The 17 Viper concept came from a desire to create a rimless case along the capacity of a 17 Ackley Hornet. To accomplish this task I shortened a 17 Mach 4 case to a body length of .935 and lengthening the neck to .250.

the original platform for the 17 Viper;

The CZ version;

17 Tsunami, 17 mach 4 and the far right is a 17 viper


Denny Powell made the form dies for me by shortening the following dies, a Redding 250 savage sizer, Forster 22 Br. Sizer, Redding 17 Mach 4 seater and an Redding S type 17 Mach 4 sizer die. The dies were salvaged from defunk cartridges I no longer load for or had replaced with S type bushing dies.

A load of 14.6 grains of Reloder 7 with a 25-grain Hornady hollow point shot a three shot group of (.259â€) and 15.6 grains of N130 with a 20-grain V-max shot a (.50â€), these loads were selected for hunting loads.


25-grain bullet loads
14.2 rl7 CZ 25 horn. 3730 7.5 rp n/a 100 yds
14.4 rl7 CZ 25 horn. 3738 75 rp n/a 100 yds
14.6 rl7 cz 25 horn. 3763 7.5 rp .259 100 yds
14.8 rl7 cz 25 horn. 3815 7.5 rp 1.18 100 yds
15.6 10x cz 25 horn. 3785 7.5 rp .55 100 yds
15.8 10x cz 25 horn. 3830 7.5 rp .68 100 yds



20-grain bullet loads
14.6 n120 20 starke 4130 cci450 .650 100 yds

15.2 h4198 20 vmx 4067 cci450 .445 100 yds

15.6 n130 20 vmx 4023 7.5 rp .50 100 yds

What possessed you to develop this cartridge instead of just using the MachIV? This coming from a guy who owns more wildcat than standard chamberings.
I think it looks great but suspect it still holds more powder than a Hornet case.
Beautiful guns by the way.

case holds slightly more powder than a 17 ackley hornet. i was working on a rimless case for foxhunting with 25 gr load around 3400 fps.

as you can see it gives the mach 4 a run for it's money wit a lot less powder. just trying to get the job done with the least amount of powder, and it worked.
currently i am shooting the 17 v-raptor based on the 5.7x28 necked down to 17 caliber.
works even better on fox for minimul fur damage.

Did you get a chance to try any of those 15 grn bullets I sent you in the v-rapter yet?

yes i did 3925 fps, even shot a few squirrels in the head with them. groups were in the .2-.3" size.
must admit i had never seen 20 gr bullets with that big of a hollopoint on them.

thanks again for the bullets
i don't think the squirrels appriciated it as much as i did.

I was looking for something similar, only WANTED a rimmed case for a Martini Cadet project. I used the 17 Ackley Bee, and later took an 17 HMR contender barrel and chambered that in the same. Both worked very well.

very simular case capacity, went the rimless route because i wanted a repeater. great little vermin killers aren't they? `

Wow, those 15's were fast and accurate!
The 20's were some 25 grainers that a machinest/gun nut put in his screw machine to make 20's before they were available. He repointed them, but those were some he gave me before they were repointed to thin the skunk population inside the farm buildings.

thin the shunks they will, probably wouldn't need much velocity to do it either.