17 AH to 17 HH

[wally bennett]

Originally Posted by ray h

Due to the increase body taper in the 17HH you might be better off starting from fresh, you'll need to measure the body dia of each case. From the sample I seen you'll be cutting off close to an inch.

If you cut an inch of a hornet case it wont be a hornet case it will be a fat 22LR case.
Wally

[larryinIA]

Originally Posted by wally bennett

If you cut an inch of a hornet case it wont be a hornet case it will be a fat 22LR case.
Wally

You wouldn't be cutting an inch off the case Wally, You would be cutting an inch from the barrel to remove the old chamber. The case would still be 1.4" on the new one, but less capacity due to the shoulder angle differences.

Larry

[Iowa17Cal]

"Why would you want to?"

If your 17 AH is shooting the way you want it to. there is no reason.
My Kimber 17 KH is not as bad as some have been reported to be, but at 3/4" on a good day it should shoot better. 1 1/4 " is not uncommon.
Kimber had problems dialing in the 17 hornet spin off.
Cooper obviously has it figured out.
Hornady has proven with the 17 HMR, and arguably with the 17 Mach2, that they know what they're doing.
So I suspect that they have squeezed every bit of their knowledge into making this new round as well as it can be made.
So, I might rechamber.
It would then be a "match" chamber to their round, which I would guess is more than half of what's going on with the 17 HMR

Like they say:
You don't know, if you don't go.

[Old Hawkeye]

Originally Posted by RJM

...until 17 HH brass is available so I can fire form it in my 17 AH.
Regards,
Ron

Curious to know if this is going to work. From what little we know about the 17HH, I think it is shorter than the AH. Does anyone know if this will be a problem? If you can fireform looks like the 17AH shooters could be buying a lot of loaded ammo when they need new brass.

[Chuck Miller]

and here's mine. I don't think it will fireform without problems. My experience in forming 17AH has taught me a hard lesson about how critical it is to headspace off the shoulder. Some will tell you that it being a rimmed case it will headspace off the rim so as long as it fits it will fireform. Trying that first time out mine formed, sorta, lots of splits at the case shoulder junction. Forget about trying to FL, 50% split at the neck. Annealed cases(ones that survived) only split after the 3rd firing....lesson learned. Now I size off the shoulder, stout fireforming load, straight to anneal, problem free cases were the result. With the shorter length, tapered case, lax shoulder angle, it will definitely fit, I just don't think you'll like the results long term.

[montdoug]

I agree with Chuck. You need to have a crush fit to fire-form those paper thin Hornet cases without issues.
My experience has been that once you get the setup for a crush fit right they form like crazy with no problem and the brass lasts well afterward.
If the Hornady brass is shorter and you can't size it for a crush fit or bump the neck up to .20 say and then re-size the neck for a false shoulder and that crush fit I think you'll have a headspace problem and ruin brass as fast as ya shoot it .
Something to talk about but until ya get the brass in your hand it's all speculation.

[montdoug]

An added thought.
I think as sharp as Hornady is they considered this and they dang sure don't want to bring out this round just so guys with .17 Ackleys have an easy way to form brass for their current wildcats. The real profit is in the loaded ammo, loaded ammo for "new" rifles .
The fellas at Hornady definitely have both oars in the water in my experience.
That's not to say ya couldn't improve Hornadys round with a 40 degree shoulder and just ream the current chamber forward a bit.
Kudos to Hornady for once again showing they are the sub .22 caliber "Kings" . Think about all Hornady has done for us guys the next time ya order bullets or dies or other reloading gear they make! "ya dance with the one that brung ya to the ball"!!

[Old Hawkeye]

Chuck & Montdoug:
If we find that Hornandy is using thicker brass than the parent Hornet case for extruding the shoulder/neck area could that help alleviate your potential concerns about fireforming troubles? Does anybody know if or when Hornady will release the spec's on this case? Wonder what all the secrecy is about?

[montdoug]

I don't see it as to secret really, they are advertising it already and my W.A.G. would be that all will be revealed at the SHOT show.
The target market for major companies isn't really isn't the majority hanging around here IMO, we do our own ammo and not to many on this site will buy a factory rifle and then feed it factory ammo for keeps and that's the real $$$ for gun and ammo companies I'd bet. Most guys that do that would find this thread as boring as last weeks news, they just wanna buy a gun and some ammo and go have fun shooting things with it.
That's all rank speculation on my part. I'd just guess Hornady doesn't want to say to much tell they can say everything at once. I know Mid-South has Hornady dies advertised on their site already (out of stock ) but on the way. I just think Hornady doesn't want to do what Remington did with the .17 Fire-Ball, release it and no one can shoot it . The excitement wears off before the product arrives, bad plan!!
That's my guess on it anyway. We sure are an impatient lot huh? Musta caught it from our kids .

[rpbill56]

I can already see the birth of a 17HH improved. Just run a 17AH reamer in just enough to change the shoulder of the HH chamber. Then you could fire HH ammo or used your fireformed improved cases.
I'm going to refer to this improved cartridge as the 17HHBI
(Hornady Hornet Bill Improved)......
Bill