[Bayou City Boy]

First off, the 17 Remington is a great cartridge, IMO. You'll like it a bunch. The cartridge works great on coyote sized animals and the cartridge is just plain fun to shoot due to its very minimal recoil.

I saw the comment on it being quiet. None of the maybe 20 rifles I've owned in 17 Remington were quiet. The high velocity (in the 4K FPS range) creates a very loud and distinct crack when the rifle is fired. I have no idea what a 17 Remington with a muzzle velocity of 4900 fps as stated by one poster earlier would sound like, but I bet it would be REALLY loud.... I shoot at a public range sometimes and if I'm shooting a 17 Remington, I'm often asked what I'm shooting because those around me notice the loud noise. Smaller 17 cartridges are less loud, but the 17 Remington, in my opinion, is not quiet.

I have owned at least one rifle chambered for the cartridge since it was first introduced in 1971. Today I own four 17 Remington chambered rifles as well as a couple of custom 17 Mach IV rifles and a 17 Remington Fire Ball, which are for all intents and purposes, are the same cartridge (17 Mach IV/17 Rem FB) with only some minor dimensional variations. I also recently bought a rifle chambered in the new 17 Hornady Hornet which is much like my current 17 AH.

Last year I had the barrel on an old and fatigued 17-223 chambered rifle pulled to have a 17-222 rifle built, but as of today I have not finished the project due to a lack of current interest and doing other things.

If your BDL has anything but a 9" twist barrel, it is a very early 700 BDL/17 Remington combination. As mentioned earlier, the 17 Remington in the 700 BDL was first introduced in 1971 and it initially came with a 10" twist barrel.

By late 1973, IIRC, Remington had switched over to the 9" twist.

As a point of reference, I have a copy of the 1974 Speer Reloading Manual Number Nine that shows a 9" twist Rem 700 BDL as the rifle used to build the load data on the 17 Remington loading page. Speer never made a 17 caliber bullet but none the less in their manual they showed load data for a 25 grain HP (presumably Hornady) in the 17 Remington cartridge.

Also, in the back of the 1974 dated manual there is a reference section titled "Rifling Twist Used In Modern Center Fire Rifles" showing the current (1974 in this case) barrel twist by caliber/cartridge and rifle maker. For the 17 Remington, the chart shows:

17 Remington
1 in 9"
Remington 700

As for the Hornady 25 grain 17 caliber V-Max bullet being used in early 17 Remington rifles, Hornady V-Max bullets were first introduced in 1993 which is when the first 17 caliber V-Max was introduced. That is 22 years after the 17 Remington was introduced.

Initially the only available factory bullets for the 17 Remington were a 25 grain HP from Hornady, which is still being produced, and for quite a few years until maybe into the late 1980’s, Remington made their own 25 grain HP bullet which they used for loaded ammunition and which they also sold as a reloading component. It was a good bullet and it typically performed better than the Hornady HP on coyotes as far as fur damage was concerned with "I hit him around the fringe" shots. Berger also chipped in with several 17 caliber bullets in later years but I don't remember when it was as none of them shot as well as other bullets I had available.

On the barrel fouling issue, if your rifle is an older model 700, there is a good chance the barrel will shoot well and be easy to clean. Some early barrels did indeed foul easily due to poor barrel making technology at the time, but some were exceptionally accurate and cleaned easily even back then. Typically - For hunting purposes, I rarely clean a 17 Remington barrel before 100 rounds have been fired.

Still - Each barrel is unique and a 17 will tell you when cleaning is needed, either by noticeably reduced accuracy or by the small 17 caliber bullets key-holing on targets at 100 yards due to excessive copper fouling.

I've never seen the 17 Remington as a BR round so I've never tried shooting "internet impressive" groups with any of mine over a bench or over a keyboard. Still, it is an accurate round, and sub-MOA accuracy is normal.

For powders, several good options have been mentioned, and over the years I have tried a bunch of different ones. Through it all, I keep coming back to IMR 4198 as an excellent powder for the 17 Remington. I've never seen a 17 Remington chambered rifle that did not like it in terms of accuracy, and no coyote can out run a 25 grain 17 caliber bullet pushed by just over 19 grains of it. IMR 4230 has also performed very well for me.

Use only a primer like the Rem 7 1/2 or the CCI BR4 which both have a thicker cup as small bore cartridges such as the 17 Remington develop peak breech pressure very quickly, and lesser primers will burn through at times. Max breech pressure is not that great (52,000CUP, IIRC), but it comes very quickly in small bore cartridges. This quick rise in pressure comes about accompanied by intense heat that some lesser primers can't handle in all rifles.

Again, I'm betting you'll like the rifle for a lot of reasons.

-BCB

Edited to add: I've never shot a single coated bullet in any 17 caliber rifle I've owned.

 

[Bayou City Boy]

Thanks George, I will take you up on it!! my redding measure is dead nutz with varget, 4350, and 4198. Redding has a .17 cal tube that slides over the standard tube, think it will work out good. I tested 100 throws with varget biggest variation was 1/10 of a grain according to my rcbs range master scale. But if a 1/10 of a grain is that big of a deal then I guess I'll be hand weighing.

If you're loading near the top, 0.1 grain might be the difference between fun and not so much fun.

Powder bridging is another factor that can get ya' with the sub-calibers if you're not paying attention.

-BCB