I'm just about to start reloading for the 17, but over the last year I have given up a few times because I never got anything "that" good from the gun.
I have some Berger 30s, 20 V-Max and 25 HPs.
The powder I have is Varget, Benchmark, IMR3031, 4064 and 4895.
I have Rem 7.5s and Fed 205 Match primers.
Any help will be appreciated.
Thanks

quote:

I have given up a few times because I never got anything "that" good from the gun.

Have you glass bedded the action?....floated the barrel?

Most 17s shoot exceptionally well.

I have a 17 Remington. They are known to foul and to copper their barrels. If you haven't I'd use a good copper remover in the barrel. Then what I did with mine as a last resort was to use some JB in the barrel. I really worked it over good. The fouling and copper problem has been greatly reduced after that.

My best accuracy comes with Burger 25 gr. bullets. Next is the 30 gr bullet. I use Remington 7.5 primers The two commercial powers that I've had the best success with are IMR 4320 and 3031. A Canadain surplus powder I've had some luck with is CMR100 about 10% faster than IMR4895.

My rifle has been bedded had the lugs lapped and the trigger pull worked down to about 2.75 pounds. It will shoot Sub MOA but I'm not overly happey with that.

DW

23.3 grains of benchmark, rem br primers and 25gn berger's Ive found consistantly printed on top of each other.

Also benchmark with 20 gn v max are exceptional.

N140 has also thrown some pretty nice groups with the lighter bullets.

I tried 30gn bergers but they were all over the place and i didnt need a convincing to move back to lighter bullets.
I hope this helps

Thanks all for the responses.

The gun is a remy 700 with a Jewel trigger, but apart from that, bog standard.
I will give the gun a good going over with JB and KG before the next outing.

Alex & Jay, thanks for the specific info.
I am surprised at the 30s not being all that in the 17, I was expecting those to be the better bet.
I will make up some loads and post the results.

when the 17 came our mike walker said that in reloading the round always use rem 7 1/2 primers. he said that it wasn't a trick to sell their primers, but that in all their testing they gave by far the best results. Coming from mike I take that as gospel. also I found that the remy bullets performed better than the hornadys.

N-135 for 25 and Varget for 30s, works well also in my gun. H322 and H335 is not bad either. 17s Seem to perform best when at or very close to max. Go up very slow, 17cal will hit max loads quick. I only move a 10th or 2 at a time when getting near the top.

DW,
That was my view with the 30 gn'ers. through my tikka with an 18" barrel and 1 in 10 twist they were all over the place. so bad in fact i tried them in a sako 75 .17 with a standard barrel and they still didnt hit the mark.
wait to hear you get on.

Hey Johnny, A few years ago I hung around some of the Preditor Hunting Boards and learned a good bit from the other folks. A couple of those Boards swore by the 17Rem as the very best Preditor cartridge ever invented.

I do not have one because I have enough trouble holding on to 22cal bullets. I did notice from those Preditor Boards that the thing that got most of the 17Rems shooting properly was Moly Coated Bullets.

You can buy them already Moly Coated, but you still need to "pre-treat" the Bore by burnishing some Moly into the steel.

And you can Moly Coat your own at home. There are a few tricks to getting it to work correctly and it can be a bit messy if you do not pay attention to what you are doing, but it is well worth the effort for me.