Home Forums Reloading Varmint Rifles 17 Fireball Loads - H4895

Not sure why 4895, surprised me here even though IMR 8208 is so close on the burn rate.

My favorite 17 FB propellants have been Benchmark, Imr 8208 & Tac so far. CFE BLK is one I still look forward to trying. BTW I generally favor the 30 grain bullets as I aquired a good supply 17 years ago or so. iI I am in a area where ricochet is of more concern than usual the 20 grain plastic tips get the nod.

You need to shoot for group size with the Premier load. My model 7 Predator will put three of those in a half inch if I am doing my part.

I'll do that. I have about 100 rounds of Remington Premier ammo. Need to go warm it up.

Reviving a 3 year old thread, I brought up on Google...

Got some of these loaded up in 17 Fireball brass to try out tomorrow....

I'm playing with it... picked up a Varmint profile barrel in it from EABCO in MN

The barrel is overkill for the round, but the price was right... $250 on the door step threaded for a Savage Action...

So this is timely....

my barrel fouls in about 25 to 30 shots tho....

Both me and this rifle are busy discovering and getting to know each other...

a 17 Fireball isn't just as easy as loading for a 223, that's for damned sure.

Me and the Fireball were over at the range yesterday, and trying out loads with 19 grains of H 4895 and 19 grains of IMR 4895..

The H 4895 load has turned out to be one of the more accurate loads of the 4 hundred rounds down the barrel so far..

by far tho, the IMR 4895 has proven to be the most accurate load yet... one ragged hole for 5 shots at 100 yds..

bullets were the 20 V Max...

This barrel seems to be liking lower pressure loads, over some of the higher faster loads tested...

accuracy winners so far seem to be the two 4895 loads, and then followed by full loads of Benchmark and H 322...

2015 gets honorable mention with the 25 HPs....

barrel seems to need a good brushing out, every 25 rounds or so, If not, it goes from groups to patterns...

funny side not, was looking at some brass on the load bench, almost looked like 3006 next to the 17 Fireball... but turned out to be just 22.250 cases..
working with the 17 for a month pretty much exclusively, the 22 caliber cases now look like big game rounds....

Seafire: I am happy for you that the 17 Fireball is shooting so well!
I have not tried any 20 grain bullets in my factory stock Remington 700 VSF 17 Remington Fireball with 26" heavy barrel.
I have taken you loads and attached them into my 17 Fireball page of my loading log and if bullets ever become available again I will be sure to try your loads.
My 17 Fireball is shooting the 25 grain Berger MEF (Maximum Expansion factor) bullets real well - but these are pricey and were hard to find even before they were discontinued.
Thanks for sharing that recommended load info.
I bet that 20 grain V-Max really plumps up a Ground Squirrel!
Keep after'em.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy
P.S.: Way to windy to shoot here in SW Montana today supposed to have sustained 45 M.P.H. winds!

I'll be reviving this thread as pretty soon I will be receiving one of the 17 Fireball barrels I have ordered.

I picked up a Savage Axis 2, in 350 Legend, which has an 18.5 inch barrel, in a heavy magnum contour.
I liked how it balanced very well...

The barrel ordered will be in the same contour and length, and chambered for the Fireball with a one in 9 twist.

We'll see how well it performs, and will start out with H 4895....

I've got about 2500 bullets, and you can still find them available on line.

Kno9w this is once again reviving an older thread.

Have finally been able to rebarrel the Axxis 350 Legend, to a similar contour barrel, 18 inches in length.
Kinda handy to handle, that is for sure....

been able to get set for brass, some LC reformed and about 250 of Rem Factory cases....

Been working with testing a bunch of different powders, using the 20 gr V Maxes... but also have a good supply of the lead free 15.5 grain bullets,
haven't touched those yet, along with the 25 gr HP bulk Hornady I got on the cheap from Midway. 1500 bullets for like $90 delivered.

of course, after sending about 200 rounds down the barrel, now stating to take a look at some loads, using Small Pistol primers,
and in that has been Alliant Steel and good ol Blue Dot.

hasn't been windy locally, so and 8 gr charge of Blue Dot, has been pretty darn accurate out to 150 yds....
Max capacity of Blue dot was 17.5 gr of Blue Dot... so 50% or half of that is 8.7 grains.... so I picked 8 grains to see what I got...
turned out pretty darn well, and recoil is ridiculously.... missing..

Also tried Alliant Steel, with an 8.5 gr charge also...same thing.

Juat playing with flexibility... its doing good. Also annealing the case, every reload. So far I've got a batch of 10 cases that I've reloaded 15 times so far, and they are holding up well... RCBS sent me a die one of their engineers reworked and made it easier to F/L sized, spent money on a couple dies with certain features...Crimp from Lee, got a 17 caliber decapping pen from Lee also, and put that in an extra 30/30 die I had, for decapping it..
then got a 221 Fireball F/L length die from Lee. I use that for a body die...So far no casualties at the load bench.

Little case seems to like AR Comp and RL 10 and 7 a lot also... to include IMR 4198, H 322, Benchmark, 1680, CFE Pistol and CFE 223.

Like a 223, it seems also to "Aim to Please"....

years ago I went nuts loading the round for an 85 yr old friend.... but since 2008, I guess I've gotten more coordinated than back them.

I shot a 700 SPS sporter-weight in .17 Fireball for several years, and likewise found TAC not only very accurate but easy-flowing through the little neck. But also found Benchmark was very accurate, and the granules small enough to work as well.

In my .17 Remington Ramshot Big Game worked very well, with similar easy flowing as TAC in the Fireball.

Seafire -

I think I remember you don't like it, but my go-to in the .17 FB was 20 grains of H335 under a 20 grain VMAX. 5 shot groups from a cheap blued 700 SPS sporter were around 3/8 of an inch and after the first 100 rounds it quit copper fouling. It was hell on digger squirrels up in the clear cuts. Should never have sold it but someone offered me more money for it than I paid for it new and there's always a new shiny thing to chase so .. I chased.

Tom

tom,

good to hear from you... its been a while...

yeah, I avoid H 335... I know it shoots good for a lot of folks, but I won't touch it and there are a zillion alternatives.

I've rebarreled 3 savages to 17 Fireball now. I enjoy playing with it at the range.. to late to see combat with the sage rats over in Klamath this year...
but come Feb or early March, that'll change.

brass is holding up pretty darn well.. got one batch with 15 reloads on it, and another batch just finished their 20th reloads...

The 20 v Maxes are pretty darn accurate... I've got like 1500 ea of 15.5 grainers. Gotta get around to testing those out.

Going to try some testing of an old batch of AA 452 Win, and see how that performs with the fireball. Blue Dot worked pretty darn well...

have a happy thanksgiving there Tom....

take care my friend!

cheers, seafire

Remington model 7

Weight sorted Remington Brass 1.400 OAL
Federal Small Rifle Primer’s #205
20g Hornady VMAX
19.2g Ramshot X Terminator
1.823 OAL
1.510 Ogive

Gun will shoot better than 1/2 moa if I do my part. Xterminator picked up 200fps from other powders I was playing with at the time

Glad to see this thread alive again.