Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Predators and Varmints What’s with .17 prices?

Any bolt action .223 can become a .17 Remington without too much work. I've stocked up on components and I bought a 700 but I made the horrible mistake of shooting the donor .. and it shoots very well as-is. Oops. I'll probably still do it but it'll take a while longer than I planned.

I think one of the things that cut into the .17 centerfires is the .204. Feed it 32 grain bullets and it does much of what the .17 did with 20s and 25s; feed it 39s/40s and it does most of what the .223 does in a standard twist. As shooters our collective attention has shifted from colony varmints to long range paper / steel and there just isn't enough room in the market for .17s, .20s, and standard twist .22 CFs anymore. This is too bad. My next itch after a .17 was to try a .14. It won't happen now.

PM sent on a 17 Remington

I have a 17 Hornet, Fireball and Rem. The Hornet sure is fun in the squirrel fields.

As TOM mentioned, perhaps a 204 Ruger for consideration? If I could only have one varmint gun, it would be a 204 Ruger.

Anyone ever heard of a .17 being built in an AR platform? I’ve seen some .204’s built but never a 17.

Yes, there are .17 Rem. in the AR-15.

Sounds like a relatively inexpensive way to get a .17 Rem, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Ben Lurkin: I agree with your assessment of the 204 Ruger COMPLETELY!
After 19 years of Hunting with and shooting the 204 Ruger I am COMPLETELY convinced that it is THE BEST "all around" Varmint and predator cartridge there is!
Yesterday I brought on-line my latest 204 Ruger Varmint Rifle. It is ANOTHER Remington XR-100 that I but a Leupold 4x12 A/O variable scope on. This is my fifth XR-100 in caliber 204 Ruger and like the other four this latest find shoots VERY well indeed.
The choice of the lower powered Leupold will give this Rifle advantages while calling and night Hunting.
Long live the 204 Ruger.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy
P.S.: I re-read the original posters posting and "cost" was a major concern of his - I think he would have a better chance of finding a "deal" on a 204 Ruger Rifle than one in 17 Remington Fireball or one in 17 Remington.

Its not just the 17 ammos that are expensive, the gun prices for 17 caliber seems to be going absolutely nuts, there's an H&R bolt action in 17-223 going for over 2Gs with 50 bids on it.

Just some real world info on the M25 walking Varminter from an owner. I have one and it fails to eject like A LOT of them do. I got one in 17 Hornet a few years ago. It is an awesome rifle, the ergos are great, it is an absolute tack driver with tons of different powder/bullet combos as well as factory Hornady 20grn Vmax. That being said the brass extracts fine but falls off the bolt face on top of the mag. Savage sent me both an ejector and extractor which I switched out to no joy.

Since we just use it for jack rabbits, shooting groups and blowing up water bottles I have just learned to live with it and just roll the rifle 45 to 90 degrees to the right when working the bolt and they fall out fine. I don't really want to lose any of my brass so it doesn't bother me a whole lot. I think it was 539 bucks when I ordered it.

Just picked up a Harrington and Richardson in .17 Rem a week ago at a local gun show. Anyone know where to get a couple hundred brass? The .17 has been a dream rifle for about 20 years. There were 3 at the gun show a NIB rem 700 for 1450 a NIB model 7 for 1100 and my Sako/H&R for 1100. I have seen one well used .17 rifle in the last 10 years at gunshows.

I suppose it’s past time I give an update here lol.

It took SEVERAL weeks to get each of them, but I blindly stumbled across both a Martini Cadet in .17 Ackley Bee and a Remington 700 in .17 Fireball (HUUUGE shoutout to member “aboltfan” for connecting me w/ that one)!

I was chasing the Martini first and went back and forth with the seller on some details, one of which twist rate. He initially thought it was a 1:12, much too slow to stabilize anything made these days but the little Hornady 15.5gr NTX that I’m not overly interested in. When he told me it was a 1:12 twist, I went after the R700 in .17 Fireball. The shop it was at was kind of all over the place, super nice folks but a little disorganized. It took them the better part of a week of me pestering them with phone calls for them to finally look around and realize they still had the rifle and hadn’t sold it yet lol. During that week, the first guy said he double checked w/ a cleaning rod and the Martini had a 1:10 twist (which I still need to verify, just barely picked it up yesterday so hopefully he wasn’t blowing smoke up my A!).

So I jumped on the Martini because at the time it was looking like the R700 had sold but they weren’t sure. Several days later I find out they still had it, so I snagged that as well. I got what I thought was a screaming good deal on the 700 initially, but once I had it in hand that got downgraded a tad to a “really good” deal. It has some rust in a few places that I need to clean up, the bore is pretty dirty, the stock is a cheap factory plastic affair, and the scope is an old Cabela’s Pine Ridge 4-12x. But for what I paid, I consider everything outside of the action and bottom metal to be a bonus. If it shoots reasonably well, all the better. If not, then I have the correct action, bolt, and bottom metal to do a build with! I want to replace the stock sooner than later, but components will take top priority for now. It seems there aren’t many composite (McMillan, Manners, B&C, etc.) stocks cut for a BDL popping up on the used market, so it may take a bit to find one to my liking anyway.

The Martini has some miles on it but looks very nice, character marks aside. There’s a bit of wood missing right at the wrist where the stock meets the action and it shows some miles, but it seems mechanically sound and has a LOT of potential. The trigger is crisp if not a touch on the heavy side (should be fixable), and the Nichols 2-7x32 seems a little low on the power scale for it, but it seems clear enough. It pretty unique and I really like it so far even though I’ve not shot it. I’m still very new to reloading, so the idea of forming cases seems a bit daunting but no time to learn like the present!

I now have dies for both and am slowly buying brass and bullets as I can to stock up. Next is powder. I’m making a list of several I need to order a few pounds of to see what they like. I’ve wanted a .17 for years, and when I finally got a .17HMR, the hook was set. Now that I have a few centerfire .17s, I guess I’m in the deep end of the pool! I’ll try to get some photos up this weekend for everyone to see.

Basher, I think you will enjoy the little furball. I had one early on but it was a very poorly made gun. The chamber was terribly oversized and it never would shoot. It got made into a 204 Ruger. The second one I have is a Model Seven action that I had a custom barrel screwed onto it. It’s a fun little shooter but I need to get it out more often. I personally can’t stand the plastic stocks and would immediately throw it out for a nice wood or laminated wood piece. You’ll have to get it cleaned up and let us know how it shoots.