Hello,
Soon it will be time to order a barrel for an Encore, configured as a pistol. Barrel length is not something that I want to be unweildly, probably about 12-13 inches, at most.

It will be a 17 cal, either 17 AB, 17 HB, or 17 Javelina. I am leaning toward the AB, because I think the others would have too much powder capacity for such a short barrel.

What do you think? I have ruled out the Squirrel and Hornet rounds at this point.

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Safety & Ethics,Accuracy, Velocity, Energy
Joe M

I have one in 17 Ackley Bee and I love it, the barrel is 16.5" so it can be a rifle

The bee is I think your best choice, The Jav would be a little much, the Hebee needs a longer neck and do not like were the shoulder is compared to were it is in the 218 bee

I would say go a little longer in barrel, 13-15, would cut down on noise and little more speed

I can run mine with 25gr starkes at 3700 but best group is at 3200, speed does not kill, the bullet hitting the target does

JD

I own a 17 Squirrel, 17 Ack Hornet, 17 Ack Bee, 17 HeBee and a 17 Rem. The 17 Squirrel in an Encore 24" getting 3750 with a 15gr bullet. Can't help on the shorter barrels but to say that you may not want to rule out the Squirrel or the Hornet. Smaller case capacity.
Brooks

Brooks,
My thoughts on the Squirrel and Ack Hornet stem from the fact that I have heard that the parent round the 22 Hornet, has a very bad problem with consistent neck tension, due to the thin wall case. I can only assume that necking down and blowing out would not help this situation.

Or are the wildcats better off in this regard?

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Safety & Ethics,Accuracy, Velocity, Energy
Joe M

The squirrel and other short cases are neat and do work well but for the cost and extra wrok with dies and brass and for what, to push a 15 gr bullet as fast as you can a 20 or 25

JD

Joe, you are right to an extent. In my Cooper 17 Ack Hornet I shoot a 20 V-Max to 3800 and get groups under � inch all day. Many three shot groups in the .2�s. Wouldn�t seem to be a neck tension problem here. When you shorten the Hornet to a Squirrel you will get thicker necks as the case thickens closer to the web.

As to JDD response all I can say is we usually can find some other round that will duplicate what we are shooting. JDD, do ya still use a turdy-turdy for deers �cause we all know that it has kilt more deers than all the rest put together. Just saying that we �experimenters� really don�t need a reason to do what we do. If we had to seriously justify what we build and shoot, well, we all would be shooting 06�s for deer and poison for the PD�s

Brooks

Well, since you asked I'll give my opinion on this one. Since you are asking for a short barrel this is what I think. I have a 10" ackley hornet barrel and a 15" .17 Rem barrel. With the .17 rem barrel at 15", it will push a 25 grain bullet (Starke) at 3750 fps with a max load of 4320. It is also not exceptionally loud - which I can't say the same about for the 10" .17 hornet barrel. I am really pleased with the performance of the .17 hornet barrel in regard to accuracy and velocity out of such a stubby barrel. It will push a 20 grain Starke at over 3200 fps but has one heck of a crack. I was stunned (literally) by the crack of it when I shot it without hearing protection. With a 2-7 power scope, it is amazingly accurate and will shoot less than an inch at 100 yards. I think that you should not rule out the .17 hornet - yes brass is thin but it is also plentiful and cheap and easy to form. I own a Hebee as well, but it is a 20" barrel and on a carbine. The brass is thicker for the Hebee, and it is an efficient case. I wouldn't suggest that it is much larger than the Ackley Bee - as you did because they are virtually the same creature. The only difference being the location of the shoulder. The Hebee has a shorter neck - and resulting longer case body which increases case capacity a very small amount. The Ackley Bee or the Hornet would be just fine. The Javelina is a bigger case than the Hebee, Mach IV or the others that you mentioned. You would likely not experience much benefit from having a Javelina in the short barrel - and would have to consider the more difficult case forming of the Javelina.

A shooting buddy has a 14" 17 Mk IV rimmed, he uses 360 DW brass necked down. He's been pushing 25 gr bullets 3600 fps.

Personally, I'd say go with something on the .223 case head, as IMHO the brass is superior to the hornet and bee brass.