Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Predators and Varmints Terminal Performance notes: 17 Remington

That's a bunch of Grey's taken off of one place, Ingwe. Well done.

As stated you need more throttle. Anything under 3,900fps is pointless.

Good hits will put them down instantly.

I use the same powder charge with the 20gr. V-max and found them fine for fox and great for p-dogs and gophers.

Long live the .17 Rem and 25 Horn HP. This was back in mine's OEM stage...I only have the action from this anymore. Complete makeover reality, it got.
These two dogs dropped instantly at about 75 yards and 100 yards IIRC.




This is it now:




Even with just a sample of two, I think you've got something else going on, as two in a row is a bigger statistic than just two in general, but who knows...
3500 FPS Muzzle Velocity at 20 yards should be plenty of horsepower. Maybe Hornady has changed their metallurgy in their 25 grain HPs? I am a serious hoarder, so haven't bought any for quite a while. Maybe something to do with your particular barrel?

Yeah there could be something new about the new ones.

The old HP's were great. Remington's as well. Berger's BR 25gr. HP were outstanding as well.

T Man,

Those BDL's are cool and I did have one for awhile.

In the end it went down the road and I got an LVSF.

Thank you for your input...I havent driven the 20 Vmax very hard...but I cant see where it wouldn't work well on the hides of little critters.

It's really worthless on dogs.

And if you stand on them too hard they will make soup out of a fox.

Still, a very serviceable bullet for some .17 Rem applications. And they have always shot just as tight as the 25's IME.

I've owned 4 different .17s. Couple TC barrels, a 700 BDL, and an LVSF. All I have at the moment are a mountain of components and the take-off LVSF barrel. My LVSF wasn't all that accurate though it was the first of the 4 to do decent-ish with the Hornady bullet, the others preferred the Remington bullet by a lot. Mostly shot VMAXes in the last contender and the LVSF.

I have an action now. I have the LVSF stock. I don't know if it is worth re-mounting that factory barrel, it's probably half gone and wasn't all that accurate, but it's a good template for a replacement.

In the BDL, my load was 25.2 grains of IMR 4320 with the 25 grain Remington bullet. The manuals have backed off of that a good bit now. I shot some of the best groups of my life with that bullet in that gun.

I figured it wasn't the bullet for yotes, and at top speed would pretty well liquify a fox...I hit one " just so" with that Vmax and suffice it to say he didn't make it into any of the pictures...

Just got back from the range trying some 25 gr loads with some gas to them...all good but its looking like 25.0 gr. of CFE223 at this point.

Mine is an LVSF set into a B&C stock, got rid of the J-lock and put a Walker trigger in it, or maybe it already had one...? Anyway the damn thing shoots whatever I put in it, Hornady, Bergers, you name it..it'll do 1/2 inch without me grunting too hard with any of them. Happy....

I've heard that CFE223 is really nice in the 17's. I've gone with IMR8208 in my 17's along with the 204. Excellent accuracy and lots of forward motion.

Ive been using it in the .223AI and regular .223 and getting great accuracy and top speeds....I intentionally shot 40 rounds of it through the .17 just to see if it really did help with copper fouling, and it did. That said, the powder itself is dirty, comes out coal black...

My 17 hasn’t had a kernel of anything other than CFE223 in years. 25gr is the moneymaker in mine with the 25gr HPs. 26gr under the 20Vmax shoots lights out and within an inch of the same POI. I don’t shoot colony varmints, so don’t shoot as many rounds as some of you guys but I never clean the bore on mine unless accuracy starts to slip. I don’t know if it’s the CFE or I just have a really good barrel but it cleans up in a pass or three and never really coppers up.

Good to know...I like a lighter load for the colony varmints because of the volume of fire...I like my barrel and want to keep it around...

And yes, 25 gr of CFE223 behind a 25 Gr. HP seems to be the shizz ....


Next...Ive got to kill a pig with it!

Was IMR8208 not advertised to prevent copper fouling? I should try CFE223 since a lot of folks really sing high praises of it, but I have a LOT of 8208.
Using Greg Tannel's suggestion of collodial graphite in a clean or cleaned barrel has really worked in all of my rifles. Copper fouling is really minimal.

CFE223 will work fine.

After all the .17 Rem's I've owned and loaded for, I ended up going back to the old standby.

IMR4320

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Or somethin'.

I was told that they are dropping IMR4320. I sure hope that is bad info. I also use it in my 17's. Accuracy with 4320 and 8208 are about the same with close to the same velocity. If not for the 204's I own 4320 is all I would use in the 17.

I have a strong desire to shoot a deer with mine. If it kills 150lb pigs there’s no reason it won’t kill 150lb deer. Silly game department and their caliber restrictions.

I am a huge proponent of 22 CFs on deer, but I do believe a .17 Rem is pushing the limits....especially since most available bullets are designed for varmints. I'd use the 25 grainer and stay off the shoulder.

I killed a decent 4x4 mule deer with a .204 Ruger and the 45 grain SP, and it was marginal at best. Sample of one though.

If only we had an 18gr TTSX. Giant slayer!