Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Rimfires Remington 17 Mach 2 ammo

Does anyone know if the Remington 17 Mach 2 ammo is the same as Eley. I saw an old post on another message board that said this ammo was made by Eley for Remington. Any truth to it?

There are a couple cosmetic differences:

The color of plastic bullet tip is different; blue for Eley and brown for Remington.

The case headstamps are different.

The boxes have different labels.

Functionally they are the same, the most accurate 17HM2 ammo ever made.

Thank you for confirming what I had heard.

Barm: I have fired and Hunted with both those brands of 17 Mach2 ammunition.
There IS a difference - they were both VERY accurate in my three 17 Mach2 Rifles.
The "difference" I have noticed is the extremely distinctive and noticeable "odor" of the Eley ammunition!
Whereas the the Remington ammo (and the Hornady ammo that I now use) has virtually NO odor after firing, the Eley has a very noticeable and chemical like odor after the shot.
I have NOT seen Eley 17 Mach2 ammo on a store shelf in a VERY long time.
I am rather certain the Eley ammunition uses a different powder than Remington or Hornady.
I can NOT confirm nor deny 260Remguy's contention that Remington and Eley 17 Mach2 ammunition "is the most accurate ever made" as 99% of my shooting of said munitions was at small game and Varmints.
Last week (Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday) I sent over 400 rounds of 17 Mach2 ammo downrange at Varmints out of two different 17 Mach2 Rifles and I was VERY pleased with the results/accuracy afield/consistency of the Hornady 17 grain V-Max ammo I used!
I have a lifetime supply of this ammo on hand (thank goodness) and even if Eley and Remington 17 Mach2 ammo were to become available I would not partake of it.
Long live the 17 Mach2!
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

I sure hope that's more than two boxes...

The Ely "odor" is from the priming compound that Ely uses in their ammo. I prefer to call it aroma rather than "odor" because I like the smell of it.

drover

Drover I love the smell of it as well..

for a cheap fix I shoot some of my aguila SV that uses eley prime compound

The Remington 17HM2 ammo that I have has a label that shows that it was made England by Eley. I don't know about the priming compound, but can't imagine that Eley would have made any changes to the production process for the Remington 17HM2 ammo that wasn't purely cosmetic, the color of the bullet tips and the headstamps.

I've yet to shoot any 17HM2 ammo that is as accurate as the Eley and Remington. By far the worst accuracy that I've gotten out of a 17HM2 has been with the Hornady 15.5 grain NTX. The 2 production runs that I've shot, G18Z301 and G28Z303, were both noticeably less accurate than any 17 grain ammo that I've shot.

My Anschutz 1502 is the easiest rifle to shoot accurately that I've yet to own.

As with many things YMMV.

EDIT: Eley discontinue their 17HM2 more than a decade ago and since the 17HM2 is unlikely to experience a renaissance, there is little to no probability that we will ever see Eley make it again.

Drover: Thank you for that explanation of the priming compound.
One of my fellow Varmint Hunters here in my hometown bought two cases of ELEY 17 Mach2 ammo on closeout - "through the mail" - years ago.
He paid a ridiculously small amount of money for that large cache of Eley. IIRC it came to $3.50 a box for it.
Anyway he and I were out at our public range with his heavy barrel CZ bolt action Varminter in caliber 17 Mach2. He was shooting his ELEY ammunition and "I" saw him shoot a five shot group at 100 yards measuring (I measured it!) just a hundredth or two of an inch over 1/4"!
I measured that group with a steel rule that had 100 of an inch increments.
To this day that is the smallest group I have ever seen made with a rimfire Rifle at 100 yards.

260Remguy: Like YOU I also do NOT know the "particulars" of any differences in manufacture of ELEY vs. Remington 17 Mach2 ammo - I do recall that the ELEY 17 Mach2 ammo smelled different when fired!
Are you predicting the 17 Mach2 is dead or will be dying?
I hope not - it is a wonderfully accurate and useful cartridge.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

As long as CCI is making ammo for the 17HM2 it will live. It might not be dead on 06/21/22, but nobody is making a good rifle for it, only Savage AFAIK, and it is such a niche cartridge that there just isn't enough market demand for it to do more than limp along until the day that nobody will make ammo for it and it will die.

17HM2 ammo was nearly unobtainable for 3 or 4 years after the Connecticut school shooting in 2012, so when it was available again, I bought a lot of it whenever it was on sale. As of this date I have around 9.250 rounds of CCL/Hornady and 3,750 rounds of Eley/Remington. 800 rounds of the CCL/Hornady ammo is the 15.5 grain NTX that doesn't shoot good groups in any of my 11 rifles.

I wish that I had had the foresight to buy more of the Eley and Remington 17HM2 ammo when it was being closed out. Centerfire Systems sold the Remington for around $3 per box of 50 at the end. I bought 100 boxes, but exercising 20/20 hindsight I wish that I'd bought 500 boxes.

I took down a box of Eley and a box of Remington.

Differences that I see are:

Plastic bullet tip color is different, purple for Remington and blue for Eley

Headstanp is different, Remington has "R" and Eley has "E".

Labels on the boxes are different, except for the end label that has the lot number on it.

The 50 rounds boxes are physically the same, both have the following molded into the bottom of the box:

"Manufactured by Eley Limited"
"Minworth, B76 1BA, England"
"www.Eley.Co.UK"

I didn't go to the range to shoot today, too damned hot, so I can't report on the smell of the primers.

TWIMC,

Wholesale Hunter has CCI 17 grain 17HM2 ammo on sale for $8.97 per box of 50. There is a 5% discount on sales of 10 boxes or more. I don't know how long the sale will run, but if you're in the market, this is a source of ammo.

260Remguy: Saw some Eley 17 Mach2 ammo at the Bozeman, Montana gunshow this past weekend - it was for sale at $20.00 per box!
That pile of Eley 17 Mach2 ammo diminished somewhat from when I first saw it Friday afternoon to yesterday (Sunday)! I am not sure what it sold for but some was definitely gone.
The Hornady stuff is VERY accurate in all my 17 Mach2's.
Sadly, anymore, beggars can't be chooser's when it comes to many types of munitions!
So that CCI offering is a good one, these days.
Luckily I put away a lifetime supply of the Hornady 17 Mach2 ammo several years back in the aftermath of the previous munition/component "shortage".
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

I sold my 17M2 rifles after Eley stopped loading it. The Eley shot fantastic and I was worried about long term availability of the caliber.

Your experience with Hornady/CCI 17HM2 ammo is different from mine.

The Eley and the Remington that was made by Eley has always shot match-grade accuracy in accurate rifles, while the 17 grain Hornady/CCI shoots good groups, just not as good as the Eley in the same rifles. The 15.5 grain Hornady/CCI NTX doesn't shoot good groups in any rifle that I've shot it in. Maybe I got mine from particularly poor shooting production lots, but I don't need to shoot the 15.5 grain ammo, so I'm not going to spend more money for plinking grade accuracy.

I don't know when Eley stopped making 17HM2 ammo, but it has been awhile and I have read, maybe on RFC, that people have experienced split necks. The only 17HM2 case failures that I've had were in 10/22 conversions. I figured that it was just a matter of time before I had a "KABOOM" rim blow out from a round firing out of battery, so I put the barrel, recoil springs, and heavy bolt handle in a box on a shelf and put it back into factory specs.