What is the effective range of the 17 Remington cartridge for both target and small (pd, rabbit) varmints? Any pro's or con's about this cartidge?

Thanks,
Kory

Kory, Welcome to the forum! Try to PM "VARMINT GUY" and "MONTDOUG" about the 17 Rem and also the .204 and see what they have to say about them. Both these guys are out your way and are familiar with what you're up against as far as wind, distance and stuff. VG lives in Dillon, MT. GHD

If the wind's blowing more than 10 MPH then it's 50 yards.

Depends on specifically on what effective means to you. No doubt a .17 Rem. will kill a pd out past 500 yds. If effective means 'maximum splat factor' then more like 300 yds. Even the heaviest, highest BC .17 cal bullets lose alot by then.
The only con I have with it is the difficult time I had loading ammo. Bullets are tiny and hard to hold on to, case neck are small in diameter and tedious to fill with powder....just not my cup of tea.....others just love 'em.

Sorry 'bout that, could've been taken two ways and I chose the wrong variation! I've seen people who actually believe your comment.

Dan C

Yes I do. That's why I put the big smiley face after it.

Kory--The .17 Remington is an absolute joy to shoot. There is hardly any recoil and that gives you the ability to see your hits even with your scope turned up to 20+ power! My .17 Remington has a blueprinted Remington 700 BDL action, trigger pull adjusted to 2 1/2 pounds and a 26" SS fluted Lilja barrel with 4 grooves and a 1 in 9 inch twist. I shoot everything from the 20 gr. V-Max bullets up to 25 gr. Starke and Hornady, and also 30 gr. bullets by Starke and Kindler.

The 20 gr. V-Max bullets are used mainly for prairie dogs and small varmints. I use the 30 gr. bullets for coyotes and, although I have shot and killed coyotes at nearly 400 yards with the .17 and 30 gr. bullets, I don't think anything much beyond 300 yard shots should be taken normally. My 30 gr. bullets leave the muzzle at 3,900 fps, so the bullet still has over 335 ft. lbs. of energy at 300 yards, but that is getting to be marginal killing power.

If you look at the wind drift and trajectory charts for this caliber, you will find that it compares very favorably with the .224 calibers on out to 250 to 300 yards.

last year the wife took a nice 15 3/4 in antalope at 468 yds with the rem 700 in 17 cal he was standing broadside . the bullet went between the ribs on the near side jellied the lungs and heart than hit a rib on the off side and blew a hole the size of a quarter in it no wind that day

Thank you, everyone your your answers. This forum is has some very nice people with well tought out answers. Is Reminton the only one that makes a 17 Rem rifle? I wasn't sure if Sako made one off-the-shelf.

I've heard some negative things about the 17 Rem: fouls the barrel quickly, tricky to hand load. But we'll see. Most of the feedback was encouraging.

I'm also looking at the 20 Tactical, although I know it has more recoil.

Regards,
Kory

Kory-- The "old wive's tales" about "barrel fouling quickly" "tricky to handload for" and "too much wind drift" are usually from folks who don't have much or any practical shooting time with a .17 Remington. Sure, some factory barrels may foul worse than your custom barrels, but I think the barrels made in the "early days" of the .17 Remington may have been highly succeptible to fouling.



I routinely shoot 50 to 60 rounds with my .17 Remington while prairie dog shooting and have no degradation in accuracy during that shot string. I did the same thing with my Savage 12VLP in .204 Ruger. The only thing "tricky" about handloading for the .17 Remington is the small size of the bullet which may be hard for some folks to handle if they have large fingers/hands. It is easy to get your fingers between the case mouth and base of the bullet as you go to seat that itty bitty bullet. Wind drift is no worse than a 55 gr. bullet in a .224 caliber out to 250+ yards.



There are many major and minor manufacturers who offer rifles in the .17 Remington caliber. I don't have the Web site URLs here at work, but you might want to do a google search for Sako, the CZ line, Cooper, etc. and you should come up with a google of companies that offer this caliber.



The Tactical 20 is an excellent caliber too, from what I read. I have no experience with that caliber, but know people who sing very high praises for it. It is based on the .223 casing and from all the reports I read it can be a real tack driver. It is one of the more efficient .20 caliber cartridges. You need to do some case forming for it because there are no commercially loaded cartridges for it as far as I know. There are some folks out there who will sell the formed brass to you, if you'd rather go that route.

MD,

Don't forget the .17 Ackley or K Hornets and the .17 Bee rounds for single shots....


3,500 FPS +++ and pretty darned efficient...

Kory, my .17 Remington is in a CZ, after careful break-in fouling isn't a problem but on p-dogs heat is. I love the .17 cals but if I were hunting p-dogs a lot I'd probably go with something a little more effecient than the .17 Rem (coyotes'd be a different deal) as much as I like it. I don't shoot any other round where the powder charge routinely out weighs the bullet (for that matter I can't think of another round where this applies). When I go p-dog hunting I usually take a number of rifles so as not to over heat them. I surmise from your posting and your PM questions that your trying to pick possibly your first p-dog rifle or one to fit most situations. I might be all wet here, but if that is your intent I'm thinking you'd be well served with something you can shoot longer strings with. At 95 degrees on a good dog town north of Billings a guy sure would spend a fair ammount of time waiting for his barrel to cool if he only had one overbore rifle with him.

As to your questions, in no particular order. If I only got one I'd keep my Tactical .20 and feel awful about getting rid of the .17 Rem.

Things to consider, the .17's are very effecient killers but not overly dramatic in how they do it, in that department the .20's are a better rat spreader if that matters to ya.

If you reload and like the minute attention to detail that goes into forming cases turning necks etc (I do) there are a number of small caliber wildcats that are truly outstanding on p-dogs, and in my opinion possibly better than either the .17 Remington or the .204 Ruger. Before I get flame throwered please understand I think both are great rounds but again with the heat thing in mind something a little smaller allows more shooting before overheating. Rounds that come to mind are the .17 Mach IV, .20 VarTarg or something of the like.

If you don't reload both the .17 Rem and .204 are wonderful off the shelf small caliber rat smackers, just take a .17 HMR with you to shoot while the barrel cools. On our last p-dog hunt my wife was shooting boo-coo p-dogs at 130 to 175 yards with my CZ varmint and Hornady .17 V-Max's.

As to wind, the .20 bucks it better (40 V-Max has a BC of .275) but as mentioned a 30 grain Berger in .17 keeps up with everything short of gale force out to reasonable distance. Wind affects everything, check the BC and velocity and see for yourself, .17's ain't too shabby.

As to effective range I see the .17 Rem at it's best out to 350 or 375ish and even then a guy needs to make sure of his hits or watch em go down the hole. The .204 or Tactical .20 with a 40 grain bullet at 3,900 to 4,000fps is to me an effective 500 yard p-dog gun. Neither of the calibers were talking about are in any way a reasonable big game round, especially at long range just my .02.

Sorry this is so long, you ask interesting questions and they are hard to answer is a paragraph.

montdoug,

Thanks for the long reply. My situation is this: I'm mainly a target guy working to become a better shooter in the 300 to 500 yard range. I'm not a hunter, although I've tried to shoot some pd's before (they seem to run and hide when they see be coming!).

My problem is that I'm partially handicapped and I've had a partial retinal detachment, so recoil is not good for me. Even if I shoot my 223, I end up with really bad headache. My gunsmith is putting a brake on the 223 (Tikka T3 Hunter) so I'm interested to see what happens.

My concern is the recoil of even the 204 will be too much for me. The brake will make it better, but you can't shoot off the hood of your truck with a brake, unless your driving a junker! It may even break the windshield.

I talked to Todd Kindler and we spoke about the 20-Tac. He said in all honesty, there isn't that much difference between it and the 204. He told me to look at the 20 Varget and the 17 Ackley. We'll have to see.

I'm realizing that there is no magic cartridge. I just may have to resign myself to the fact that I will not be able to shoot that far in the condition that my body is in. It breaks my heart, but its also out of my control.

Thanks,
Kory

Soon after my shoulder replacement, when I had relatively new Magnum rifles I wanted to shoot, I saw a closeout on one of the dealer websites for a big rectangular sandbag to soak up recoil. I filled it with sand and it weighs something like 40 pounds. For a while I got by fine shooting my .300 Weatherby off the bench with NO felt recoil! Had to realign it a bit between shots. Bet you could adapt that principle.