OzFclass

Something a little different for the Christmas season has anyone had any experience with a shortened 223 / 17 fireball type round similar to the .17 boomer or .17 shrew??

I'm looking at building a fox gun with a bit better performance than a 17 hornet on the 223 case head for 3500-4000fps with a 20-25 bullet that isn't as over bore as the 17fb or 17rem so hopefully a lot less barrel fouling, barrel wear and reduced noise with only a small velocity loss. . . . . . . .and hoping to make it ahead of the curve with future every restrictions

Yes the hornet would be the easy option but I don't really want a dedicated hornet action/ rifle.

Look on 6mmbr lots of info on there about necking down a 223 and more. What do u mean being ahead of the curve for future restrictions just curious ?

jmc wrote:Look on 6mmbr lots of info on there about necking down a 223 and more. What do u mean being ahead of the curve for future restrictions just curious ?

Yeah I've done a bit of research on them and there isn't a huge amount on 6br etc but I though that we have some very cluey people from a diverse background in this site and there might be someone local that has first hand experience.

was just a tease mate!

Hi Bat,

Have you checked out http://www.woodchuckden.com/ ?
The bloke who runs this site used to publish Small Calibre News
which had lots of info on some weird and wonderful 17 and 20 cal wildcats
and he also has a couple books on 17/20 cals for sale.

cheers,
Chris

Goto ausvarmint.com forum. Those guys have a ton of small cal wildcats and alike.

I had the 14/221 which is just a 221 necked down to 14 cal. It was lovely to shoot, nice and accurate. Now I have moved up to a big booming 17 Rem, but the 17 Fireball is a lovely balanced small cartridge.

RDavies wrote:I had the 14/221 which is just a 221 necked down to 14 cal. It was lovely to shoot, nice and accurate. Now I have moved up to a big booming 17 Rem, but the 17 Fireball is a lovely balanced small cartridge.

.14 Cal is more exotic than I want to go! I see there aren't many people making 17 Cal barrels any more let alone .14 barrels and bullets!

.14-221 would have been pretty over bore, what type of powder did you find worked well or helped reduce fouling?

Saubier.com is your friend. 17mk4 or fireball would be my choice if doing 17 cal. After shooting foxes for a long time I've just built a 6br in a 13.5 twist krieger with no freebore and no turn neck. Hard to guarantee range and weather when out foxing so I like a bit more hitting power. Also have a 21 inch dasher shooting 87vmax that is scary accurate at 100m and actually very f class competitive in calm conditions too.

I'm not sure if this link work but this is forming a 17 shrew from 223 brass. Looks pretty cool little case

http://s999.photobucket.com/user/eurosp ... 1.jpg.html

BATattack wrote:I'm not sure if this link work but this is forming a 17 shrew from 223 brass. Looks pretty cool little case

http://s999.photobucket.com/user/eurosp ... 1.jpg.html

Those little cases look great. I would love to neck then down to 12 or 10 cal.

Yeah Brad I've got plenty of bigger stuff and a few accurate .222's but some of the areas I shoot are close to town and i just need something with a bit more legs than a 17hmr but can bring down a red coat at 200-250 while keeping noise and ricochet risk to a minimum. After shooting a mates 17hmr I love it but the next step up would be perfection for what we do!

Shooting a sako 243 with a 1-14 twist with 0 free bore, neck turn pushing 65gr v max well over book max is . . . . A LOT of fun but there are only a few property's I shoot on that can warrant it.

I'm going to join sauiber as it seems to have a lot of good information but I though I'd see if any locals have been down a similar road

RDavies wrote:

BATattack wrote:I'm not sure if this link work but this is forming a 17 shrew from 223 brass. Looks pretty cool little case

http://s999.photobucket.com/user/eurosp ... 1.jpg.html

Those little cases look great. I would love to neck then down to 12 or 10 cal.

yeah and I'd love to see you pushing a cleaning rod through it! Haha even your .14 must've taken some concentration?

You can actually buy 17 shrew brass off the shelf. . . . $300US/ 100 mind you!

The .17 shrew seems very efficient for 17 Cal from what I've read it uses about 12gr of powder behind a 20gr for about 3900-4000fps. The intention is to have minimal powder for a full burn and minimal muzzle blast in a 24" max tube.

I don't do my own chambering (fortunate to have someone local that does better work than I ever will! Haha) BUT it seems to be common place to run a standard reamer in short and then cut back a sizing and seating dies to suit. I can't see how well that would work when taking case taper and Web diameter into account??

Hi Adam. The 17 fireball would probably be my choice as it is now a standardised chambering and it can do whatever the shrew or hornet can do plus match velocities of the 17 rem when using lighter projectiles. The 17 hornet is a good round but requires a specific bolt face and narrows the options greatly if you want to re-barrel to something else later on. Back when there was only a choice of Remington or Hornady 25 gn projectiles the hornet case didn't drive them fast enough for totally reliable expansion like the 17 Rem case did and I ruined a lot of fox skins with large exit holes. Now there is a bigger choice of projectiles in lighter weights as well which would overcome that problem. I think the 17 fireball would feed a lot better than the shrew due to a bit more length as well but would probably work better in one of the shorter actions that were designed to only handle the 222 family of cases as their maximum length. Whatever you choose in the smaller 17 cal range is fun to shoot and you can usually watch what happens at the other end due to the minimal recoil. Of course you could go all out with something special like a 17 flintstone super eyebunger but I doubt Jerome would have a reamer for that one.
Regards Malcolm.

The 17 fireball would probably be the sensible choice Malcolm but I'm hoping the shrew or similar will be a bit quieter and have less fouling.

Yeah Malcolm and you know the noise being made with PTA's in SA at the moment I don't want to rope myself into a dedicated hornet action. Thinking a CZ/ BRUO action might be the go. I've got one in .222 and being controlled round feed it might work better than anything

Slightly off track I have a 204 which is great if you don't want the skins
Maybe a 20 vartarg could be worth a look?