Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles Newish .17cal AR option ,KAK .17-5.56

Sorry if this isn't the right place to post this pretty new and till trying to understand where everything goes. But I've been pretty bummed trying to figure out how I could go about having a low cost .17cal center fire. Wanted to build my own on an AR platform but custom barrels,brass and and other stuff have been getting irritated. Sorry but for something I want just kinda like a play around gun ( I got everything I need already twice over I just like playing with stuff) I can't see myself dropping $1500 on a custom/semi custom deal. And as I've posted before .17rem fire ball and the like brass is just a friggen pain to find or even find the parent brass to form. Big thanks to the guys who offered me some of I went and got one though. Well like my prayers where answer this just popped up on my 50th something search. I know these guys make some nice off the wall AR stuff like a 300wsm and 358win upper and this looks like it might be the answers to my prayers !!
Barrels are only $200 too !
Now before someone wants to say something about 17-223 please show me who's making affordable barrels and dies you can buy right now, I'll wait because I haven't seen anything since 2019. With this legit all your doing is taking cheap easy to find .5.56 brass and running it up in their die and boom ready to load. Now apparently from chatting a little with KAK ( nice folks) they have re worked some stuff with their reamer design and apparently have fixed a few problems the .17 rem and 17-223 have had relating to donuts neck turning and some other stuff







So idk looks pretty promising, hoping to have a barrel and dies in by February to re build a old upper with if every thing goes good.

Keyhole?

thats pretty cool. still better know a bit about wildcats and forming if you form brass period. its given me a few surprises over the years... fwiw.

where did you see keyhole?

On the target, next to the bullseye.

Zoom in on the pic and look at the detail.

thats not even close to what a keyhole looks like. you can see the individual bullet holes and edges clearly.

Gayyy.

Given the current state of supplies, it's an interesting option. I bought forming dies to convert 222RM or 204R to 17Rem awhile back. Really happy I got a decent supply of 17Rem when it was still reasonably priced.

Hmm, that is really interesting. Ive been interested in the 17-223 for quite some time just for the ease of use. I would like to see a Savage prefit in this 17-556 chambering.

That's nice. The only worry I'd have is that the barrel will get hot pretty fast and with it being in an ar you would have to be careful with how much you shoot it in a row. Nice cartridge made from common brass though.

Interesting. Might have to think on that one.

Welp got mine built

I like the concept! Which bullet will you use?

Looks a lot like a 17 Remington.

I've never had a 17 cal anything, but to me, the 17 Fireball seems like the best balance between capacity and bore.

Won't have to sell my first born for brass with this

It's fast, that's for sure. It'll be a nightmare for the vermin....(grin)

wasn't this called the 17 predator years ago? and then is was given the Rocky Gibbs treatment and called the 17 POS (predator on steroids)?
https://coyotestuff.com/articles/my-17-predator/

I do have 17-223 in ar and works great, excellent accuracy in 18" barrel. for a walk around rifle I would stay away from that heavy KAK barrel shown here. I have not had any of the problems KAK describes in there ad about the 17-223 round. You can order a custom lightweight barrel from BHW to keep things light for a walk around rifle. I have older custom dies made by RCBS I bought used, but really dont use the sizing die, just the seater die. I use a set of RCBS gold medal 223 dies for fl sizing cases, the sizing die uses bushings, so on used brass first use bushing for 22 cal., then again for 20 cal., and and finely for 17 cal., you only need to do that extra work once. All that works better then just running 223 brass in the older RCBS fl 17-223 die. It would be best to have a 20-223 form die along with the older sizing Die. Other options that I did not try are redding makes a 17-223 die set and you can get it at midway, also Hornady makes a 17-223 die set, I myself dont care for Hornady dies. Once your all set up its cheap shooting. 17 cal bullets are very explosive on impact, you really dont need to get max velocity, and to go with that saying, you can have high pressure spikes with small amounts powder variances, if your a sloppy reloader the 17 cal is not for you. For the comment above about 17 fireball, I do like that caliber better for bolt guns, but the brass is very expensive so the 17-223 makes more sense dollar wise. Getting back to the ar platform, on mine I run all lightweight parts for a carry rifle, and it runs flawlessly. KAK is the only one I remember using the term 17-556, all other sources for dies, barrels, ect. use the term 17-223 . Theres been other barrel makers over the years that made 17-223 AR barrels, You may get lucky and find a used one on the classifieds. This caliber was quit popular in the 70's-80's so there are limited supply's out there on the used market.