Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles My budget .17cal AR Adventure

Soooo I really juR copy and pasted this from another forum since it's the same program,and I have like ten days a few hours worth of typing already done. So.

12/10/2023
So I've been pretty bummed trying to figure out how I could go about having a low cost .17cal center fire. Wanted to build my own on an AR platform but custom barrels,brass and and other stuff have been getting irritated. Sorry but for something I want just kinda like a play around gun ( I got everything I need already twice over I juat like playing with stuff) I can't see myself dropping $1500 on a custom/semi custom deal. And as I've posted before .17rem fire ball and the like brass is just a friggen pain to find or even find the parent brass to form. Big thanks to the guys who offered me some of I went and got one though. Well like my prayers where answer this just popped up on my 50th something search. I know these guys make some nice off the wall AR stuff like a 300wsm and 358win upper and this looks like it might be the answers to my prayers !!
Barrels are only $200 too !

And before anyone starts with "well my .17 rem" look, it's 2024 , try to find stuff regarding legacy .17cal cartridges. It's pretty sparce pickings and most of it is an arm and a leg. Unless your going the custome route and that's jait more money the. I wanna put down for a play around project. If you have some of the legacy stuff and it works and you have plenty of Brass , great awsome I'm happy for you but like most of them just pain aren't good for what I want . Sorry so anyhow

Now before someone wants to say something about 17-223 please show me who's making affordable barrels and dies you can buy right now, I'll wait because I haven't seen anything since 2019. With this legit all your doing is taking cheap easy to find .5.56 brass and running it up in their die and boom ready to load. Now apparently from chatting a little with KAK ( nice folks) they have re worked some stuff with their reamer design and apparently have fixed a few problems the .17 rem and 17-223 have had relating to donuts neck turning and some other stuff







So idk looks pretty promising, hoping to have a barrel and dies in by February to re build a old upper with if every thing goes good.



12/31/2023
Welp, got a new letter with discount code so

1/10/2024
Just a little update just got back from the ladies house to retrieve my packages and got the upper done. All parts are either NBS or where won sale/ Amazon chicom magic lol. They don't have the handguard I would have preferred so had to go with this 17" one, which looks a little goofy on a 18" SPR barrel but hy I own a hack saw and spray paint lol. Who ting went together super easy ,like 15-20min tops and most of that was just me trying to find my Allen keys since their never where I leave them . But yeah just waiting on the dies which I , for some reason bought a few days after the barrels and the bullets from powder valley. Still got 1200 or so pieces of same year lack city brass to use in forming so happy happy happy




1/12/2024

And dies are in !...... wearing though you don't get a shell holder , that being said I don't think you usually do with Redding dies.... Regardless I have like four .223/5.56 shell holders so no big deal. So time to get to the house and see just how hard it is to re size some brass
Must say thought these are some BEAUTIFUL dies ! Still crazy tk me that these are still counted as "cheapy" or budget dies to a lot of guys I've ha e the joy of talking with

1/13/2023

So sized some cases and well, pretty straight forward honestly. Just really need to lube them up and not go too fast. Weird thing is you'll get 10 or so going great then 3-5 mess up then 10 more, tired alot of stuff but just kinda a pattern it seems lol. Was told a 20 practical die would be a good addition but eh , many the whole deal is to make this brass with once fired whatever, so really it's not that bad. Can still cut the crushed ones up for .30/bulk or .300hammer.
Just got some out of my lake city stash.










[img]https://trapperman.com/forum/attach...-34110-203983-img_20240113_010707385.jpg[/img]

1/13/2024
Ok so in annealing.... apparently you don't , the guy on the companies videos SPECIFICALLY SAID DO NOT ANNEAL, Aso I haven't

1/13/2024
Did I just convince my gf to let me drive an extra 45min on our date to get these ....mabye....but there's a other bookstore around and I found a great little reloading supply shop lol


I have. More ordered but their all delayed due to weather


So ...after calling the local bass pro after seeing they where supposed to have some 20gr Vmaxs on sale they said they couldn't find them so to baton rouge I went. Got those ntx's well on the way back home we went by the bass pro and the gf wanted to go look at some achery stuff, well look. What I found on the self

1/14/2023
Okie dokie, so a some updates tried what scuba said about taking the decapping pin out and my crush case amount went way more down which when you think about it it makes sense. More downwards force coming down on that neck as you try and shove it up and over that expander ball and all that, and I de cap everything Separate on a universal decapper anyhow. Interesting little deal reading has with knurled end here. Slips right in the case since it's smaller then the expander ball but still can see something possibly getting hung up




And just our if curiosity wants to see what the difference would be in one that that formed with the pin vs if I used the pin after forming annnnd noting noticable



And here's a pic of the whole build. Only think I'm missing is the dust cover which I just keep forgetting to get ordered lol.nwanna get a funny custom on though. But yeah just ripped the bcg out of my .223 while spr build and slapped it in its lower because that lower is so nice to shoot with the wide trigger and the luth mba fully adjustable stock

And today gonna be loading up some of the 20gr vmax's per KAK's load data. Did go and check my should bumps and all that and everything chambers super easy via me pushing ithe bcg in with my thumb.

Running some CFE 223

Will say.....I remeber why I don't like this bally flaky type powder very much , good ole statics

Ten rounds for initial " will this blow up in my face " and getting on target. Think these are supposed to be at 3800 something fps. And that's a starting load.

Good little bit of mag space as well to play with but apparently.17cals like to be jumped apparently so we will see

[img]https://trapperman.com/forum/attach...-34110-204158-img_20240114_113747192.jpg[/img]

Okie dokie got to do some shooting! New did make one or two little little mistakes involving trimming but after pulling some bullets got that fixed.

So the set up ( for the first then shots, more and more I'm just not enjoying shooting off of a front rest , idk just not my thing)
Prone , Caldwell rock BR front rest , magneto speed bayonet Chronograph. My heavy leather rear bag, 63 degrees out no wind



So first ten rounds didn't want to read or where reading some crazy numbers but j bore sighted and sent the first five in @50yd to make sure I was on paper. Also worked as a function test
And some screen shots I took in order of the first shot breaking

So looking like a out 2 o'clock ejection with means a few things according to this

Might play with something down the line but idk over gasses AR's are apparently not uncommon at all , might give her and adjustable gas block down the line. Also gotta say, this thing has like no recoil and I think I might start going the thread protector route.
Anyhow everything functioned perfect. 100yd group was ..meh but very rarely I've had a beginning load start great. Also might have just been me trying to get on a new build


Now the next loads [bleep] better but started getting some problems , honestly the only problem I had with the 26gr load was the rounds weren't picking up from the mag. Walked inside switched mags problem solved. Was still having issues with the economy picking up these little bullets so only two sensible velocities


Now according to KAK's load data 26.3 gr is supposed to be the optimal load ( also the top end load for the powder bullet combo) this was where j was getting problems though. The main on being two of these.

Now at first I wasn't sure what to think . Did the whole SPORTS thing , drop the mag ,yadda yadda , and nother the bcg just would not grab the case, weird, well went inside grabbed a cleaning rod and a little tap tap and it came right out. But ....


Believe it or not but I think this is the first time I've had this happen to me in reloading , so very interesting experience . But easy fix . That happened twice but only on this load so ..neat
anyhow shot pretty decent. A adjusted the scope too low on the first shot and hit below the target hence only 4rd

So back that the bench not what I have fire formed brass I can finally look at some stuff I need
Left if freshly formed the right is fire formed


And some head space measurement. Again I Formed this brass per the companies instructions


Vs the fire formed one


So yeaaahhh I've been bumping these back a whole 0.008 vs... you know like the 0.003 I really need

So did some seating depth testing. Seated them a bit long and went back to 26.0 GR of CFE .223 . Also for craps and giggles threw that chicom scope on and gotta say, other then the really short eye relief, ITS NOT BAD !
Next to one of my 5.56 loads

And today's set up

I kept the same powder chard though all of these .....really not liking that S-D but hay

And the target

The ones on the right was something I was trying to do with some brass that wasn't quite right but not horrible


Aaannnd as usual I drop one out the group

And all the fire formed brass. The ones with the primers up are ones with damaged rims or similar they where either the hottest load or the messed up brass