Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters 17 Hornet advice . . .

Last year I bought, in the last seconds of a gun show, a Sako L46 in 22 K-Hornet.
Supposedly being sold by the 'gunsmith' who built it . . . supposedly with a Hart barrel (it is a custom barrel).
Spent some money with gunsmith to tune the trigger and work on the safety, which was darn near immovable.
Shot some groups with Rem factory (short 45 gr bullets) and with the 11gr of Lil' Gun and 40 gr plastic tips. . . nothing better than 2"!
Spent some time mulling over possible fixes, and then I came into a whole bunch of 20 gr 17 Hornady Hornet ammo.
New barrel it is!! Will probably go 22" long and match the existing stock contour, which is I believe a medium sporter . . .
I need advice on brand of barrel, rifling, and twist. Gonna shoot a hell of a lot of these 20 gr, and likely load some 25's later.
Can I have some help in the right direction??

Pacnor, 1-10.

Lilja has always worked for me…

I would go with 1-9" if you want to shoot longer bullets like the 25 grain VMAX. If you are sticking with 20s then a 1-10" should be ok. I've only had one aftermarket .17 barrel and it was a PacNor .. happy with it but I might likely go with Lilja if i were to do it again. I don't think Lilja offers anything but 4-groove, though, so you might have to go PacNor if you want 3 or 5 groove. I would also give Shilen a look. I'd ignore their advice on twist or at least consider the 25 grain VMAX as if it was a 30 grain for twist selection.

The standard twist listed by SAAMI is 1-9, and if you ever want to shoot bullets longer than the 20 V-Maxes, for whatever reason, it will work fine.

I've used quite a few different brands of barrels, but in recent years they've mostly been Liljas.

I have Shilen, Lilja, and Kreiger. All are very accurate.

Now I'm prompted to another question . . .
Is there a difference/advantage to odd or even numbers of grooves?

I believe I read there are multiple 17 hornet chambers, but I assume if I tell him 17 Hornaday Hornet, he'll get the right reamer. Is there anything I should be saying about the length of leade or freebore? This is a new endeavor for me . . .

The standard SAAMI chamber/leade works great, and is superior to the original Ackley design for more than one reason.