun is too fast for the 17 H and 1680 is a better choice. I know others who have been getting great results with Lil Gun - go figure. I've worked up to a little over 11 grains of 1680 per the chart that was posted above and the primers are very round and no sticky bolt. I have more loaded from 11.6 to 12.2 and will try that as soon as I can get back out.
The Ruger I owned had the same issue with pulling the bolt back. I noticed that it worked fine without the magazine, which led me to look for issues with the mag.
I shaved a very small amount off of the top and front leading edge of the magazine's left side feed rail lip with a file, rounding off the lip as it was a sharp angle. This cured it instantly. Basically, the bolt was "sticking" on the magazine, which was protruding up a bit far.
