Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Rem 597 HMR 17 blows up

Apparently there was a recall on this rifle a bit over 10 years ago. My cousin didn't know this and his gun blew up today. When I researched this it was apparently a common issue and Remington either gave the owner some money or would rebarrel the rifle free of charge to 22 mag.

Does anyone know how I would go about helping my cousin proceed toward getting Remington to make this right with him? Thanks for any info it will be much appreciated



Trystan

He’s probably SOL

That's what my initial impressions were as well

What exactly "blew up"?

He shot one mag thru the gun. On the second mag he pulled the trigger and blew the mag out the bottom and he says it damaged his bolt. I haven't seen the gun personally just going off what he said on the phone. The cartridge case split the neck and blew out down by the rim as well. From what I found on line Remington recalled and discontinued this rifle because this was a very common problem! There was a class action lawsuit in the making years back but don't know what became of it. Fortunately my cousin wasn't hurt

That Remington has been sold off under bankruptcy, there is no help available for your cousin. I'm happy he didn't get hurt.

Since the company that made that rifle is no longer in business, I doubt that the company that is now making firearms with the Remington name will honor any warranty. Since the Remington 597s in 17HMR were recalled, your cousin might go back to the shop that he bought it from and see if they will do anything for him. If the shop sold it to him after the recall, they should have told him that it had been recalled as being unsafe to use. My local Cabela's had one in the used gun rack several years back that they pulled due to the potential liability if someone bought it and had a "kaboom". Remington didn't offer much value for the 597s in 17HMR that were returned, something like 60% of MSRP IIRC.

I have 2 of the 597 light contour barrel sporters in 22 MAG and both have worked flawlessly. They are my favorite rifles to use when calling 'cats in tight cover.

I was told $215 for the buyback of rifles.

I had two of them back when they were knew. I had them rebarreled to 22 mag under the recall because what they offered for their failed design was kick to the nutz. One of the guns that was rebarreled worked well. The second, never would cycle. The big gunshop in Minneapolis that didi the rebarrel didnt care, Remington didnt care. I just got it back from a local gun smith who says he has it fixed. i guess we will see. It was a sliding part that rubbed on the trigger group, had to be filed down significantly to operate under the lower pressures of the 22 mag.

What happened to your cousin is exactly what the recall was about. the small diameter of the barrel doesnt deal with pressure spikes from the variability in the factory ammo. Blows the magazine out the bottom and breaks stuff, sometimes injuring hands etc.

Thanks for all the info its much appreciated

I would still reach out to Remington and make them tell you they won’t repair it. I don’t think they can refuse you.

I don't think that the current Remington has any liability for any firearms that were made by the previous Remington.

Lack of delayed opening of the action---the action opens before all the powder is burnt. Typically LILGUN in the 17 HMR.
Same issue with the 10/22 ruger had. Savage designed the A-17 semi auto with a delayed action opening device. (retardation of the action till powder is burnt)

As a side note this is why you can not load slow powders in any of the 5.7x28mm handguns except the new S&W with the Tempo rotating barrel.

They well may not but I would make them tell me no rather than making any assumptions.

I agree, it doesn't hurt anything to ask. However, companies that buy up bankrut ones usually have no responsibility for what happened before. It's far different from a merger.

Wow, how long has he had this rifle ?

Friend of mine blew his up 2x before giving in to the rebarrel.

The buy back was a joke, I think they offered around 1/2 the cost of it new.

The 22 mag barrel was so far off from his 17hmr,he had to shim his scope bases.

One of the stupidest things I ever did was buy a 597 over a 10/22. Owning that thing was like screwing a fat chick. An unpleasant memory that's best forgotten.

Data from HANDLOADER features some loads with AA 9. Since I don’t have any of the AA 5 or AA7 most data uses, I plan on trying AA 9 and maybe Universal in my Smith. Brian Pearce used SPM primers, but in SHOOTING TIMES, Greg Rodriguez used Fed SR.

https://www.shootingtimes.com/editorial/57x28mm-load-data/100206

https://www.handloadermagazine.com/handloading-the-fn-5-7x28mm

https://loaddata.com/Cartridge/CartridgeOfTheMonth

Yes sir! I'm afraid he is SOL. I have an extra fancy one that I bought many years ago and I saw the recall notice in a magazine. I wrote Remington a letter about it and mailed it. (I'm sure a lot of the younger crowd has no idea what I just said.) The offered me $250 cash or credit toward the purchase of a new Remington rifle. No one from Remington ever said a word about converting it to .22 WMR. I paid more than $250 for it and spent a small fortune putting a laminated stock on it. Since then it has been my favorite turkey hunting gun. I can make a headshot at 100 tards easily. I think Ruger had the same problem with their 10/22 magnums. They never had a recall that I know of but the quickly yanked them from the market. The problem is that you can't just take a .22 WMR and convert it to a .17 HMR without re-engineering the firing mechanism. The .17 HMR is not suitable as a straight blow back action because the pressure curve builds a lot slower than the .22 WMR and it has more bolt thrust. These "blow ups" are a lawyers term for it spitting brass at you from the action opening too fast. It's just like your favorite Smith revolver that is slightly out of time and it spits a little lead and powder back at you each time you fire it. .22 LR autoloaders spit brass sometimes too.

This is all my highly educated opinion that comes from the Jethro Bodine School of Gunsmithing and Accordian Repair.

After I saw the recall notice i tried to make mine fail by heating and freezing the ammo. Then I tried coating the ammo. with every slick substance I could think of and the chamber. It never missed a lick so I kept it.

Always, ALWAYS wear eye and ear protection!

Those crazy Remingtons.

Semi auto in 17 HMR is only one......Savage A17. 17 HMR needs a delayed opening action. Ask Ruger!

Did Ruger ever catalog a 10/22 Magnum in 17 HMR?

Shortly after the 17 HMR was introduced my 'smith rebarreled a half-dozen or so 10/22 Magnums. He had some success and some failure, with the failures mostly coming in the form of blown heads that resulted in the magazine being blown out, the stock split, and the extractors disappearing to nobody knows where. He made one for me, but it made me uncomfortable to shoot, I don't like "Kabooms", so I converted it back into its original configuration and sold it when 10/22 Magnums had been discontinued and were in high demand.

10/22s converted to 17HM2 frequently experience the same sort of "Kaboom" outcomes for the same reason, trying to do something that the action wasn't designed to handle.

Why did savage figure this out with the delay blowback and Ruger and Remington couldn’t?

Savage is desperate to find a market niche where they can be successful and have less competition. They sell a lot of AXIS rifles, but that market niche is crowded with multiple different options, many of them better in one way or another than the Savage products.

I was working at a gun shop when the recall came out. One of our customers had his 17HMR blow up on the third shot. Remington offered credit toward a different gun, a low cash offer or rebarrel to 22 mag. He did the rebarrel and IIRC, we sent the gun to a Remington gunsmith to do the rebarrel. He had no issues with it after that.

Savage designed a new action that used delayed blowback BECAUSE OF the issues with regular blowback that arose with Remington's straight blowback design. On paper the design can work. In practice the window of safety with a straight blowback exists, but is too narrow to deal with variations in ammo and parts tolerences.

Exactly^^^^^

"New"? Try about 10 years ago. Here's a good video on the A17:



I've ran thousands of rounds through mine:



Excellent rifles. I would not even consider a 10-22 or a 597 because of the safety concerns that were known about quite a long time ago.

A gun like the OP’s cousin has sounds like an excellent candidate for one of those urban gun “buyback” programs.