Home Forums Reloading Varmint Rifles 17 remington fireball

I happen to like those two bullets in the 17's and RL-7 in the 17 and 221 FB's.

quarterboredave,

You may very well have a slow lot of TAC. Mine is a few years old now, but getting to the bottom of the jug, so I picked up another jug this summer and haven't tried it yet.

Of course, chronographing .17 bullets can also be somewhat iffy, especially in certain light conditions with some of the smaller, simpler chronographs. What were you using?

I have an older pro chrono, and yes the set up has to be quite precise or there will be a number of missed readings. On one occasion I was recording loads with Benchmark as well as Tac. My readings with Benchmark were very close to Hodgons published velocity. That tended to make me feel confident in the readings I was getting. I didn't give up on Tac easily and tried it several times with different primers bullets and so forth. Seemed to work for me very well with the heavier bullets up to 30 gr. giving very good velocity and accuracy. Even used it with the 25 Hornady on one rock chuck shoot and had great success with that load. No flies on Tac in the 223 and that is why I bought 2 8lb jugs of the same lot the 17 came later and it was certainly worth a try. Will still use it with the heavier bullets.

Rem brass, Rem 7-1/2 primers, 20 grains of H335, 20 grain VMAX.

Tom

has anyone tried 10x? i was reading somewhere, that i cant find now, that it was a good powder for the 17.

Here is a previous post of mine regarding my first experience with the model 7 in 17 fireball....

I love small calibers and have been shooting the seventeens for years. Back when virgin valley firearms was in business I had them make barrels for my contenders in 17 ackley hornet, and 17 mach IV. Both had 22" barrels that were light, fast and accurate. Two drawbacks,--single shot and with the original contender you have to open the action if you let the hammer down on an unfired round before you could re-cock the trigger.

For the last couple of years I have had the craving for a repeater in 17 mach IV. I have my share of heavy barreled varmint rifles and recently , I have been doing much more game calling. Most of my shots are 100 yds and under. I wanted a light rifle that would have a 22" barrel and a synthetic stock and a repeater. I would mount a 2 x 7 up to a 3 x 9 scope. To my mind the mach IV with a 20 gr. bullet at 3800 to 4000 fps is a great varmint round.
Remington must have been reading my mind because they came out with their model 7 predator in 17 fireball. I could not resist.
I have 17 fireball dies and brass on order, but I do not have them in my possession yet. However, I do have 17 mach IV brass, dies and a number of loaded rounds using 25 gr. Hornady hollow points over 15.8 and 15.9 grains of H-4198. Being the impatient type, could not wait to shoot the rifle and do some load testing. I mounted a scope and went to the range. I used some of these loaded rounds to zero the scope and to fireform some brass in the 17 fireball chamber. My first outing was somewhat disappointing. Velocity was sup-par and groups were over an inch.
Needless to say, I was bummed. I went home and took the rifle out of the stock and worked on the stock to free float the barrel. I also dug out some of my old Small Caliber News mags. I had forgotten about using Reloader 10x, so I loaded up some 18 gr. Bergers ,some 20 gr. V-maxes and some 25 gr hornady hollowpoints, all over several different load densities of reloader 10x.
Loads ranged from 17 grains to 18.3 grains. One fellow reported loading 19 grains, but I wanted to be conservative to start with. I fired a total of 37 rounds, 4 shots to zero and then fired 11 three shot groups. I cleaned the barrel before this second outing. I figured the 4 shots I took to zero the scope would sufficiently foul the barrel. I did not clean between the first and eleventh group.

Observations:
Although I am a blue steel and wood guy, I like the camo barrel and synthetic stock on this little rifle. The new x-mark pro trigger breaks crisply at 3.5 lbs. After free floating the barrel, groups were tighter and more consistant.
+/ 3950 fps out of a 22 inch barrel and no pressure signs, and room to spare in the case. A velocity over 4000 fps should be attainable without pressure signs.
These groups were shot in a cross wind 10 mph+ At 100 yds. and under, wind shouldn’t be a factor unless you’re shooting in a hurricane.
The 18 and 20 gr bullets shot the better groups
The bullets were loaded to the same seating depth, and the 18 gr bergers’ at 1.720 oal shot just as good if not better than the 20 gr. V-maxes’ (the longest bullet overall) at 1.800 oal.
The first group (25 gr hdy h.p., 17 gr rl-10x) and last group were both sub inch. Chances are I can get off more rounds in a day than I will shoot before accuracy is degraded.

The following pix are of the model 7 predator and the 11 different groups using reloader 10-x.
GWB






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shot 18gr of 10x at the range yesterday with 20 vmax. KInda windy so not sure how well they are really grouping. was able to shoot 1.5 with 5 shots. all loaded with once fired brass that is neck sized only. i did not have time to chrono but not to worried if it shoot accurate.

Love the FB and had this XP rechambered to the FB from MIV several years ago. Recently i shot one 3-shot group to verify velocity at 50 yds. and it was almost one hole--25 V-Max @ ~3400ish. Have the 6-18x Buckmasters mil-dot ontop that i use at 18x where the dot to dot subtension is 2.4 SMOA, and the dot is ~.5 MOA. Turret for elevation at .125 IPHY. It nets occasional 500-yd 1st shots. The only problem with this rig is that even with this little cal. i can't spot my own shots. It was threadded for a muzzle break awhile ago and i finally found the break a couple weeks ago, and hope to shoot by myself when i can't get a partner now--



...4-12x Burris Mini--


This crow was taken at 500-some on the 1st shot sitting on top of a dike using the lowly 25 Hornady HP, 6.5-20x Simmons (or 4.5-14--can't remember now) and Stoney Point tgt. turret all off a ballistics programs calcs. untested--




This little rig is probably my favorite.

Some guys talk about the 17's being wind sensitive, and i think MD covered that 1 pretty well. Actually killed a coyote once at 300 yds. in a 10 mph x-wind with the little rig. Had a system calcd. for the plex reticle in my scope and according to the calcs. i had to aim 1.3 "plex units" into the wind. X-hair axis was so far off the coyote using that dope i wasn't sure if the calcs were right or not, but i kilt' that guy with 1 in the boiler room.

I suspect that a lot of people assume that any "light" bullet will blow around a lot, but the three factors in wind drift are ballistic coefficient, bullet velocity and wind speed.

Bullet weight has nothing to do with it--except for increassing BC. Even then the extra muzzle velocity of a lighter bullet will often result in less wind drift than a heavier bullet out to 300-400 yards.

So you're the guy out shooting behind our vacation home!!!!

Yeah--sorry! We knocked on what was left of the door but nobody was home.

That was quite the fun hunt actually. The rancher called me and told me he was having problems with a couple coyotes killing his cats. The mange was starting to get into these coyotes pretty good, and the one in the pic below was the other of the 2 that were causing all the problems. Just like a wounded big cat that turns maneater, i guess when coyotes get wounded (mangy) they turn cateater--



I LOVE DAMAGE CONTROL COYOTE HUNTING!! I don't even care if i just see one once in a couple days hunt. It's just extremely rewarding and the rancher loves it when you're successful.

Nice looking setup.

SS what's that setup there, Model 700 with 3-9x40 Leuy? Adam

Thks. guys. Adam that's a 6 AI with 4-12x Burris Mini. Kilt' that funkoid dog at ~375 or so using Ballistic Plex reticle matched to 87 gr. Hornady BTHP @ ~3300 or so (I'm at work and can't access my notes on it).

Yep!

This is one of the reasons why some/most aspects of .204 in-flight ballistics outperform the 22-250. 22-250 lovers will argue the point until the cows come home but the numbers don't lie.

--Duck911

I was prairie dog shooting with a couple buddy's several years ago. One was shooting a nice factory 700 in 22-250 using the bulk 55 grainers. I was using my AR 223 AI shooting the 69 SMK. He just mentioned in passing that his 22-250 would beat my little 223 "way" out there. I guess he hadn't ran the #'s on it as much as i had. I just smiled and reribbed him probably as i remember.

This is my best stand to date with the 17 fireball. Unlike a lot of folk, most of the varmints I shoot are between 15 and 50 yds.
I planned on meeting a couple of my buds up at our lease in Concan Texas. I got there about 6:30 PM on a Friday night, unloaded my 4 wheeler and grabbed the predator and my fx3 caller and made a bee line for an area that I had seen a fox in a couple of months before.
This area had been cleared about two years ago and has numerous large brush piles. I have set up a box blind in this area and I put all my gear in the blind and set the call up against the base of a scrub oak about thirty yards out. I got set up and started calling about 7:55 pm. Started out with a jackrabbit distress call.
First fox came in about two minutes into my first calling sequence. I was looking straight ahead and saw him out of the corner of my eye directly to my right about 15 yds. out. He was so intent on the call I was able to pick my rifle up, snick off the safety and he never heard or noticed me. I lined up the shot and waited till he stopped and nailed him.
Second fox came in about 5 minutes later. Nailed him at about 40 yds. He was the only one of the four that did not drop at the shot. He ran about 20 yds, then crumpled. Boy was I jazzed. I had only been calling about 10 minutes and had shot two fox. Until this stand I had never shot more than two fox at any one stand.
I changed over to a waning jack call and called for about 5 more minutes when I saw a fox approaching the second fox that I had shot. It came up, sniffed at his dead cousin and took off. I took a running shot but missed.
It was starting to get dark rapidly about this time and having fired three shots I thought about calling it a night, but I decided I would call till dead dark. A couple of minutes later another fox came in. I shot him at +/- 50 yds.
Wow three fox in about 20 minutes. I said to myself, what the heck, it would not hurt to keep on calling, so I did . About 10 minutes later I shot my fourth fox of the evening. At this point I said enough was enough as it was getting almost to dark to see the crosshairs and I did not have a varmint light with me.
This was the best luck I have had to date. Got to draw first blood with the seventeen fireball and take four fox in 35 minutes of calling. Ended up, we also shot three hogs, 4 coons and a couple of jacks Friday and Saturday night. Not to bad for a short, fat, bald old city slicker.

GWB

so I shot the fireball in Wyoming for at some prarie dogs yesterday. WOW. Those loads are like lasers. From 100 out to 300 yds just hold dead and squeeze. I have not chrono my loads yet but those VMAX bullets are making a huge mess. I guess I have them dialed so I really don't care how fast they are going.