Home Forums Reloading Varmint Rifles 17 Mach IV and 17 Fireball question

For those of you who have a 17 Mach IV and 17 Fireball, will your rifle chamber a 17 Fireball factory round into a 17 Mach IV chamber? The reason I am asking is I have a line on a 17 Mach IV for a good price. When looking at the prints for both rounds they are so close to being the same it looks like it may work.

if it doesn't.. a gunsmith could fix that issue without a big price tag...

Barm: I actually do own (and Hunt with!) both 17 MachIV and 17 Remington Fireball Varmint Rifles!
One, of course, is a custom Riflesmith built Varminter on a Remington 700 action (with a Shilen heavy stainless 26 1/2" barrel in 17 MachIV) and the other is a factory heavy barrel Remington 700 VSF (with 26" barrel in 17 Remington Fireball).
Both Rifles are EXCEPTIONALLY accurate and brass life is long (infinite?).
I use re-sized Remington 221 Remington Fireball brass in my 17 MachIV and Remington 17 Remington Fireball brass in my 17 Remington Fireball.
I have NEVER tried to swap (trade?) ammo from one Rifle to the other.
One of my Varmint Hunting mates who had a 17 MachIV before I did eventually did begin using factory Remington 17 Remington Fireball in his 17 MachIV Rifle.
Sadly my friend (Armand Tellier) passed away out in Puget Sound country last month so we can not try to answer your question with his help.
I wish I could be more help as well.
My "guess" is if you do buy the 17 MachIV Rifle (and get some 17 MachIV dies!) you will be able to use either 221 Remington Fireball brass or 17 Remington Fireball brass to bring your Rifle into useage.
Good luck to you and and based on my uses in the past I highly recommend the 17 MachIV for all manner of Hunting from Wild Turkey to Coyotes and Fox to all types of Colony Varmints including big'ol Rock Chucks (Ground Hogs to you!)!
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

I recently had someone approach me at the range when I was shooting my 221fb. In conversation he said he had rifles chambered in the two calibers you mentioned, and said you could do this. I don't know squat about the mach iv, but it seemed odd to me. VG gave some good advice on the dies as the cases are not exactly the same. The mach iv has a 0.006 longer body, but the total case is 0.10 shorter. The fireball is 0.006 bigger at the shoulder than the machiv, so I doubt it would chamber without a trip thru a fl die.

It looks like a waited too long. It sold. Thank you all for the insight. My plan was to buy the Mach IV dies and hopefully shoot factory 17 fireball ammuntion for the brass. Oh well it probably saved me some aggravation in the long run.