Being a comfirmed small caliber junky I was wondering how many of you fellas shoot smaller than .22 calibers and what rounds do you shoot?
Mine are a Tactical .20 with a .20 VarTarg and a .20BR on order. A .17 Remington, .17 MachIV, two .17 Ackley Hornets as well as a .17HMR and a .17M2.
Love the small calibers!

I tend to be a slow learner. I usually purchase things after the rush.
I am resisting a 20 cal usuing the excuse that I do not want to purchase new cleaning jags, brushes and rod.
Several years now I have been watching the Calhoun website thinking a 20 cal needs to be in my arsenal!
On the other hand I recently purchased a 225 Win. so I am not on the cutting edge

.17 Remington

I have a 26 inch, .204 Ruger barrel on my Encore!

Haven't shot anything except paper with it yet, but it will happen!

.17 Ackley Bee,
.l7HMR,
.17 Rem (until it was stolen!)
and soon to be a .l7M2

.17 Remington and .19 Calhoon

haven't succumbed to the small calibers other than the 17 hornet,17-32 jet,17 remington, 17 hm2 and a 17hmr. still have them all

I built a .20-223 few years back and had some fun with it.....but in the end it was just a different type of .223.....so It's barrel is now replaced with a 6 X 45.....IMO of the small cals the .223 is truly king.

Does my user name tell you anything?
20gr V-Max at 4300fps just makes me all giddy inside.

17/223AI since 1967.

Just a 17Rem and 17machIV.

17 Rem
17/222
204 Ruger

5mm Remington Rimfire Magnum converted to centerfire A.K.A. 5mm Craig.

33gr V max @ 2450fps makes a dandy 200yd "truck gun".

5mm Craig,17 Ackley Bee,17 Rem.,17-222.20 VarTarg,Tactical 20, 204 Ruger17 HMR, and 17 M2 with 19 Calhoun on way.

17HMR
17 Rem

Both CZ's, both hammers

Redial

I have a Remington 700BDL in .17Rem. and will soon have a Ruger .204. After that I don't think I'll get any more. I like the extra speed, but it just doesn't take much to drive them off target a ways. I get pretty frustrated sometimes, but they are fun guns to shoot. Best wishes.

Cal - Montreal

17 Ackley Hornet for the time being. Soon to add to the list!

I haven't seen a 17 Rem. A.I. mentioned yet.
Add that one and another 17 hummer to the list.

CZECHTECH. On another site I hang out at the topic of a .17 Remington AI came up. Please tell me about yours, loads, velocities etc ? As much as I love my .17 Remington those long sloping shoulders are a bummer. Did you just ream a factory chamber or is it a custom? Thanks

Hope I am not to late replying to your post.
.17 Rem. - .17 WBB (.17 PPC Short) - .20 WBB (.20PPC) - .20 X 222 Mag-Impv - .20 x 222 Impv .20 x 223 Impv - .20 Tactical (3 of them on 788 actions)
These are my current small caliber rifles and between myself and my two sons we can keep them pretty busy through out the year.
Have a good day.... Michael

PS - Almost forgot 3 Savage .17 HMR's

Michael, "YOU-DA-MAN"!!!

Never (yet) heard of an Ackley 17 Rem! Holy smoke, that's gotta be an overbore somebody, huh?

Redial

For anyone interested, I saw a couple 14 cal barrels for sale by Al Straitiff, Comp Corp.
1-7.5 twist I think, 26" blanks. $155.
They looked good to me.
603-532-9483 is his number.

Yeah Redial, when you take a round as overbore as the .17 Remington is anyway and blow the shoulders out the term "Real overbore" comes to mind.
Dan C. who posts here on ocasion and has written a few articles in "Small Caliber News" and "Varmint Hunter" has a little dandy called the .17 Predator, similar to the .17 Rem but with the shoulders pushed forward and squared off and a bit shorter neck. Much more appealing to the eye than the .17 Rem. Ought to be some fun with a slow twist barrel and 30 grain Bergers at 4,000ish.
When a guy thinks overbore how many rounds do you load for where the powder charge frequently outweighs the bullet? Yeah I'd think a .17 Remington sure qualifies for overbore, but they are absolutely a bucket a fun!
I know your a gopher hunter as well Redial and for that I leave the .17 Rem at home and take a .17HMR a .17 Ackley Hornet (perhaps the all time large volume gopher gun champ IMO) and a .17 Mach IV. This summer as well a buddy and I will be trying out new CZ .17M2's.
To me the .17 Rem is at its best on chucks, fox, coyotes and such or even p-dogs on a slow day, sure a great fur gun.
Everybody need to go a little overbore once in a while.

.17HMR - LH Savage 93GLV
.17 Mach IV - LH Cooper Mdl. 21
.17 Remington - LH Kimber of Oregon Mdl. 84

George

17 Mach iv here too. Same gun as George, just in the right hand model.

At the moment I have two 17 Remington AR-15's (18 and 20" lightweight bbls) and a sweet little 17 Ackley Bee on a Martini Cadet action. Still considering a 17 MachIV, but I'd have to have it on a small Sako action for it to feel right I think. These are my fur friendly guns for coyote and fox.

I got a few. 3 17 hmr's( Two Marlins and a Savage Steven Favorite). 2 .204's ( Rem's new vs sf ii and a Remingtons vls). I plan on getting one more with my tax return, just don't know what it will be.
338vt
P.s. The Steven favorite is the best shooter for my 17's and the vls out shoots the vs sf ii.

20 tactical on a rem 700 action. Shilen barrel, hogue stock w/full length bed block, and matte black gunkote finish

montdoug,

I've pretty much decided on the 17 Rem for everything since I can tailor the loads to suit. My current favorite uses 4227 and the 20 gr V-Max at 3700-ish. Seems to cover all the bases without too much noise or fuss. I can hardly wait for late March!

Cheers

Redial

I found that with my Remington 700BDL in .17Rem. that it's quite accurate so long as I stay around 3700fps with the Hormady 20gr. VMAX and the 25gr. HP. When I get it much above that speed my accuracy falls off quite a bit. I suppose the barrel is suffering a bit as well. Best wishes.

Cal - Montreal

montdoug,
I haven't got very far with it yet... it's a new BDL with the factory barrel, and I have had a heck of a time fire forming, any load I tried with new brass the cases were splitting so I loaded up some with cream of wheat and unique same thing... then I tried annealing the neck and shoulder area and that seems to work pretty well. I haven't finished fire forming yet to start on load development hope to get somewhere with it this weekend.

CZECHTECH. I always aneal before fireforming, if not split necks are the order of the day. Also there seems to be more cases ruined using too light of loads instead of medium heavy loads. Be sure that the case is snug and seat the bullet into the lands when forming, any headspace issues will result in ruined cases.
Keep us posted on how it turns out.

Do air rifles count? If so a 5mm and .177's.

19-.223 Calhoon. Just plain fun

Michael_WA, You mentioned 3 of your sub calibers were on Rem. 788 actions. You wouldn't happen to have a good Rem. 788 "Take-Off" barrel in 222 Rem from one of them floating around would you? Godsdog.

Godsdog;
I have 2 or 3 factory 788 barrels out in the shop, may have one in 222, also may have one in .223 that was rechambered to .222 Rem. Mag.
Will check in the am tommorrow and post, one thing before I close, can not vouch for condition of barrels....... Michael

montdoug,
I finally got to burn a few through the chrono the other day its kinda looking like that 26.5 grains of IMR 4320 seems to be pretty consistant
at 4200fps don't have any groupings yet but 27.5 gr is a little to stiff for this rifle. Haven't tried any other powders yet, have you got a different powder you prefer? they sure do look awful neet too.

Let me burst your bouble!
I have 2 22 calibers in use.
.22 Hornet [45gr bullet] 9.7 grains of 2400
.22 Hornet Squib [25 yard load] 4.1 gr Unique.

223 [55gr bullet] 26.5 to 27.5 grains of Win 748
223 Squib [25 yard load] 5.6 grains of Unique.

Michael, I'm not concerned about the outside of the barrel, I can fix that. If possible, I'd like to know the amount of rounds fired through the 222 Rem. Barrel and if it's rust free inside. Thanks, Godsdog.