My CZ 527 in 17hh is my first centerfire and my first dive into reloading. I'm trying to develope two loads. Max for foxes and long range rabbits and a low load for quietness. Is it possible to get a load down to subsonic? I know I'll probably have to use something like Trail Boss and a big bullet.
I'm not yet ready for proper developing but I was out with a friend on Sunday and he asked for the Chrony. I put three try it loads through the Chrony and knowing how scarce 17hh load data is I thought I'd post it here.

17grain vmax 9.0 grain lilgun 3623fps

20grain vmax 9.0 grain lilgun 3207Fps

20grain vmax 9.1 grain lilgun 3613fps

The first one was the 17gr Vmax that Hornady uses in their HMR.

I think it was the third shot I shot the Chrony F1 CRYBABY

Something looks wrong with your velocities if there is a 400+ fps difference with only .1 grain of additional powder.

quote:

Originally posted by Firearmdoc:
Something looks wrong with your velocities if there is a 400+ fps difference with only .1 grain of additional powder.

It was only one shot and I will check when I get my van back from the shop but LilGun is hot and the case is very small. Not a powder I'm comfortable with to be honest but it's all I have at the moment.

I have 3 Kimber 82s, 2 in 17 K Hornet and one in 22 K Hornet. I tried LilGun in all 3 and I could not get any of them to group. I found a great deal of variation in velocity with small amounts of powder increases. I gave up on using it.

All of my kimbers really like H4227. Very accurate and not the wide variations LilGun had.

I have a CZ 527 in 17H that I acquired a few months back. Have used 1680 and 20 gr V-Max from the beginning. Excellent accuracy and velocity as well.

There's a bunch of Quickload data in this thread:

https://forum.nosler.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=25829

Thanks for the replies guys. I do intend to find a different powder once mobile. Don't know qabout over there but no shipping of powder over here in the UK without horrendous costs.
So far LilGun has been OK. Had a couple of small issues but may be due to Hornady cases. Have made a tween die that is successfully reducing 22 hornet cases to 17 and half way finished a hydraulic die to try blowing out the cases without fireforming.
What I'd really like is some info on how low can I go? Normal loads are great for mid to long range but the idea of finding a quiet load, even subsonic for the shorter range bunnies is very appealing. We are a bit more squashed up than you guys seem to be and many of our shooting opportunities are close to housing etc.
What speed does the 17,20,25 and 30 grain bullets de-stabilise in the 17 hornet? And when does the accuracy start to go?
Maybe it's not possible but I recently read that some guys have achieved subsonic with 223 Rem.
I will experiment once I'm mobile again but it would be nice to hear from someone who's done it.

As far as stability goes, you can plug the #s into a ballistics calculator and get an idea of what to expect.

Here's one http://www.jbmballistics.com/

Good stuff Craigster. Thank you.

According to JBM ballistics the 17gr 17vmax (the 17hmr bullet) is still stable @ 1000 fps. (1.311)

Stability
The Miller stability value. It should be between 1.3 and 2.0 to ensure stabilty (the military uses 1.5).

Another piece of the puzzle. Now, what powder and how much of it?