Remington 17

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Bucksnort1

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I have a Remington 17 cartridge. I did some research and found a statement that says the Remington 17 Fireball is as fast as the 17. What's the difference between these two cartridge?
 
They may be close with 20cal bullets but 17 Fireball slows down with 25gr/30gr bullets. I shot 17Rem that Dan Dowling build, he was on Western Slope and I sold it few years ago.
 
I just pulled a Remington factory box of each and the differences are case length and bullet weight. From the boxes selected the .17 Remington has a case length of 1.79" with a 25 gr bullet and the .17 Fireball has a case length of 1.39 with a 20 gr bullet. The Fireball doesn't have quite as much taper to the case and may look almost straight by comparison.
 
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A quick look at the 9th edition Hornady manual shows the 17 Remington pushing 20 grain bullets to 4300fps and 25 grain to 4100 fps.


The 17 Remington Fireball fastest loads for 20gr is 4050 fps, and 35 gr is 3750 fps.

So no, they the Fireball is not as fast as the 17 Rem.
 
A forum post shows the Fireball with a 20 gr bullet exceeding 4100 fps but comparing identical bullet weights the Remington seems to have the edge in comparable weights.
 
The .17 Remington is based on the .222 Remington Magnum cartridge necked down.

The .17 Remington Fireball is a necked down version of the now pretty much obsolete .221 Remington Fireball, which itself was based on a shortened .222 Remington Magnum.

Unless you ramp pressures up beyond way is acceptable, I think it's pretty much impossible for the Fireball version to match the larger-cased .17.
 
The shoulder of the .222 Rem mag is also pushed back, almost one quarter inch, in forming the .17 Remington. I just pulled a box of new Remington .222 Rem mag brass to confirm.
 
If your forming 17 Rem case using 222mag case your going have to trim as 222mag case is 1.850" long and 17 Rem is 1.796".
 
Actually I'm not forming since I have plenty of all factory cases for the .17s and .222 Rem mags but you're right, there's also some trimming to be done as well as setting the shoulder back on the .222s. Returning for a moment to the .17 Fireball, through a fluke I ended up with two in that caliber, both 700 Remingtons. Thinking I could sell one at a gun show, towards the end of the day I had the price down to $300, new, including three boxes of factory rounds and a .17 caliber cleaning rod, but still no takers so I still have two .17 Fireballs. The Fireball just couldn't fly or it seemed too weird.
 
As a long time .17 Remington owner, yeah, it is a little faster, but in reality it doesn't matter that much, and if I was in the market for a new .17 rifle, I would probably get the Fireball. The velocity difference won't matter to any varmint you hit with it, and the lower powder capacity probably gives it a longer barrel life.

Oh, and not to sound like a grumpy old man, but .17 shooters now have it pretty good. Try finding a .17 cal cleaning rod before there was an internet.

Now get off my lawn.:D
 
i have a rem model 7 in .17 fireball wood stock new in the box, no ammo around here. i,ll have to load some when i get dies as i have a rem 700 in .221 fireball and will try to neck them down to .17 fireball. eastbank.
 
The two cases aren't an exact match, slightly different shoulder angle, and the .221 shoulder may have to be set back just slightly, but it appears they should size and fireform satisfactorily to .17. Possible shoulder set-back is just by inexact matching one case against the other so may not be accurate.
 
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