Those of you with excellent memories may recall that posted several months ago about a rifle I inherited from a departed friend. .357 mag pistol brass necked down to .17
Well, I finally found the custom dies for it and reloaded a few.
It occurred to me I did not know whether to use small rifle primers, or small pistol primers.
I would assume small pistol primers, since the parent cartridge is .357 mag. Do you agree?
The ones I loaded, I used small rifle primers, just cuz I had 'em. Let me know if you think that's dangerous before I touch 'em off. I used a pretty conservative powder load.
Posts: 132 | Location: Idaho | Registered: 22 December 2002
What kind of an action does this rifle have? I think the answer as to which primer to use depends on how hard the firing pin hits the primer as much as on any other factor. Can't say whether your loads are safe or not, because I have no info on that cartridge, or the powder/amount/bullet weight etc., that you used!!
You will not have to move up very high in pressure until you blow a pistol primer. Go to the small rifle primers. The primer cups are made heavier to handle the higher pressure.
Either will work, if your pressures are as moderate as you believe. The (allegedly) milder pistol primers may tend to give better accuracy in this small round, but I doubt there will be much difference between them and rifle primers. Only if you experience a pierced primer with the pistol primers should you need the rifle primers.
Posts: 13266 | Location: Henly, TX, USA | Registered: 04 April 2001
I shot some of my first reloads today. Most with pistol primers, about 10 with rifle. I couldn't tell a difference, even in accuracy. The two loads I tried were very similar. Less than 100fps difference in velocity and groups. One load was 3010 fps and the other was 3100. That's pretty mild for a .17, right? The upper loads were all 3800+
[ 04-06-2003, 10:25: Message edited by: Dave R ]
Posts: 132 | Location: Idaho | Registered: 22 December 2002
I would go with the rifle primers. The pistol primer cups are very thin. I can't even use pistol primers in my old model 357 mag blackhawk, as the firing pin pierces ~50% of them. It has no problem firing the rifle cups.
The only round I've heard of that benefits from pistol primers is the 22 hornet. The 17 Saunders Jet (my buddy had one) has enough case capacity, IMHO, so that pistol primers would be no benefit.
Posts: 7213 | Location: Alaska | Registered: 27 February 2001
Your cartridge sounds pretty close to the .17 Super Jet (or Saunders Jet, Jet etc) that I had a couple times, in contender barrels. Info from Dick Saunders, who developed my .17 Super Jet cartridge, said that he tried all the various primers, and found the Rem 7 1/2 to have the hardest cup, and how he attained his 4200fps loads using 25 grain bullets. He did say he did get some 4400-4500fps loads, but they stretched the primer pockets. Dick Casull also told me the 7 1/2 was the hardest, and next in line was the Federal 205 Match. But then if the highest velocity is not what you want, have heard small pistol primers shoot tighter groups?
Dave R, if you can get hold of the August 2002 Handloader you'll find an article by Ross Seyfried titled "Sweet .17" in it he mentions the .17-357 or .17-22 Jet Improved (says their the same cartrige). His load was 21 grains of BL-C(2)--Ball-C-- under a 25 grain Hornady HP lit up by a Remington 7 1/2 (I too use this primer in a Mach IV as well as most of my small primer accuracy loads) Ross claims 3,860 and a .4 group . He states and the numbers would indicate this round is quite similar to the Mach IV for ballistics. Notice I mentioned this was his load and I have no idea about pressure etc as I am not personally familiar with this round, does sound like a lot of fun though, keep us posted.---Shoot Safe---montdoug
