Model 25 in .17 Hornet

Yeah.......even after reading a ton of information about the Model 25 in the .17 Hornet.....both good and bad, I went ahead and bought one anyway. But....I'm like a freight train at times. I made up my mind I was gonna have one last year....when I bought two boxes of factory ammo, 100 pcs of brass, the Hornady dies, and then I couldn't find a rifle to save my soul!!!!

Then hunting season rolled around and that's usually when I quit looking for guns and just hunt. So, I was looking at a CZ....pricy...I came across one Ruger.....Pricy....and several Savages. The Savages were more reasonable....and when I hunt with a rifle, they seem to get banged up a bit. So, plastic stocks and me seem to get along pretty good.

I bought it off of Gun-broke-Now, and for $550, I thought it was "fair." No steal, but fair. I'll be picking it up this week, but I don't know if I'll be getting it out for groundhogs until next week.

Now that I have it....and hopefully it will work well, my Stevens .17 Fireball will be "de-wrenched" and the barrel, brass and dies will be on the 4-sale forum.

But, I'll post the results of the Hornet when I get back from the range. I'm hoping to have better results than Mr. Furious....and hoping I don't have the sand in the bolt issues that some of you are experiencing.

Dave

I took my Model 25 in 17 Hornet out for the first time today, fired five rds of factory ammo and wow, was I impressed with this rifle, great accuracy, silky smooth action and after reading all the negative info online, well, Savage got this one right, thanks for this fine peace of iron.

I still haven't shot this one. From the looks of things....it's going to be a few weeks as some travel is going to interfere with the real important stuff.....like range time!!! But I have to order an EGW one piece base anyway. However, I have cycled the bolt about a dozen times and it seems to function pretty smooth for a new rifle. The safety has a bit of a "hitch" when pushing it from the safe to the fire position, but all is good when on safe.

I really love the ease of loading the plastic magazine plus inserting it and hearing the "click" is really smooth. If it shoots as well as I like it.....it's all good!!!

Dave

Congrats on the new toy Dave, now stop making excuses and start burning powder!!

65Impala.......I'll post the range report ASAP!! :)

Well....I do not have my EGW Model 25 one piece rail in yet.....which I really need in order to properly mount my Millet Red Dot 1x3 MOA on it. However, at 50 yards which is all I had time for, I got half inch groups shooting 4 rounds once I got the the Red Dot to shoot POA.

So, It should give me some consistent groups at 100 yards when I get the one piece rail on it.

I'll see in a few weeks.

Dave

Hey Dave, sounds like you are doing good. I shot my best group with the .17 this morning using handloads. Five shots into 3/4" at 100 yards.

By the way my scope is mounted using the EGW one piece mount :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Orange_Crush

By the way my scope is mounted using the EGW one piece mount :)

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Yeah....I like the EGW one piece mounts. I have one each for my Savage Carbine .223 and my single shot bolt Savage M-12 in 6.5x55. :)

What powder and bullets are you using? That's a good group!

AA2200 powder , Hornady 20gr Vmax

I actually just thought the group was kind of so-so. I got a 5/16", 5-shot group at 100 yds with my .22/250 and regularly get under 1/2" with that rifle.

Well, I had my new Model 25 .17 Hornet out today for some range time. I finished up some factory loads and had about a dozen handloads of Berger 25gr. loaded over H-335. Also, I was shooting at a target set at 100 yards and I have a Millett Red Dot on this instead of a scope. A few things:

#1- The bolt is rough on opening. I dunno if I'm gonna send it back, or open it up and do some polishing.
#2- The feeding of the bullets....my hand loads....did not work well. I did not crimp my bullets as I just put a neck tension on 'em. This was not "received" well by the Savage as there is a lot of force needed to push the bullet up the short angle feed ramp and into the chamber. Reminds me somewhat of a 1911 feed ramp. So....I may polish this just a tad. But, I will crimp my reloads first.
#3- My reloads were spot on with the factory at 100 yards. However, MOA was NOT the order of the day. I'm very sure this was because the Red Dot is no where near the exacting placement of a scope. So, I'm not sure if I will stay with the Red Dot or go with a scope.

I'm sure if I sent the rifle back to Savage the rough bolt will get fixed along with the feeding issue. I may just do that because it's easy. Not quick.....but easy.

Dave

I had some time this morning to take a good look at why the factory Hornady bullets would feed well, and my reloaded Berger's would "jam" into the feed ramp instead of feeding nicely up the ramp like the Hornady's would. The Berger's have a small hollow point that just "caught" below the feed ramp and stopped right there. The bullets only needed about 3-thousands of a lift to feed into or onto the ramp.

So, I just took a small fine file, and after looking carefully at the magazine, I determined that about 1/4" on each side needed just a "tad" of material removed so that the brass (cartridge) could then have the nose of the bullet stick up enough so the point of the Berger would now be on the feed ramp and not catch below it. About 5 minutes of a little careful filing on each side was all that was needed to remove enough of the plastic on the magazine so that now both the Berger's and the Hornady's feed into the chamber.

I still don't have 100 rounds thru this rifle so I can only surmise it will get smoother as I shoot it more. So far, I am happy with the accuracy....not so happy with the rough bolt....but thinking that will smooth out.

Dave