.17 WSM ammo comparison and more rifle observations

[t165]

http://i739.photobucket.com/albums/xx31/ted165/001_zpse42a1433.jpgI own (2) CZ 452 American rifles. One in .17 Mach 2 and the other in .17 HMR. Both are very accurate. I remember reading when they first came out that Hornady made the bullets for all the other manufacturers to load. Not sure if this is still true or not.

I also own a Savage.17 WSM B-Mag. Does Hornady manufacture the .17 caliber projectiles for the .17 WSM? If not, could the bullets be of inferior design/construction. Perhaps it's a dumb question but I really want the .17 WSM to shoot. Pictured is the 25 grain .17 WSM bullet, the 20 grain .17WSM bullet and the .17 grain .17 HMR bullet. I damaged them a bit removing them as my inertia bullet puller does not work well on these small bullets. I did notice the .17 WSM bullets are flat based...not a boat tail like the .17 HMR bullet.

[JG26_Irish]

http://i739.photobucket.com/albums/xx31/ted165/001_zpse42a1433.jpgI own (2) CZ 452 American rifles. One in .17 Mach 2 and the other in .17 HMR. Both are very accurate. I remember reading when they first came out that Hornady made the bullets for all the other manufacturers to load. Not sure if this is still true or not.

I also own a Savage.17 WSM B-Mag. Does Hornady manufacture the .17 caliber projectiles for the .17 WSM? If not, could the bullets be of inferior design/construction. Perhaps it's a dumb question but I really want the .17 WSM to shoot. Pictured is the 25 grain .17 WSM bullet, the 20 grain .17WSM bullet and the .17 grain .17 HMR bullet. I damaged them a bit removing them as my inertia bullet puller does not work well on these small bullets. I did notice the .17 WSM bullets are flat based...not a boat tail like the .17 HMR bullet.

This is a great question and one that without some insider telling us, will be difficult to determine. However, I know that Winchester has long had a strategic alliance with Nosler for ballistic tip bullets for some of their larger centerfire products. I would not be surprised to learn that they also supplied the bullets for both the 17WSM and the Winchester brand of the 17HMR. I have usually had slightly better accuracy with Hornady bullets over Nosler but both are very high quality. Another anecdotal observation is that of all the 17HMR ammos available, my Savage 17hmr shoots worst with Winchester 17g ballistic tips. It shoots best with CCI HP's but shoots all of the other ammo better than Winchester. My understanding is that all of the 17hmr ammo is made at CCI except for the Winchester variety. Your theory might be correct. I dunno.

I recently got a digital scale to use with my reloading and was in process of loading some match grade ammo. I had selected a 50g Nosler bullet for this particular set and had weighed and sorted the cases and decided to weigh the bullets just for grins. I was disappointed to find that the bullet weights ranged from 49.8g to 50.2g. I had always assumed that high grade bullets would be made to more exacting tolerances. As I was writing this, I got curious and went to my loading room and weight another box of Nosler 40g BT's and found them to be better. 90% were exactly 40.0g with only 10% weighing 39.9g. The first box was of the combined technology variety silvertip with the black oxide coating. The 2nd box was std bare ballistic tips. Just for grins, I opened a box of V-max 40g ballistic tips and weighed them. They actually varied more than the Noslers with weights ranging from 40.0 to 40.4. A 1% variance. I have no idea what limits the precision of their production process but if it can only be held to about 4/10ths of a grain regardless of bullet weight, that would be an interesting bit of data if it also held true to the 17's. You would have to pull enough bullets to have a statistical sampling. I for one have no plans to do that. It is not worth wasting too much time on variables we have no control over.

I will add one more observation. Even when using the best CCI ammo, my Savage heavy barrel 17HMR is still slightly less accurate than my B-mag WSM. The 17WSM ammo may not be great but I think most of the accuracy issues we are seeing are more related to some of the B-mag guns than to the ammo.

Irish

[gsperaz]

I have the same issues with Winchester's 17HMR ammo, shoots the worst out of all the other ammo available from my Savage 93 BTVS.
Only when shooting Winchester 17HMR will my Bmag out shoot my BTVS. Load up some Hornady HMR and it will shoot under .5" at 100yds all day long. Not quite there with my Bmag.