There is an article in the Febuary 2007 issue of
Predator Extreme by Ralph M. Lermayer, very good
information. I shoot several of the 17's, so
I'm very interested in this one.

Question:
Anyone interested in 17 Rem. Fireball

Choices:
Febuary 2007 Predator Xtreme
Article by Ralph M. Lermayer

 

This post needs to go back to the drawing board and make some sense....

but yeah, I for one, am very interested in the 17 Fireball....

It will make my forth 17 in my cabinet. Remington can call it what ever they want. It will still be a 17 Mach 4 to me.

Blueprinted is right, 17 Remington Fireball is the Mach IV. But Remington can't use the name,so they changed it. The O'Brien Rifle Co. developed the Mach IV and retained copyright protection for their work.

muck

Muck actually the .17 MachIV was developed by P.O. Ackley and he let O'Brien produce it and run with it so O'Brien always get's the credit. Guys in those days weren't the money grubbers some of todays gun guys and especially "gun writers" are, without mentioning any names. O'Brien didn't patent it either or all the custom gun smiths would have to pay royalties for use of the reamers in the rifles they use like Cooper for example. That's why so many gun smiths will no longer chamber the short magnum rounds, Rickeys gotta get his pound a flesh.
My guess is the minute changes between the .17 Fire Ball and the .17 MachIV were at the behest of Remingtons lawyers so someone doesn't stick the new Fire Ball ammo in a custom chambered Mach IV wildcat and then want Remington to support his family forever. At any rate I'm so interested a buddy and I have ordered two of the VSF models as soon as they are cut loose. Gotta support Big Green for bringing out more fun stuff.
I too am a small caliber junkey.

Montdoug
I learned something. I knew P. O. Ackley spoke highly of the Mach IV. But wasn't aware of his involvement in its development.
I have read, don't remember the source, that O'Brien had copyrighted the round but that he never "defended" it. That was why no one had to pay royalties to chamber the cartridge.
I will have to see if I can find the book I read this in. Just what I need , another dig thru the mountain of Stuff project.
Thanks for the info.

muck

You might well be right on the patented but not defended part I'm not sure about that. I just know that no one pays royalties on the Mach IV and in fact being a wildcat there are a number of minor variations of it out there.
It will be interesting to see exactly what Remington does, I do know that it sure looks the same.
Here's a picture of the two of em side by side. The one on the left is a Fired .17 MachIV out of a Contender barrel and the one on the right is a fired .17 Fire Ball.


Sure look the same don't they? A guy I know has seen the reamer print and says it has a 30 degree shoulder. The overall length of the Fire Ball case is 1.402 which is longer than the standard MachIV which usually runs 1.390. A chamber plug tells me my Cooper has a maximum case length of 1.405 before the case is touching the lands. I'd guess the maximum allowable case in the .17 Fire Ball will be in the 1.420 bracket and possibly have a larger spec neck, the MachIV is typically .205 and I'd bet the Fire Ball will run .210ish or better. I only hope they don't put a giraffe like throat in it like Ruger/Hornady did on the .204, it sure would be good to be able to get the 20 V-Max into the lands. Oh well I guess we'll find out soon enough, this week some time I'd guess when the shot show opens.

Montdoug: Was it the Ruger/Hornady consortium that decided on "long necks" in the factory Rifles or was it the individual factories that made the "long throat" decision?
I don't know.
I do know all three of my 204's (1 Ruger & 2 Remingtons) have "long throats".
Also this - I "got's to know" where did you come by a fired 17 Remington Fireball?
I am getting excited as well over this "new" OLD cartridge that Remington is taking a chance on.
I am still ga-ga over your Cooper 17 MachIV.
17 day-dreams.... aaahhhhhh....
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

The 17 Fireball case...

I asked a friend who will be at the SHOT Show to snag one if Remington has any samples...[IMG:top] [/IMG]

Montdoug It looks like a slightly different shoulder angle is the difference. Difficult to tell for sure with pictures on the PC. But I'd bet not any difference in performance.

VarmintGuy Wasn't the long throat one of the Weatherby secretes to higher velocity? And is that what the 204 Ruger developers wanted?

Just more questions

muck

http://i11.tinypic.com/3yqbm8z.jpg

17 Fireball and its parent 221 Fireball..

Muck: I think the Weatherby folks did call their "long throats" - free bored?
I forget to tell the truth.
But I think it was to preclude ANY possibility of someone reloading a bullet, extra long, and jamming the already high pressure round into the leades of the rifling to create even higher pressures.
OR... maybe the long throat did somehow create more pressure which would be needed to creat more velocity?
I would think the opposite to be true though - the bullet hitting the leades of the rifling ASAP to garner up more pressure quicker before the producing gases had any chance to escape around the projectile.
Good question, I would like to know the answer myself.
Again I don't know for sure why they did it - they just did and maybe the other factory folks caught on and saw that the long throats would help avoid owner induced pressure "problems"???
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

quote:

Originally posted by VarmintGuy:
Montdoug: Was it the Ruger/Hornady consortium that decided on "long necks" in the factory Rifles or was it the individual factories that made the "long throat" decision?
I don't know.
I do know all three of my 204's (1 Ruger & 2 Remingtons) have "long throats".
Also this - I "got's to know" where did you come by a fired 17 Remington Fireball?
I am getting excited as well over this "new" OLD cartridge that Remington is taking a chance on.
I am still ga-ga over your Cooper 17 MachIV.
17 day-dreams.... aaahhhhhh....
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

VarmintGuy
All I came by was the picture.
On the .204 throat issue however I was speaking to one of the techs at Hornady and without going into great detail he stated "you know that .204 will end up in a semi-auto someday like perhaps the Mini 14 so pressure was a big concern in it's development". I took that to mean we all get to deal with that giraffe like throat so some fella someday can spray a 5 inch pattern with his mini-14, what a shame. That being the case I'd hang the lions share of the blame around Rugers neck.(that's all speculation on my part)
My answer to that dilemma however was to get a CZ Varmint Kevlar in .204 and send it to Greg Tannel at Gre'Tan rifles in Kersey Colorado where he took a slice off the barrel and re-reamed the chamber using a minimum spec .204 reamer with zero freebore. I can now get a 40 grain V-Max or even a 32 grainer to seat squarely into the lands and still feed out of the magazine.
The major warning on doing that of course is that all the published loading data goes out the window, I get the same or better velocities as max standard loads using less powder. It's favorite load is using 10X and a 39grain BlitzKing for right at 3,900fps (3,885 mean velocity actually). The other big caution is it can never shoot factory ammo again as it could be catastrophic what with it set up for all the free-bore (I'm going to get that stamped on the barrel actually as soon as we can figure how to do it without ruining the looks of the rifle).
Sure is accurate though, not like they aren't anyway. I did that for the most part cause right after the .204 came out there was a lot of chatter comparing it to the .20 Tactical which I'd been shooting for some time. The comparisons weren't really fair however cause all the .20Tacts were custom chambers on custom barrels and the .204's were all factory offerings, not a fair comparison. After re-doing my .204 I can tell you that at least with the .20 Tact and re-reamed .204 I have they both end up within a very few feet of each other with same weight bullets, ballistic twins as it were. Both great rounds. I guess that's enough outta me, didn't mean to babble on.

Hey Greg, you shoot anything with that .7-08 yet?