My advice is to call the manufacture and return the ammo for new. I was getting split necks, some extending down the shoulder too. We I kept shooting them on a hot patch of sage rats until one of the Hornady brass separated at the rim upon firing and blew up my Ruger 77/17. It completely destroyed the bolt face, extractors, blew the magazine into 53 pieces and bulged the nearly industructable skeleton plastic stock. It sounded like a 10 gauge going off. It thankfully was resting in sandbags which absorbed most of the energy. My girlfriend turned white and her weekend of shooting ended right then and there. It scared her good and she had raspberry marks on her thighs from the magazine pieces. It hit her with enough force to cause the raspberries through blue jeans. It also split open my dog-gone-good sand bag.
I was having having a little trouble with stickiness and bolt lift but did not think much of it. I did not realize the cases were splitting until after the blow up. That's when I picked up some empties and discovered a lot of them had been failing prior in the neck and shoulder area.
So please stop shooting that ammo until you call CCI and Hornady. I don't want you to loose a rifle and worse have her get hurt or not want to shoot anymore. I could care less about the gun I am more upset I lost my shooting partner for who knows how long over this ammo. My lot numbers were from 2005-2007. They are examining them and the rifle now. Hornady said they will replace the ammo with current production ammo if the find their ammo to be the cause of the failure.
This is not an isolated incident either. I had a CCI 17 HM2 blow up one of my rifles two years ago. CCI went above and beyond to make it right and I left satisfied and remain a CCI customer. Let's see how hornadys handles this. Last week another guy that shoots on our ranch also had a case separation on his 17HMR. It was a marlin and it was destroyed as well. He also is in the process with Hornady while they investigate the problem. His was a different lot of ammo but same age. I ended up sending them back all my 17HMR with the old label. I am not taking any chances.
I shoot about 5000 rounds of HMR a year on our alfalfa ranch at sage rats but it only takes one to ruin your weekend or worse. I have had no problems with Hornady ammo prior to this year. I hope they value heir customers and take good care of us when problems like this arise. If not CCI will be getting about 20,000 more rounds ordered each year from our group.
