Home Forums Reloading Varmint Rifles Hornady 25 grain Vmax in a 17 Hornet

Has anyone tried the Hornady 25 grain Vmax in their 17 Hornet? What kind of velocities are you getting? How did it perform on your intended target?

Ive used them quite a bit in a .17 Rem reduced to Hornet velocities( about 3600 fps ) Accuracy was good though I dont know if the twist on a hornet is different than the Rem. They did great on intended targets like fox and bobcat, very fur friendly ,but I prefer a little more juice for coyotes.

Twist will be wrong unless it's a custom 9 twist barrel on the Hornet

The 20’s are getting around 3600 in my rifle. It looks like the 25’s will be a couple hundred slower. The B.C. is a good bit more on the 25’s so I thought they may be worth a try for groundhogs.

It’s a CZ 527 and they came standard with a 1-9” twist. I should be fine for the twist. Correct me if I am wrong, I thought all of the rifles available for the 17 Hornady Hornet have 1-9” twist barrels.

Definitely!

In my CZ 17 Hornet, I had 5-shot submoa loads with the 25gr VM using both H-322 and Accurate 1680. The H-322 load was consistently around 3,250 fps and the A1680 load clocked around 3,200 fps. Both performed well on ground squirrels although I much prefer the 20gr VM bullets at over 3,600 fps in my 17Hornet on gophers and P-Dogs.

I use H322 in my Savage M25 with the 25grn vmax, I get 3150 to 3200fps. They are incredibly accurate, I have not shot any varmints with them. The 15.5grn NTX solves all of our jack rabbit problems. I know from friends that the 25grn Vmax is a coyote thumper inside 180 yards or so though. I also get good accuracy from CFEBLK but have not choro'd that load yet.

Horrible, you need to stick with 20gr or less in a Hornet. Anything heavier hits an invisible wall at 75y and falls straight to the ground. Send your useless 25gr HPs to me for appropriate disposal…

OK, just kidding. But I agree that from what I’ve read while researching the various .17s that the Hornet, while capable of using the 25s, does much better with 20gr or less. It struggles to move the 25s fast enough to take advantage of the increased weight and BC. But load a few up and let us know how it does!

Thank you to everyone who posted. If I can track some down I will give them a try and report back.

I'm in agreement that the Hornet does best with 20 grain VMAX bullets.

I have plenty of the 20 grain Vmax and will continue to use them for now.

They have some 17 hornet ammo on midway right now, ordered 2 boxes earlier. Hornady 20 gr, 2 box limit.

Thank you for the heads up.

A 1-9 twist is standard SAAMI specs for the .17 Hornady Hornet.

Had a 17HH 527. Accuracy was great with the 25’s but speed was off for what I was after. 17HH factory brass really frazzled me for a long time. I suggest to most to weigh cases, I saw 3-5 grain spreads from heavy to lite. Keeping them segregated made a huge difference for me.
Had an HMR and it left me wanting. The 17HH came along and I thought it to be outstanding for a couple of years. Then a 17WSM appeared and I found it to be way better than the HMR and close to the 17HH. Then the 17FB arrived. It was easily down loadable to the 17HH and would do 4000FPS with 20’s easily. The 17FB brass was head and shoulders above the 17HH.

The HMR and 17HH were culled after a few outings.
I was lucky and stocked up on 17WSM ammo when it was cheap and no one seemed to want any. I have enough to wear this one out, no reloading was my only justification of keeping it. Accuracy was not a lot different than what I got from the CZ 17HMR but range was close to double. The 17WSM is pretty much MOA out to 200 on a regular basis.