Savage .17 hmr heavy barrel?

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xxxleafybugxxx

New member
Im getting this .17 soon for plinking and varmint hunting. What difference is made with a heavy barrel or regular? And also stainless steel or blued?
 
Heavy barrel will obviously be heavier, making it more steady on the rest (for me anyway) also will cut down on how much barrel vibration affects your shooting. Also, because there is more metal to disperse the heat, the barrel will expand less when you fire repeatedly so your bullets will fly more consistently.

The difference between stainless and blued is really more aesthetic than anything to me. although I'd think the stainless would take less maintenance to preserve the finish.

Hope I didn't just answer a bunch of stuff you already knew.

17 is a great round, you'll have a lot of fun with it.
 
i dont know if the 17 gets hot enough to really take advantage of the heat, i know a 22 doesnt.....as coyotebuster said, its more about balance and looks in the lower cailbers. If you can get stainless for the same money then yeah, it holds up better.
 
I have the Savage 93 17HMR in blued barrel. Very accurate, can shoot a lot without heating up, as in prairie dogs.;) Blued vs SS- appearance, maintenance,and price is the difference. My blued is fine with just the ordinary care you would give any blued gun to prevent corrosion, I just clean the sweat and dust off and wipe on a very light coat of oil. Also, for a bull barrel, it is still a light gun, has good balance and the barrel is not an issue to carry around like it is on some of the centerfire varmint barrels. I have bad shoulders and I can still handle it off hand.
 
So the main difference in heavy barrel is that it wont heat up quite so fast? I don't plan on rapid firing my bolt action rifle and would like it as light as possible. Also I think ss looks better than blued
 
That's simply not true. I've shot both a heavy and a regular barrel in .17.. there is a definite difference. The heavy barrel just felt better/ more stable, and I did notice that the regular barrel was pretty hot after 10-15 shots. I just felt more comfortable shooting at a longer distance with the heavy barrel.

Also you don't have to "rapid fire" to heat up your barrel. If you shoot more than one a minute it will warm up pretty fast.
 
I use 17 V Max. You can get essentially the same bullet in Hornady, CCI, Federal, probably Rem and one or two others as well. I have shot Hornady, CCI, and Federal. Not much difference in my gun but Hornady seems to group slightly better than the others, but we're talking maybe 1/4" at 100yds. There is also a 20gr hollow point game bullet. I have shot it a little. It hammers small game a little harder than the VMax but does not group quite as tight but certainly accurate enough if you want to shoot it. There is also a non lead version but I have not shot it so nothing to report.
 
I also use the 17g vmax.

After trying every other brand and weight I could get my hands on, that particular round gave me the best patterns.

I've also seen a twin to my Savage pattern better with the 20g's so you should try for yourself.

The heavy barrel is a definate bonus as these suckers heat up fast!

You will find that stainless will be more resilient to a wet enviroment.
 
The 17 gets hot fairly quickly.

My friends and I went through 50 rounds in about 35 minutes and the barrel was pretty warm (this was with a fluted heavy barrel, I have the 93R17TR).

I can't imagine how much warmer it would have been had it been a regular barrel.

I'd go the stainless route, just because it's less pain in the behind to maintain.
 
Sounds good.

How's it shoot?

I find that at 50 meters I get the best groups with the CCI Game Points...I believe they are 20 grains.
 
Feel to an individual shooter and/or hunter is the biggest difference. .17hmr barrels do warm up and effects can be seen on accuracy rather quickly. Heck, even a .22lr can warm up to the point of changes in the point of impact in just a few rounds. So yes, a heavy barrel might help if you're shooting multiple shots back to back to back. Also, as some have stated they like the extra weight and think it's more stable. It probably is but still that comes down to personal preference.

Frankly, there is not much if anything more inherently accurate to a bull barrel. All barrels have harmonics and sporter barrels, rimfire and centerfire, can display a great amount of accuracy and unless one is sitting over a prairie dog town or needs the extra weight to help them steady the gun than a sporter barrel is all you need.

BTW, seen consistent dime sized groups from the Savage .17hmr sporters. Buy with confidence.

LK
 
Well, it would shoot alot better if bass pro had properly mounted the scope. Had nice consistent groups 3" to the left of where i aimed. Probably put 30 clicks of windage adjustment into it with no change. Took it back, had it properly mounted and checked that the windage adjusted. They said if it still doesnt seem right bring it back and they will replace the scope
 
I had two Savage 17 cal rifles. One with the regular and the other with the heavy barrel. In my case, the regular barrel did not produce expected accuracy but the heavy barrel did.
Mind you I am talking about placing holes at 12,3,6, and 9 o'clock on a postage stamp.
 
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