17WSM and its future

[17VLD]

I got the short handy 18” Ruger and am very pleased with its accuracy and speed.All groups fired so far with 20 grain ammo have been under an inch with the average groups being 5/8”.The surprise to me was that the speed still was right at or just under 3000fps,a lot of folks had me thinking the speed would be quit a bit slower after loosing 6 inches of barrel from the 24” gun Ruger used to offer.
I count that as a bonus as I was willing to live with that idea at the time of purchase.I feel the WSM is a great round and hope people discover its good points in time,I really wish CCI would offer this round,perhaps with a 17 grain offering to rekindle some of what the HMR got going.I am hopeful that if CCI got the ball rolling,perhaps CZ would then offer us a neat rifle in 17WSM.
After all it would be an easy way for CCI to show what they are capable of,imagine if they offered a superior WSM round to what Winchester has offered so far.CCI could cement their place in history as the best rimfire ammo maker ever.I am disappointed that Volquartsen chose to stop making the Summit rifle in 17WSM,but understand why.Here again if CCI had produced a better round and Volquartsen found it acceptable I would definitely have a Summit as well as my Ruger.I really think with the current political bs going on and all else we are lucky for all we get from the ammo makers and truly do understand the stress the makers are under,however if CCI can put their mind to it they could save this round from going under very easily by offering to a lot of potential owners that are fence sitting right now not to mention all of the current owners just waiting for something new to try and improve their shooting with.I realize calling Stingers Stangers was an easy change of packaging but it proves that they do listen.Come on CCI roll up your shirt sleeves and really change history here as you do have that capability.It is kind of like the old adage about the chicken or the egg,if CCI made a 17WSM I believe Volquartsen,CZ and many others would embrace the 17WSM and we would be off and running again,after all none of us want to see what happened to the 5mm Remington happen again.
Matt

[Bayou City Boy]

Good post, Matt....

Even though my first 17 WSM rifle was the 24" Ruger, and I like it a lot, I find myself liking the 18" version even better due to its handiness. What little bit of velocity loss there might be only matters to true internet experts on topics like that...

I too would like to see better quality ammunition being produced by literally anyone. The stuff we now have doesn't make it a cartridge killer for me any more than owning a 22 Mag has been in the past. In general, RF ammunition quality is not good and never has been in many instances.

In addition to all of that, what are the odds of three...., 3..., count them, 3..., accurate Ruger 77/17 RF rifles being mentined in the same thread....?

My interest in the 77 RF rifles began quite a few years ago with a very good shooting Boat Paddle stocked stainless rifle in 22 LR. It loved the WW High Velocity copper plated bullet ammunition. Since then it has gone through a 22 Mag version of that rifle, and now these 17 WSM rifles. And although they are a CF cartridges, the same rifle design has performed well for me in 22 Hornet and K-Hornet versions as well as the look-alike twin that I have to my 18" 17 WSM that is chambered in 17 Hornet.

Yet every time I think that I must be overly lucky with my Ruger purchases and I buy a Lotto ticket, it becomes trash immediately after the latest drawing of numbers. Woe is me....

-BCB

[moorepower]

I have 3 HMR's, a Bmag, fluted, laminate and I built a .17H on a Ruger 77/22H. The .17H is the king of the 3, but after taking my .17 WSM to Wyoming a couple of years ago, on Prairie Dogs, I found out that it blows the HMR out of the water. In the wind the 20 grain Vmax blows the 17 grain bullet out of the water. The WSM has about the same energy at 150 yds as the HMR has at the muzzle. The WSM wind drift at 150 yds. is close to an HMR at 50 yds. I bought a couple of cases of the Federal American Eagle for under $100 each shipped, and I was happy with that to go along with ammo case full, so I am set for a while. Some times, I just want to go grab a box of ammo and go shoot. I too would buy a CZ if they would build a 527 in WSM. I was hoping that the new Tikka would have been available in WSM.

[JSH]

I looked around at the platforms for the 17WSM before I hit the button buying one. Actually took me a year to make up my mind. B23 gave me his input and findings. I actually cloned his rifle except for the way I bedded it in the silly grooves on the barrel :-o. It seems have helped and keeps at 1”@100 for an average so far.

I read and still read on this cartridge. I don’t recall where or who it was that had an example of all the factory rifle offerings. They used all the same ammo in all of them. Average accuracy for ALL of them was right around 1” + or - a bit. The consensus was that the ammo was the thing holding up anything better to be expected.

I could mention and show pics of groups mine has shot on occasion sub MOA. That is more the exception than the rule. It is a day in and day out 1”@100 when I do my part. I am done fooling with it and have accepted it for what it is.
Friend of a friend has a VQ with a great deal more in it than I have in mine, yet the both shoot about equally on a regular basis.

I had heard some whispering about maybe Aguilla making some, but that has quited down.

[B23]

Shooting such a tiny amount of powder and it's probably pretty fast burning stuff as well I don't really think it takes a whole lot of barrel length to get 100% out of these things. I had my HB SS Bmag shortened up to 20in when it was in getting threaded and I've had my Magnetospeed chronograph strapped on it numerous times and it's always in the 2990's or low 3000's. Occasionally I've had a few that were way above or below but unlike my HMR ammo which has crazy wild extreme velocity spreads my WSM doesn't suffer from that nearly as much it's more with the seating depth and its huge variances.

It would be nice if Winchester could dial their seating depth process in a little better because they definitely have a lot of room for improvement in that area. I've measured a bunch of this stuff, base to ogive, it's all over the place and there's been as much as .030 thou variance in the same box. Heck, you don't even need special tools just pull a tray out of the carton and eyeball it and you'll see the variance. As I said in a previous post I think it's a testament to these rifles that they can actually shoot as well as they do.

[Bayou City Boy]

Originally Posted by JSH

I looked around at the platforms for the 17WSM before I hit the button buying one. Actually took me a year to make up my mind. B23 gave me his input and findings. I actually cloned his rifle except for the way I bedded it in the silly grooves on the barrel :-o. It seems have helped and keeps at 1”@100 for an average so far.

I read and still read on this cartridge. I don’t recall where or who it was that had an example of all the factory rifle offerings. They used all the same ammo in all of them. Average accuracy for ALL of them was right around 1” + or - a bit. The consensus was that the ammo was the thing holding up anything better to be expected.

I could mention and show pics of groups mine has shot on occasion sub MOA. That is more the exception than the rule. It is a day in and day out 1”@100 when I do my part. I am done fooling with it and have accepted it for what it is.
Friend of a friend has a VQ with a great deal more in it than I have in mine, yet the both shoot about equally on a regular basis.

I had heard some whispering about maybe Aguilla making some, but that has quited down.

If I had experienced what you are attempting to paint with your knowledgeable paint brush, trust me, I would have reported it. I've had the 24" barreled rifle for almost 4 years and I've had the 18" barreled rifle for well over two years. Neither one has shot good groups one day and not so good to bad the next.......

Both of my rifles are very consistent in what I can expect from them with the ammunition that I have. If they weren't, I definitely still wouldn't be playing with the rifles/s and cartridge combination, and I would have moved onto something more worthwhile........ And for the record, I'm simply not someone who takes a picture of everything that I see unless its unusually bad after I've posted only the good.

-BCB

[JSH]

Sir, I had no intentions of directing my comment at you. If you took it as such I apologize. FYI if I had directed it at you, I would have said BCB.

There is/was an individual that was bouncing around on a forum or two making some high claims as to what he had done to a Bmag. Yet he did not or would not share with others as to what these improvements were. Others here have seen the claims as well............

[B23]

All of these things are ammo dependent, there's just no way around that. If you shoot much of this stuff you quickly learn some lot #'s shoot better than others.

I tend to think if the gun is the issue, well it won't ever shoot anything worth a darn, but if it shoots around that 1 MOA range +/- 1/2 then I consider that more of a ammo issue.

[Bill K]

A lot of people seem to forget that the rim fire cartridges were not meant to be tack drivers. 99 % are for plinking and small game, which they work very well at.
If you want tack drivers, then you must spend some pretty good money for one of the top end competition rifle/handguns and then buy top quality ammunition, like they use in the major shooting comps.

[B23]

Originally Posted by Bill K

A lot of people seem to forget that the rim fire cartridges were not meant to be tack drivers. 99 % are for plinking and small game, which they work very well at.
If you want tack drivers, then you must spend some pretty good money for one of the top end competition rifle/handguns and then buy top quality ammunition, like they use in the major shooting comps.

Bill I think you're pretty close to nailing it spot on.

For me the 17 WSM is a great little cartridge that checks so many boxes and I see it having so much more potential if the ammo manufacturer could/would make the ammo more consistent but like you pointed out I have to remind myself which market share these things were made for and any kind of precision shooting at distance certainly wasn't it.