I have had a few "matched" pairs of CZ 527 rifles and scopes both in 22 Hornet and .221 Fireball. I was going to turn one of the .221 Fireballs into a 17 Fireball as the barrel is getting old with 4k rounds down it. For me the 22 Hornet with a 35 grain bullet is about the maximum I can hold and still see impacts and more importantly misses in the sight picture offhand. My Fireballs all have muzzle brakes on them and that keeps them manageable with 40 and 50 grain bullets. My question is how does the 17 Fireball do for felt recoil with the 20 and 25 grain bullets at the expected speeds? My calculations based on a 8# rifle/scope combination give:

22 Hornet with 35 grain bullet @ actual velocity = 2.8 ft/sec Recoil Velocity and 1.0 ft/lb Recoil Energy
.221 Fireball with 40 grain bullet @ actual velocity = 3.9 ft/sec Recoil Velocity and 1.8 ft/lb Recoil Energy
17 Fireball with 20 grain bullet @ estimated 3800 fps velocity = 2.7 ft/sec Recoil Velocity and 0.9 ft/lb Recoil Energy
17 Fireball with 25 grain bullet @ estimated 3700 fps velocity = 3.0 ft/sec Recoil Velocity and 1.1 ft/lb Recoil Energy

The numbers say the Fireball should feel very close 22 Hornet in a similar weight rifle. I should be able to see misses and correct by holding off without needing to add a muzzle brake. Do this match others experience with the 17 Fireball?

Not sure I agree with your numbers webfeet. I shoot all a those and the .17 will show considerably less recoil (not that any of em have much), but more importantly less muzzle jump than the others. Not figuring muzzle brakes cause I'm deaf enough already.
Even at the safely available velocities of the .17 FB 4,000ish (give or take) with the 20 grainers and 3,800ish (give or take) with the 25's there will be much less jump and you'll retain sight picture under recoil in all but possibly an "extremely" light rifle.
My .221 is a 527 American as well and my Hornet is an Anschutz, both shoot 40 grain V-Max's as opposed to the 35's with their ping-pong ball BC. Both leave the target under recoil albeit just a bit. I had a 527 American in Hornet that I turned to a K-Hornet but shooting 40's in it as a standard Hornet it too left the target. My .17 Fire Ball is a Remington so it's heavier but even with a Cooper .17MachIV pushing 25 grain V-Max's at 3,850ish I see all hits (or misses )
I.M.O. the splat factor goes to the .221, the effective range contest the 25 V-Max .17 cal and the non-recoil award goes to the .17's as well.
All of those are great rounds so I'd suggest one of each , your talking three of my favorites there (among the MANY favorites).

Thanks for the good answers to my questions.

I didn't want to go too far into the load details so the numbers may look off without all the details. Both my standard Hornets did right at 3000 fps with a rather compressed load of powder in the 13 grain range and a 35 Vmax with a BR4 primer. I used the Vmax because of the magazine length limits of the 527 and the flat base enables me to get more powder in. I did modify a few Hornet magazines to allow longer bullets with decent BC but that is a whole other story of woe. The .221 Fireball gets a bit more than 3400 fps with 20ish grain range of powder pushing a 40 grain Blitzking and it also uses a BR4 primer. The throat is very long on both my .221 Fireballs so I can seat the bullets out a good deal further than normal to pick up some extra case boiler room. The 40 grain Blitzking has a flat base so you can seat it out there further than you can with a boat-tail. The Accurate Powder Reloading manual has some good data in it for a long loaded .221 and where I got the idea from. You might look at it if you haven't as you also have a 527 .221.

The recoil numbers I gave were pulled from Load From A Disk recoil calculator and unless I transcribed some figures which is possible they are what they were. I used the same weight for all the calculations as my rifles are the same model and have the exactly the same scopes and ring combinations. They pretty much weigh within a few ounces of each other as you would expect. I did this because I wanted as much redundancy as possible as I tend to get barrels very warm with extended periods on Sage Rats. Switching them out allows me to keep shooting without changing anything on the scope, magazine, or loads. I like to think of it as maximizing my time on the target.

I think recoil energy numbers are fairly objective things unless totally different algorithms are used. The tricky bit of recoil is the subjective matter of how it feels to a person, and I know that give me fits which is why I asked the question. If you aren't losing your site picture and you shoot similar rigs to mine I think the 17 Fireball will work well for me. I agree with you about muzzle brakes and I want to get away from having to use them on my walking around guns. I end up double plugging with muffs and plugs in the field and that gets really old when you are moving about. I think I see a 17 Fireball barrel job in my future now.

Can I ask how you are loading for your Fireball? Are you doing it on a single stage press or a progressive? I ask because I have been loading the .221 and Hornet on my Dillon 550 progressive as I need several hundred at a time when I go out. I did have concerns of having to move to a extruded powders like the 4198's and then what that would mean getting it in that little neck. I think I read you were using H335 for a powder with your 17 Fireball so that would work well for me as my Dillon 550 has been very accurate measuring H335 for .223 loads. My other concern was that from what I have read there is little room for fluctuations with the smaller diameter calibers like the 17 Fireball, regular 17 Remington, and 17 BR. Have you seen any of the pressure spikes problems like flattened or pierced primers? Where I usually shoot does have a fairly big temperature range during the day during critter season.

I've used H335 in the .17 MachIV a lot but have gone away from it do to temp sensitivity and big pressure swings. A stout load that's ok at 70 can be over the top at 95 and all over the map at 35 degrees, no good. I now use mostly N133 and H4198 (H4198 is a pain to meter but a good powder, I would be concerned with it bridging in a Dillon).
I have a 550 but I'm personally not comfortable using it for other than straight wall pistol. I'm sure the Hornet would work well too but as I weight segregate all my cases into MTM boxes of 50 I don't need the speed of the 550.
I use a Redding Competition BR30 measure and a Rock Chucker press. I also use a lot of Wilson inline dies for neck sizing after firing as a lot of my stuff has tight necks.
I too like the 40 BlitzKing in the .221 and the K-Hornet as well, it seems to like a little more velocity to pop as much as a V-Max will at a lower velocity. V-Max's just cost less but I use both.
Have you tried AA1680 in your .221 Fire Ball? It is my choice in mine and at under max loads (at least by the older book) it's an amazing performer.
With the .22 Hornet and K-Hornet my load is Lil'Gun in WW cases with WSR primers and 40 V-Max's. I have a couple of Calhoon's single shot followers as I use the V-Max's seated out to far to fit the magazines. When walking I wear a shirt with two button down pockets, loaded rounds in the right, empties in the left.
As to too much ear plug and walking in the prairie I came near steeping on this fella two years ago doing just that while walking around shooting p-dogs with plugs in. He was buzzing "GO AWAY"!! but I didn't hear him.



As to numbers I don't know, I do know that the old "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction" gig comes into play and where I notice seeing all the hits is with the .17's. Bullets weigh half as much.
If ya really want "no heat" "see all the hits" "quiet" and just a great cheap "Rat Smacking round" get ya that Hornet rebarreled into a .17 Ackley Hornet. 11ish grains of powder for near 3,800fps with a 20 grain V-Max. "Ground Squirrel Deluxe"!!! we call em gophers around here and they are profuse. The .17 Ackley Hornet (Mine is another 527 American), is about as good as it gets!
Here's mine in it's natural habitat . Love them CZ's!!

Yes...no doubt about the CZ 527 rifles, and I like your truck bed shooting rig.

So I also love AA 1680 in my .221 Fireballs. It is close to perfect for my .221 needs. Lil'Gun is the Hornet powder of choice for me too.

I also had had both accuracy and safety concerns about reloading non straight cases on my progressive so I will share this with you. I read Zediker's "Handloading for Competition" some time back. It spends a bunch of time talking about getting progressive presses to load bottlenecked match grade ammunition. I followed what it said and I now load some pretty accurate varmint rounds on my Dillon 550.

Off my 550 the Hornets and Fireballs are consistent MOA and sub-MOA shooters with the Fireball being the more accurate of the calibers. Who would have thought that sporter barrels in .221 Fireball loaded off a progressive press would shoot such consistent, tiny groups? Stabilizing the die holder in the press so the powder drop is consistent to +/- 0.1 grain each time, and using a good seater were the keys for me. It doesn't hurt that every CZ 527 I have had shoots unbelievably well though.

For the Hornet I found a Lee Collet die and a Forster Ultra Benchrest seater die worked wonders and I could reload like I would for a straight walled pistol. The die didn't stretch the thin necks out and the loaded rounds have very little runout. I bought a Redding body die to size down as well but never used it. When the case stretches above the web too much I just chucked it. The Lil'Gun is great for pressure and so much better than H-110 that they didn't get chucked until they have had several loads.

The Fireball gets loaded on the progressive but all the sizing action happens elsewhere with a Redding Type S die on a single stage in large batches. I simply take a cleaned, sized case, prime it, add powder, and load a bullet all on the progressive. I also use a Forster Ultra Benchrest seater on that one as well.

Admittedly I probably give up a tiny bit in accuracy loading on the press than single loading. For me they get shot out in the field where wobble and wind (especially with the Hornet) make much more of a difference then the last smidgen of accuracy. I am okay with the trade off as long as I am hitting what I am aiming at, and consistent MOA or less loads gets me that pretty easily.

It sounds we both like the same sorts of things at this time of year. How has your spring out in the fields been?

webfeet you started the thread so I guess we can hi-jack it if we choose .
As to the spring, here's my first gopher shot with a CZ .17Mach2 at about 70ish yards.




This is a re-post of a picture I posted on another thread. This is the springs first two rock chucks shot with a CZ 527 Varmint reworked into a .20 VarTarg at 235ish yards.



Other than that it's been snowing high and raining low. Raining like a pig right now.

As to your remark about accuracy.
"Admittedly I probably give up a tiny bit in accuracy loading on the press than single loading".
I'm not so sure it'd be noticeable if things are all set up right. I know when I first got my 550 years ago I talked to a very sharp young fella at Dillon who was effectively competing at bench-rest events using Dillon loaded ammo. I'm just a bit old school but that Dillon press is quite a machine! With you resizing single stage like you said I'd bet ya aren't giving up much.
Does sound like we see eye to eye and rat smacking firepower. You have good taste .

That is some very nice wood on that CZ 452. Was that factory? I also like the HS Precision stock choice on the VarTarg. I have a few of them myself on the Fireballs. I find them very comfortable to shoot both off hand, off sticks, or off a rest. Not a pretty as wood of course, but they don't show the wear and tear nearly as much as wood. I am looking to buy another one but I am sure I will have to pay through the nose for the next one. All of the HS Precision stocks have gone up a bunch in the past couple of years.

So I pulled my copies of Todd Kindler's "The Sensational Seventeens" and "The Terrific Twenties" off my bookshelf to have a look at your wildcats. I like the idea of the 17 Ackley Fireball. I can see it serving as a kind of reloadable 17 HMR but with more wallop when you want to turn it up. The standard 17 HMR is now getting pricey enough that it makes sense. I kind of wish I had a 17 HM2 like yours seeing as that ammo is so cheap in comparison to the 17 HMR. How does it do compared to the larger round? I figure it would give up 50 yards but I would be okay with that for half the cost.

The 20 Vartarg choice is interesting. I am thinking about turning one of my .223 Rem 700 PSS rifles into a 204 Ruger to stretch the range of the .223 out some. How do you like the 20 Vartarg compared to say the 17 Fireball? I would think they have close to the same boiler room since they are off the same parent case.

That's a factory stick alright webfeet. CZ used to sneak one through every once in a while, my .221 and especially the Hornet turned .17 Ackley Hornet are really special furniture. CZ isn't using the HS Precision stocks any more (nor are you likely to see that fancy wood now), the synthetic like the one pictured now come from Belle and Carlson. We see eye to eye on the HS stocks as well, really sets a bag or rest, light enough to carry and the aluminum bedding block aids the accuracy a bunch. That VarTarg was a .223 and I have an HS stocked .204 as well that I set the barrel back on and re-chambered with a custom .204 reamer that is minimum spec with zero free-bore. It won't shoot factory ammo anymore but I can load a 39 grain BlitzKing to fit in the magazine and feed well while still touching the lands. Without the giraffe like throat I get the same or better velocity as the standard .204 using less components. Like a .204 Wilcat, scares the beans outa the Hornady fellas, great guys that they are. As you can probably tell I'm real fond of 527CZ's for platforms for wildcats.
Truth is webfoot I shoot beau-coup sub.22 caliber stuff (Love Em!!), I'm retired and have a fair number of both .17's and .20's along with all the usual suspects in .22 (I'm particularly fond of the Hornet, K-Hornet and .221. I have a couple 3 HMR's as well as that Mach2, bought lots of ammo when I was paying at or just under $7.00 a box for HMR and stocked up on the Mach2 at $2.99 a box. On gophers with me yankin the trigger the Mach2 is a solid performer up to 125ish and the HMR 165ish maybe.
I got no place to go and I'm in no hurry to get there so my life is basically 2 dimensional, if I ain't eradicating varmints or hunting elk in the fall I'm fishing. Gotta keep busy in my dotage . Great hobby we have here, shoot a rifle for a number of years and when your done with it if it's cared for ya get most of or even more than ya paid for it. Try that with golf clubs or photography equipment .
As far as comparing them I gotta say I like em all. Here's some sub.22 caliber pics for ya.
Left to right : .17 Ackley Hornet, .20 Killer Bee (based on the .218 Bee case with 40 degree shoulders), .20 VarTarg, .20 Tactical. .204 Ruger.



Here's some others.
Left to right: .20VarTarg, .20 Killer Bee,.20 Tactical, .20 BR and lastly the .20 Dasher (6BR improved to 40 degree shoulders and necked to .20.)



Yeah, "My names doug and I'm a small caliber-aholic"

Last one, left to right:

(Oops, misnamed this one, the first one IS a .17Killer Bee)
.17 Killer Bee. , .20 Killer Bee , .17 Fire Ball, .20 VarTarg.,



Todd's books'll plant a small caliber seed in ya but shooting a few of em will hook ya good, I know Todd. The VarTarg and .20 Tactical were both his designs and both are stellar!!
There's a lotta great shooting disciplines out there but when I got into the small stuff it was like starting to learn to reload all over and it's been a gas!! Good clean fun!!!
Sorry for being so windy, not much of a sleeper and I'm sure ready for spring.

I haven't got into the wildcatting thing too much myself. My only wildcat is a 6x47 Lapua (Kelby F Class Panda) which as I am sure you know is a 6.5x47 Lapua simply necked down to 6mm. That hardly qualifies as a wildcat though as it is fairly established cartridge now. I am not retired but I am sure if I had the time I would be all over it. As it is my wife has to drag me out of the reloading room.

I like the idea of a 20 BR and 20 Dasher. I have a 6mmBR and love it. I thought about turning into a 6 Dasher but kept it at the standard chambering. I found it has enough velocity for my needs, and I figure the slightly longer neck and less power save my throats a bit and get me more shots per barrel.

I think the 6mmBR is awesome for varmints too. I have a 40x that was been gone over by an awesome gunsmith up here in Washington State. He has done several 1000 yard record rifles. It is on its third barrel and this one shoots consistently in the high threes and low fours with 75 Vmax bullets depending on the bullet lot. It shoots much better with match bullets, but I don't use them in the field for all the obvious reasons. BTW the velocity on that is 3225 fps and a SD between 7 and 8 for 5 shots.

I have made several called first shot hits on ground squirrels in the 600- 700 yard range with that rifle. The conditions have to be right for that though as that is pretty much the limit of accuracy for that gun on squirrel size critters from a field position. They move about so much in the open too. Getting the range wrong by even 5 yards forward or backwards at that distance is between two and three inches in vertical and the difference between a hit and miss.

That being said I don't shoot them super far out now I have done it. I tend to keep squirrels inside 300 yards, and they are usually as good as dead even in nasty wind if I make sure to pay attention to the switches. I like smacking critters and I tend to smack a lot of them when I am out, but I don't want them to suffer from my bad shot. I want them dead right now. That probably seems silly to some when as we are talking about a couple hundred in a day sometimes. With a sight picture that doesn't move I really see what I damage I do at the other end when the shot isn't right. Even a nasty little cannibalizing squeak deserves to go down clean in my mind. Not to be morbid but I only hope someone does the same for me when my time eventually comes.

I really did want to shoot a ground squirrel at 1000 yards at one time though to be able to say I had done it. The shot dispersion at that distance says I am more likely to miss as hit something that small even when I am on it and everything is dialed. Besides they look really small in a 25x scope at 700 yards, and mirage will usually kick my butt with anything optically more powerful beyond that on a sunny day when they are out and about. The serious 1000 yard shooters I have talked to check they are sighted in at matches on clay pigeons at the 1k distance. The shot is clearly doable but then again that is from a concrete bench at a known range on a static target.

And you thought you were long winded in your post!...I type pretty fast and I can carried away sometimes.

webfeet this is getting strange .

Here's a picture of my 40XBR in 6BR with a 1 in 14 twist right after it came back from Gre'Tan Rifles fully massaged and with a new barrel chambered in .20 Dasher. It's a switch barrel now but I don't. That chuck on the right was the first critter I whacked with it. My goal had been for a 500 yard first shot but after his passing on to a better place I ranged him again and again about six times and it was showing 497ish regardless .




At any rate the by product of the rebuild was I ended up with beau coup 70 grain varmint bullets and nothing to shoot em in. Only one answer to such a dilemma, "BUILD A NEW RIFLE ". In this case it was to send a hardly fired 1968 edition 788 Remington .22-250 with a rusted barrel that I had collecting dust to Gre'Tan to be converted to a...Ya ready for this one???...6X47Lapua with a 1 in 12 twist. The Kreiger 6MM barrel just got to Greg and hopefully I'll see it back buy June. I also bought some 65 and 75 grain V-Max's to shoot after (or while) it goes through the Ballistic Tips and 70 grain Hornady SXSP's I already have. This'll be my first "big bore" LOL, in years. Pretty jacked about it.
Greg's going to single point the action, sleeve and bush the bolt, pillar bed it and put a .270 neck on it.
Don't know if you've ever messed with any of those old 788's but all of em I've been around (half dozen or so) shot like crazy right off the line, hopefully this ought make a dandy walk around "heavy varminter" that I can sneak an 80 grain Speer or the like into so my grandsons can shoot their first deer with it.
As an added benefit I worked up three dummy rounds so Greg could set the throat on it and the 65 V-Max will set right at the juncture of the neck and shoulder, still fit into the .22-250 magazine and with zero free-bore touch the lands "BINGO". The 75 puts the base of the boat-tail just below the neck and shoulder juncture to fit the magazine.
Now that I'm totally hi-jacking this thread, what powder do you use in your 6X47?? I've been told Varget is a good place to start.
Back to the original topic and speaking of range, I think 500 yards with the .17 Fire Ball or MachIV is the Holy Grail of the mid size .17's like a 1,000 is to the .22/6MM guys. Again like you my goal is not ultimate range as most of my varminting is significantly less than a 1,000 yards.
Like I said before, you have good taste .

Thanks for the compliments about my taste in guns...your guns are all very nice too so right back at'cha. I have heard about those Remington 788's from my smith. They can be real shooters from what I have heard. I am sure you will be happy when you get it back.

So I am up for the Holy Grail challenge on the 17 Fireball at 500 but on a ground squirrel not a rockchuck. Chucks look pretty big to me at 500 and I pretty sure a 17 Fireball would not have enough wallop to anchor a chuck out that far on anything other than a head shot. It would likely get hit and crawl off to die or simply wound it and I don't want that. A ground squirrel would go down to a 17 Fireball at that range on a center hit no doubt though. Pretty much exactly like it would go down to a 17 HMR at 150 yards looking at the velocities. No real pop to the hit, they just sort of fold over and down for good with the tail twitching for a couple seconds like some sort of "I surrender" flag.

I don't think I can get a 17 Fireball built in time to shoot it this year as it is May already, but by next season I would be ready. Hopefully I could get a ~1/2 MOA barrel chambered up on one of my 527 Fireball actions. Once the gun is shooting and the velocities steady and known, and it will probably be more of a scouting and setup challenge than a trigger pulling competition. I would imagine it is a matter of getting up early enough to beat the thermal generated winds that come up during the day. It would also have to be very sunny that day so they are out in the morning while the ground is still cold. If you are getting 3,800 or 3,850 fps out of the Fireball with the higher BC (.230 BC) 25 grain Vmax bullets that should be enough. With no wind, a range finder, a good bench, and some trajectory printouts I think it is doable.

Yeah...that sounds like a fun challenge. I think I have some real reason to built the 17 Fireball now other than the no recoil walkabout option.

Questions:

1. Does this theoretical challenge have to be a sporter weight gun? I could see taking a 700 PPS .223 and putting a 17 caliber varmint contour barrel on it to get that little bit extra stiffness and accuracy.

2. How long a barrel are you running on your Fireball to get 3,800 or 3,850 fps with a 25 grain bullet? The Hodgdon 2009 manual has a 25 grain hp at 3,700 fps with a 24" barrel. It doesn't list the bullet though so it may be that it has a longer bearing length than a Vmax and pressures out before it can get that kind of speed.

About the 6x47 Lapua:

You might want to try something faster than Varget in your 6x47 Lapua. H4350 is really where it starts to happen in my opinion. My current twist is a 1 in 8" as it is set up for heavier bullets (107 Sierra MK) than the varmint ones so that makes a difference. I think the medium slow powders are better overall though. The Varget and Reloader 15 range, medium speed powders work better in the original 6.5x47 Lapua due to the bigger bore and the expansion ratios involved.

Maybe if time permits tomorrow(aside from arming America one gun at a time from the gunshop) I will get pics of all you need to know about accuracy with the varminters.............204, 222Mag and 6x47Rem.......y'all catch the common denominator?? 222 Rem Mag!!! Superior to the 223Rem and an inherrently accurate case design. Neck it up an you have the 6x47............would still be the darling of the BR crowd if Palmer and Palmisano hadn't concocted that little ditty known as the PPC!! Neck it down and move the shoulder just a bit forward and you have the 204(almost an Ackley IMPROVED case design).
Bottom line is, the 222Rem Magnum spawned some real winners!! GHD

mountdoug - I was looking at your loaded round pictures again. You sure do have some neat rounds and interesting choices made. I am going to be coming to you with all my sub .224" caliber questions...especially if you also know Todd Kindler. The photo are kind of looking at the first couple pages of the Wildcats chapter in my various "Cartridges of the World" editions in color.

quote:

mountdoug

You have some HIGH CLASS varmint chamberings, all stellar!!!

Don

Thanks Don, you as well webfeet.
After loading the same-same rounds since the real late sixty's the small caliber stuff has been a lot of fun, "big time on the fun".
I'm not down with the "my favorite is better than everything else out there!!" guy's but the small stuff has certainly has kept my attention for a good number of years.
webfeet knowing Todd is a proposition that'll both enrich your life and break the bank . He's a good man and any dedicated small caliber junky like myself owes him a lot. It goes back for sure, Po Ackley ! In fact there have been a lot of excursions to the small side over the years from various directions, that's what started it all going tiny for guys like me.
That said and giving credit where it's due Todd pleaded with, harassed, harangued, and finally convinced the folks like Dewey, Berger, Cooper etc etc. to produce firearms, cleaning supplies and the components needed to make it duck soup for today's small caliber guys to jump into the sport.
A fella ought to mention guys like Dick Saunders and others, Remington for the first commercial .17 and especially Hornady for taking a risk on all the .17 and .20 caliber projectiles they were the first Major company to produce. Oh and has anyone heard of a rimfire called the .17HMR? Talk about going ballistic.
Not at all difficult to enjoy the sub-.22 stuff now but that was definitely not always the case.
OOOPP'S, time to jump down from the bandstand and off the soapbox . Sorry.

No need to apologize for the soap box. I have my own hobby horse that continues to give me a good view.

You are absolutely right about the pioneers like Todd. I read about the story of the 20 caliber bullets getting produced by Hornady. PO Ackley was another one with the 17. I remember reading a story about a burro or a mule that met its maker way back when from a 17 Mach IV I believe.

I think you kind of have to understand a little of where stuff has been to understand and really appreciate what we have now. It also helps to understand how much stuff gets re-treaded. I could start by going into Newton's various cartridges from the early 20th century but its not varminting so I won't.

The pioneers have taken benchrest accuracy and performance and brought it to the rest of us in varminting. Look at the accuracy we are talking about now. Most of my varmint cartridges shoot 1/2 MOA groups or I simply don't keep them or I re-barrel them. My best ones shoot 1/4 MOA and occasionally less with the right bullets.

webfeet you couldn't be more right! The barrel quality, the projectiles, propellants, brass, primers, smithing, case design...ALL OF IT!! Man are we fortunate. When I was young if a guy had a varmint rifle that agg'd an inch it was the Holy Grail. A varmint rifle that shoots an inch today get's fixed.
That .20 Dasher I showed was originally a very accurate 40XBR that was single pointed, the bolt double sleeved and bushed, triple bedded, a Gre'Tan Lite firing pin assembly added and the trigger tweaked to 1 lb. The recoil lug double pinned for a switch barrel.
As you know the Dasher works off a BR case (I use Lapua with a .228 neck).
All that said it amounts to sending a decent rifle to a top flight smith and waiting for it to come home. Remember the ole holy grail of an inch? Well This is a gratuitous reprint but it was shot during load development with that .20 Dasher using factory 40 grain .20 caliber V-Max's. It shot this 5 shot group and even a few better but this is an average group.


Pulled one to the left, DANG!!

To top it off here's the chrono tape that went with it, also a gratuitous repost but you get the idea.



A guy couldn't have done that without a full on bench set up 20 years ago and and the velocity was unimaginable. The good ole days of shooting is happening now!! Ain't life grand ???

We are way, way off topic now but oh well.

So a 20 Dasher huh? It sure does shoot well. What is the recoil like? I am happy to see such groups from a 20 caliber. I have been reading 6mmbr.com for years now. They started a section on the 20 caliber over there a little while back. My particular gunsmith so far likes to stick to .224" and up and he turns down work if he doesn't want it. I have to respect that because 1) I like his work and 2) he really is that good. Perhaps I will show him some of what is happening with the .20 and he might change his mind.

In any case I got pretty close to a 6 Dasher before I went to the 6x47 Lapua. It just seemed easier with just the neck down rather than the fireforming and got me a little more powder.

In that heavy of a rifle there isn't much recoil (more than a .17 for sure though), about like a .22 K-Hornet in a lighter rifle like a CZ American.
Actually I just posted that pic cause I couldn't find the pics I took of my .17 Fire Ball groups from last year, not quite as good but close. It is a VSF Remington with the same work done to it as was done to the 40X. My smith specializes in small caliber stuff so he's a boon to guys like me. I guess I was just philosophizing on how far the small caliber discipline has progressed and how accurate they are compared to the old guard like the .222's .223's, .22-250's etc which I also love (I mean equal to not better than).
In a heavier rifle like that VSF with the .17 Fire Ball you never leave the target at all under recoil. A lot of the old magazines bad raps on the small stuff flees rather quickly when you run the velocity's and BC's over a ballistics program and use one in the field.
You said earlier that the 500 yard test of say a 25 grain .17 cal V-Max was a ground squirrel thing and not a stunt on rock chucks and I agree completely, I hate crawl offs even on rodents. The 3850 fps number I used which is a quite realistic velocity in most MachIV's with 25 grainers (look at Todd's stuff ), that velocity has a 25 grain V-Max carrying 321 ft lbs of energy out at 500 yards on my ballistics program. A .17 HMR with a 17 grain V-Max (according to Hornady) only has 245 fpe at the muzzle. Interesting comparison when ya think about it.
To me the .17 Fire Ball at the very least makes a nice addition to a fellas varmint choices. As to a question you asked about barrel length, IMO 22 to 24 inches will squeeze all your gonna get out of a .221 case regardless of caliber. In the on line Hodgdon load data for the .17 Fire Ball they show a max load for the .17FB as 4,037 with a 20 grain V-Max and 3,789 was their fastest with a 25 grain Hornady HP and they show a 24 inch tube. As always some might well not do that "safely" and certainly some will "safely" exceed it. I always add that this point that personally it scares heck outta me when someone gets a given velocity in mind and then sets to chasing it, never truer than the sub .22's that spike pressure differently than bigger bores do.
Bottom line webfeet, I think if you hunt ground squirrels or p-dogs and have 2 .221's you'd be real happy with having one .221 "and" a .17 Fire Ball . Course I'm totally biased.
Have ya considered a .20 VarTarg??

I like the way the 20 VarTarg looks. I think I would go with the 17 Fireball though and save the bullet weight on recoil.

So talk to me about the 20 Tactical. Are you doing that one as well currently? As far as 20 caliber brass it seems to be the only thing really available at the moment. Nobody seems to have the .204 Ruger. It doesn't hurt that the 20 Tactical factory brass is Lapua either. I am such a sucker for that stuff. I also have a metric buttload of once fired Winchester .223 Rem brass that could be put into use. I read Todd's stuff on it in his "Terrific Twenties" book. What are your thoughts of it compared to say the .204 Ruger?

The .204 is easier in that all the parts and particles are already there for you. Unfortunately they put a giraffe like throat in it with way much free-bore.
The .20 Tactical has better brass available. If you can find it IMI (Israeli Military Institute) is my favorite, Mil Spec brass with real stout primer pockets. Lapua forms well also, or as you pointed out when Todd mothered up with Dakota Lapua did a big run of .20 Tactical brass that I've been told is top shelf as you'd well expect. Dies etc is in the class two price column but readily available (I use Wilson in line dies after firing. If you have your chamber cut to Todds' dimensions you'll end up with a .233 neck, unturned the loaded Lapua will run .229ish so you can run as is for a reasonably snug neck or even clean it up a bit and still be ok.
Ballistically a coin toss with the .204 really. Mine is a 700 Remington Varmint Synthetic, Pac-Nor Super Match stainless finished to 26 inches, Kepplinger single set trigger. My two working loads have a 33 grain V-Max chronoing 4,150ish and a 40 grain V-Max load at just shy of 3,900fps (as a fortunate aside they shoot to the exact point of impact at 100 yards). It's a serious 500 to 600 yard varminter.
I tried to clean this pic up a bit, it's of a friends first trip down from Canada varminting, first time shooting a .20 Tactical, first rock chucks etc etc. There was beau coup damage to the chuck so that's the part I tried to clean up.



The .20 Tactical was one of my first .20 cal wildcats and still one of my favorite although if ground squirrels, p-dogs or other fast shooting colony varmint situations are probable the .20 VarTarg or .17 fire Ball probably makes more sense IMO.

P.S.
Note the high tech dental floss wind meter attached to the bi-pod .

Wind is the hit robber. I have a little piece of surveyor tape on my shooting sticks much like you have dental floss on your bipod. I also have 4 flags put out on all four corners of my shooting area when I am out in the field. I think I will start a thread on wind.