.17HMR Ammunition isues

[blaven]

I've read through most of the posts on 17.HMR faulty ammo, both on UK and American sites.
Some if not most of these posts are some years old.
Do we know yet whether these problems have been cured by CCI? What is the general feeling?
I recently had a tip stuck in the barrel of my Browning T-Bolt. Mercifully I could not chamber another round and diagnosed the problem there & then, but of course, did'nt carry my cleaning rod to tap the bullet out (easily done later). I don't think there was any powder in the casing, but not sure. Can't remember what manufacturer, but all made by CCI by all accounts
I've not noticed split cases, but then, I've not been looking. Will look from now on, and check the rounds before firing.
As for accuracy, I try to zero in absoloutely minimal wind conditions, but still sometimes have weird results. I may be crap but surely not ALL the time!
Does'nt fill one with confidence somehow!

 

[Sabian223]

a friend of mine had the same issues. He was having hornady rounds split constantly but just turned out to be a bad batch of ammo. Same again he had issues with zeroing and it was down the fowling of the barrel. He cleaned it regularly with wet patches but it wasnt enough. After a damn good scrub with a bronzing brush it started to shoot through the same hole at 100 yards.

All the ammunition i have used through my weirauch hw60j has been fine, never had a split case and never had any issues with accuracy even after a couple hundred rounds plinking at the range at 300 yards, i couldn't fault it!

 

[The deer man]

I've read through most of the posts on 17.HMR faulty ammo, both on UK and American sites.
Some if not most of these posts are some years old.
Do we know yet whether these problems have been cured by CCI? What is the general feeling?
I recently had a tip stuck in the barrel of my Browning T-Bolt. Mercifully I could not chamber another round and diagnosed the problem there & then, but of course, did'nt carry my cleaning rod to tap the bullet out (easily done later). I don't think there was any powder in the casing, but not sure. Can't remember what manufacturer, but all made by CCI by all accounts
I've not noticed split cases, but then, I've not been looking. Will look from now on, and check the rounds before firing.
As for accuracy, I try to zero in absoloutely minimal wind conditions, but still sometimes have weird results. I may be crap but surely not ALL the time!
Does'nt fill one with confidence somehow!

I've had split cases which didn't appear to be less accurate and one duff round out of thousands and that was with CCI and Hornady but otherwise they've always been accurate enough however I now use Winchester Supreme and they seem to be very good. Made in a different factory, Winchesters own factory that is, with stronger cases.

Having said that I've got a bowl of empty cases in front of me (my kids pick them up off the range) and they are a mixture of Remington, CCI and Winchester and guess what, no split cases! All bought within the last 6 months, so no old stock.

 

[Barkingsnake]

Mine's in the "Last chance saloon" before disposal...buy a couple of new types and off to the range with benchrest, sandbags and chronograph.

Last test with CCI 20grain JSP and Federal 17grain VMAX indicted that BOTH had a max spread of 100fps. By comparison my 22LR is down in the 15fps region as are my 357 reloads... The CCI groups "best" but it's barely 1MOA on a good day.

Mind you, NO ISSUES with round not going off of bullets sticking.
ONLY issues are accuracy of rifle / ammo.

 

[NellyT]

I just checked two boxes of Remington and three boxes or Hornady, on average between 3 - 5 rounds per box of 50 had a split in the neck!! I have had these a while so don't know about newer batches?

 

[Radar_UK]

I've had two bullets lodged up the barrel in the last month - both from the same batch of Remington ammo which admittedly was an old batch. Manged to tap it out with a cleaning rod with no problem. Onto a new batch now so hopefully it won't happen again.....

 

[Rack]

I regularly use CCI 20 grain rounds in my CZ and have never had split necks, rounds stuck in the bore or misfires.

 

[J o h n]

I used to get about 3 in ten spilt cases with the Hornady Blue tips, so far with the batch of the red tips I haven't had any split cases from almost 300!

 

[Barkingsnake]

Sold my HMR and got a 17 Hornet. Last lot of 17 HMR is used was Federal: 20% hangfires and of those ALL were split cases.
Enough was enough...

 

[OKNic]

Sold my HMR and got a 17 Hornet. Last lot of 17 HMR is used was Federal: 20% hangfires and of those ALL were split cases.
Enough was enough...

Shot thousands and thousands of hornady red/ blue and not had a single misfire or duff round. Had a he'll of a lot more .22 rounds that were duffers, last one at the weekend an eley sub that just made it out of the barrel. But of course .17's are ****e and .22's arereliable workhorses that should be in every gun cabinet. Know which I pick up every time.

 

[Barkingsnake]

Shot thousands and thousands of hornady red/ blue and not had a single misfire or duff round. Had a he'll of a lot more .22 rounds that were duffers, last one at the weekend an eley sub that just made it out of the barrel. But of course .17's are ****e and .22's arereliable workhorses that should be in every gun cabinet. Know which I pick up every time.

One man's whatever is another's poison and all I can say to you is best of luck. As a scientist and engineer, whoever manufactures and sells what I've seen and measured (because I have) deserves whatever gets thrown back at them.

 

[OKNic]

 

[BunnyDoom]

Has anyone ever tried measuring the chamber/neck? Seems to me the variance in larger calibres is quite large but doesn't cause an issue with larger rounds... I would think .17 tolerances would need to be tighter but I can't see how manufacturers could achieve this cost effectively at rimfire prices?

The tiny brittle neck expanding into a chamber that's too big/small could account for the neck splitting issue right?

Of course there are obviously issues with the ammo but some people never experience a problem so perhaps theres another factor?

Personally I found out in the end that all mine needed was re-crowning (and a clean every 50 shots).

 

[joe soapy]

If the bunnies were in charge, the HMR would be banned

 

[Muir]

Has anyone ever tried measuring the chamber/neck? Seems to me the variance in larger calibres is quite large but doesn't cause an issue with larger rounds... I would think .17 tolerances would need to be tighter but I can't see how manufacturers could achieve this cost effectively at rimfire prices? The tiny brittle neck expanding into a chamber that's too big/small could account for the neck splitting issue right? Of course there are obviously issues with the ammo but some people never experience a problem so perhaps theres another factor? Personally I found out in the end that all mine needed was re-crowning (and a clean every 50 shots).

Yeah. But that's the rub: it shouldn't be brittle. Nor should the unfired cases have splits in them on necks. I shoot 5mm Remington Rimfire Magnum which averages 10+K psi more than the HMR. Even in nasty, wide, Remington chambers the case always expands to fill the chamber because the brass is properly annealed at the plant.~Muir

 

[OKNic]

Is it folks with nasty cheap rifles only that have a problem with HMR ammo? Be interested to see the results of what rifles people shoot combined with ammunition types....?

 

[Archer]

Is it folks with nasty cheap rifles only that have a problem with HMR ammo? Be interested to see the results of what rifles people shoot combined with ammunition types....?

What's your definition of "nasty cheap rifles" ?

 

[bobjs]

What's your definition of "nasty cheap rifles" ?

every rifle that's not a andshoots..........................., shot thousands from various CZ rifles and as yet only ever had 1 issue, since then i have not had a problem, mind you i have not fired my current 17 hmr for the best part of 6 months.
b
ob.

 

[Mr. Gain]

The tiny brittle neck expanding into a chamber that's too big/small could account for the neck splitting issue right?

As Muir points out, the problem doesn't lie with necks splitting on firing but on the ammo coming from the factory with split necks. These splits seem to result in degradation of the propellant or primer, leading to squib rounds that leave bullets lodged in the barrel.

A shooter who is not alert to this problem will probably react to an unexplained miss (not realising that the bullet never went downrange) by cranking in another round and trying again, at which point he will bulge his barrel and probably blow out his magazine, though he is unlikely to be injured in pocket rather than in person.

The remedy for this is (i) to check all your rounds for split necks (usually they split where the neck meets the shoulder); (ii) to know what and unexplained miss is likely to signify; and (iii) to carry a cleaning rod to clear stuck bullets.

I got tired of this -mostly out of disgust that such ammo was considered fit for sale by its manufacturers- and sold my HMR. That was last year, and I have no regrets about doing so.

It really isn't a question of preferring the .22LR or .22WMR (though I haven't had any ammo problems with these): it's just that HMR QC isn't good enough.

 

[pricketfella]

I had a batch of faulty Hornady Blue tips swapped by Edgar Bros for Red ones. Problem is they group like a shotgun. I still have one box of original Red tips(pre Blue) which group like a 5p @ 100 yards. So they may have cured the misfire problem but somethings changed with them to have that much difference in the grouping. So im still no better off.