Ultra Accurate Barrels

Barrel/Cartridge Reviews
By The Folks Who Use Them

The 17 caliber is an addictive little cartridge. When Mike S. over at OTT 1st started making Barrels for the Contender/Encore the (then) new 17HMR was one of the 1st ones produced. I received a prototype for testing and fell in love with the accuracy of that barrel and the little 17 cal pill it spit out. ( For a full review of the 17HMR Match CLICK HERE)
However, there was one problem with the 17HMR, the ammo is too spendy for this tightwad.

"No Problem there" was the reply I got from OTT and shortly thereafter I received a cute little 12" Contender barrel chambered for the 17K Hornet. Matte Finished and topped with the Weaver 2x7x scope (Not included in the package) this puppy was ready to shoot as soon as I got some brass.

I acquired a set of RCBS F.L. dies, bullets and 200rnds of 22 Hornet brass. Brass can be formed using the seater and full length dies by...
1st taking the seater plug out of the die and carefully and slowly running a piece of lubed brass thru it, best to go in small increments until the shoulder is formed and it will fit snug in your chamber. (or the die bottoms out on the shell holder like mine did).
If your die bottoms out before the shoulder is formed and you don't want to grind away the bottom of your die or shell holder, you can then re-lube and run thru your FL Die, again, slowly work down in small increments until the shoulder is formed and the brass will fit your chamber.
I wasted about a dozen pieces of brass before getting it right. I don't know if there is anything more frustrating than having one of these dinky pieces of brass right to the formed stage and then having it crumple on itself.

A better solution to all this is to pry open your wallet and buy a form die, however, all the sources I checked at the time were 'back-order only'.

Or save yourself a lot of time and...
Drop J.D over at the Small Calibers Group a line. JD sells preformed brass for the 17K Hornet. One heck of a nice guy, JD doesn't seem to be in this for the money as he only charged me $16 for 50 pcs of formed brass and shipped it all to me in an ammo box to boot!! If any of you are interested in purchasing preformed brass you can contact JD at john.delozier@verizon.net
Besides 17K Hornet JD also offers....
17 Ackley Bee
17 He bee
17 Hornet
17 Mach 4
17 Javelina
14 Walker hornet
14 Walker Fireball
221 fire ball and 17 Mach 4 from 223 or 222
Once again I would like to thank JD for getting the brass to me quickly so I could start shooting! THANK-YOU JD!!

There are a couple different ways to form this brass to its final shape, I had read that fire-forming with a bullet didn't always work with these little cases, it was recommended that one use the old pistol powder/grits/tissue paper method of forming in order to avoid split cases. The recipe I have calls for 6gr. of Unique, fill case with Cream of Wheat and hold it all in place with a piece of tissue paper,
I loaded 5 rounds up with CCI 400 primers, 9.5gr of IMR 4198, and a Hornady 25gr HP bullet, ran out to the range, put up a target on the 50yd. picked a spot and fired away.
Cases formed perfectly with no splits. I couldn't see any holes in the paper tho and figured I was just missing it completely. No problem I thought, I'll do some scope adjustment when I come back with some more ammo. I ran down to shag in the target before leaving and, lo-n-behold, there was a hole about the size of a .22 cal bullet six inches below my aiming point.
Could this be all 5 rounds?
My past experience with On Target Techs Barrel work said "YES! This is all five rounds"!!
I knew then I was in for a very pleasant and joyful shooting review.
BTW, the Unique/grits load worked too, I tested this method with 5 cases and they formed up nice and neat. However, since I had no problem with using a bullet and it was shooting as accurate as it was I figured what the heck and went ahead and loaded the other 40 rounds with my CCI 400/ IMR4198/ 25gr bullet.

Another Day Forming

I had a ten day run on the day job and then deer season got in the way for a day or two before I was able to get back out and form some more brass.( NO, I did not get a deer)
I wasn't going to mess with the chronograph on these loads as my goal was to get this brass formed so I could get back to the shop and load them up with the real loads we would be testing. In the end I did decide to run 10 fire-forming loads over the chronograph when we started the testing just for the data.

Range day turned out to be a wet, cold, windy day and I made the trip short and sweet. Setting up on the 50yd. I shot four 5 shot groups, reluctantly cleaning the bbl. after each group. Again brass formed perfectly and groups were impressive but not as impressive as the first 5 rounds. I'm using the excuse of a 15 mile wind blowing and, the shivers running up my back because I wasn't wearing enough clothes to be out in this weather. Other than that and the lack of hot coffee it was a good shoot. However, with thoughts of my warm shop and my warm wife with a warm breakfast, I cleaned the barrel after the last 5 shot group (20th rnd) and moved over to the 200 yd marker and the steel gong that sits out there.
Without a clue where this was going to shoot I remembered the difference between a 100yds and 200 yds with the 17HMR was 15 clicks, So I took a guess, cranked the scope up 12 clicks and fired my last ten rounds. I was rewarded by 10 resounding slaps against the gong, not enough juice in this little guy to move it, the sound of the hits were unmistakable and I'm sorry no one else was dumb enough to be out there to at least witness the grin on my frozen face as I walked back to the rig.

Back at my warm home with some nice hot coffee and the smell of bacon frying I sat down with my calipers to see just what we had here. In spite of the weather working against me groups were still good. The best was .548, the worst was .820 with a .560 and .598 in between. This with fire forming loads. I'm satisfied that this is going to be a shooter, one to throw in the keeper pile. But, we'll have to wait to see what it does at 100 and 200 yds.

Hand-Loading For Keeps

There isn't a great deal of load data for these little 17K Hornets. However, the difference between it and the original 17 Ackley Hornet is very minor and I personally had no problem using the load data from the 17(Ackley) in the 17 K Hornet.
Powder selection is small, which, I think, is great. The data I found used IMR 4198, H4227, 2400, Reloder7 and BLC2. I have the IMR4198 and H4227 on hand, and BLC2 is easy to obtain. (2400 & RL7 will have to wait)

Back at the shop I fit the RCBS F.L. Sizing die in my Bonanza Co-Ax and carefully ran the 40 rounds thru the 1st stage. After my experience with forming, these little cases intimidate me a bit. I'm not sure yet just how fragile they are when it comes to reloading them. All cases sized up with out a hitch. Weighing out those little charges was different and pouring the charge thru that little 17 hole was quite a trick without a 17 cal funnel!! I managed to get them loaded (and now own an RCBS 17 cal. funnel.) Surprisingly I didn't fumble any of those itty bitty bullets with my big fat finger when seating them.

If your going to load for this little guy you'll need some different stuff on the loading bench. First a 17cal funnel is handy. Plus, I will have to aquire a 17cal pilot for my trimmer and a way to debur the flash holes. If your forming your own brass debur the flash hole while it is still .22 cal.
I guess the main thing to remember when working with this small stuff is to just relax and go slow. I'm used to working with a little bigger and stronger brass and if you treat the Hornet case in the same manner you will be frustrated AND lose alot of brass.

Feb. 19. 2004, I finally got a day off when the weather was decent. The range was around 40 degrees with a slight breeze blowing but, not bad. We had the whole range to ourselves all morning. We set up on the 100 yd. line. Our intent? To chrony all the loads we had and shoot for groups. We'll take the best and shoot again at 200 for groups only, I don't think we'll need to mess with the chronograph.

Listed below are the various hand loads we used in our test of the 17K Hornet. The little Hornet case doesn't hold alot of powder and a very small change in the charge wieght can have a BIG effect on pressures. Use care when loading for these little cases and don't underestimate the damage even this little guy can cause if overloaded.
And of course, because of the nature of this info and the way the world is today we have to print a disclaimer. HERE IS OURS

All loads used Winchester 22 Hornet brass re-formed to 17K
All loads used CCI 400 Primers.
Velocity was determined from 10 shots fired over a C.E.D. Millinium Chronograph.
Two (2) Five (5) shot groups were fired at
Groups were measured from the two (2) furthest points and then one (1) caliber was Subtracted, in this case .177

Velocity is the average of 10 shots, barrel was cleaned every 10 rounds. Groups are the best of 5 measured from extreme edges less one caliber (.177)

Please Note!! The 4th Load was TOO HOT! Cases were sticky, primers were flat and cratered. DON'T USE THIS LOAD!!

Some things to note ....

Please Note!! The 4th Load was TOO HOT! Cases were sticky, primers were flat and cratered.DON'T USE THIS LOAD!!

Shooting this gun/caliber was great fun. Recoil is nil and tho the accuracy on some of these loads wasn't great we were still quite pleased. I want to work with H4198 and the Hornady 25gr. HP bullets, tho I believe I'll try some 450 primers. The load with H4198 wasn't as clean as the rest of them and a magnum primer might clean it up abit. The 5th load listed was our fire-form load and the group wasn't real great, a flyer took it WAAY out there past 2". It put in some great groups at 50 and I think if it was 'pumped up' a bit groups would be better at 100 and 200. Why the Standard Deviation didn't read on this load I do not know.

UPDATE 9-01-04

Time Goes By! Doesn't seem like 6 months since I shot this little guy. I gotta get my priorities straight.

Added two more loads using the AA2015 Powder. Shooting at 100 yds both loads turned in an honest 1" group, in fact, the whole day was a 'one inch' day. (The only group that did better came out of a rifle.)

After we tested these two loads we moved over to the 200 Yd. marker and tried our luck with the 1st load listed, that with BLC-2 (12.5gr.) And again, we got an honest 1 inch group, I could have stretched (shrunk?) one group a bit to make it a bit smaller but it was so close we just called it an inch. Unfortuantly the loads using AA2015 did not group at 200 yds. If I would have bothered measuring it would have probably gone around 2 1/2 to 3" NOT what we want to see here. But, we're honest and, it's all in good fun. So... we have to tell on ourselves.
One note here tho......I did not clean this Bbl. in between groups, we shot the last 20 rnds at 200 yds. and packed it up. As noted below the Bbl. was not fouled when we did clean it and I don't really think that NOT Cleaning the Bbl. had any effect on the accuracy. I guess I could use it as an excuse but, I won't until we sit down and deliberately try to foul this Bbl. out.

Now, we have some more empty cases plus 50 to fire form. This was in the works to do at the end of the day but we were pretty burnt out by then and decided it would be a waste of ammo.
Our next batch is going to be loaded strictly with the H4198 and BLC-2 as this has given the best accuracy. True it has the lowest velocity but, I have a Max. listed at 15.0gr. so we have some room to improve that here. The H4198? Well I just have a feeling here and will pursue it as I really have nothing to lose. MY personal goal isn't so much a greater velocity with this cartridge as it is to lower the extreme spread and standard deviation. It has been written that the tiniest little deviation in powder will make a BIG deviation well, in the deviations, IE; Velocities and Pressure. With the little bit of experience I have in handloading this cartridge I'm going to say it does indeed make a diffrence.

A Clean Barrel

We initially thought that this Bbl. would cause us a little trouble in regards to copper fouling. So far the worry has been unwarranted. Using our cleaning regime with MPro-7 Gun Cleaner this little guy cleans up slick and easy. Perhaps when we up the velocity a bit we'll see a little more copper fouling but for now? Nil, none, nada, zip.
I shot the last 20 rnds at 200 without cleaning and the Bbl. cleaned up with one good scrubbing. The second run of the brush/patches turned up zero fouling of any kind.

All in all this cartridge has been a learning experience and a load of fun to work with. It still amazes me how few 'average' shooters, those at my range anyway, never knew this cartridge existed until they came over to my bench to see what I was shooting.

Hopefully we'll be shooting this one again REAL soon.

Stay tuned.