.17 HMR caution

[GJM]

A few years ago, I bought a CZ .17 HMR varmint rifle to shoot gophers with. Got it set up with a Leupold, and was ready to do battle with those critters.

My wife was shooting it to verify zero at 100 yards, and had a kaboom, driving the magazine out, spraying her forearm with shrapnel, and damaging the stock. I gave it to Jim Brockman to figure out what happened.

The problem turned out to be ammo. Ammo was very scarce at that time, and a friend helped me out with ammo he had that was surplus to his needs. Apparently, .17 HMR ammo has a +/- 7 year shelf life. This ammo was older. What happened was the neck of the cartridge split, in the box, allowing moisture to contaminate the powder. When my wife was shooting, she fired this bad round, and unknowingly had a squib, which lodged in the barrel. The next cartridge fired, causing the kaboom.

I believe we had Hornady ammo, which apparently is made by CCI (I understand CCI makes all the .17 HMR ammo). Hornady paid for CZ to repair the rifle. This makes me want to ditch the two .17 HMR rifles we have, the CZ and a Savage, as life is too short to worry about the age of ammo.

[LittleLebowski]

That round is now known for that and I think the shelf life thing is a dodge.

http://www.thehighroad.org/archive/i.../t-721169.html

http://www.ncgunowners.com/forum/sho...d.php?tid=7778

http://www.rugerforum.com/phpBB3/vie...8ad98e7a92a066

[Kyle Reese]

Very disconcerting. My old man shoots .17 HMR quite a bit, and I'm sure he's got ammo 8 to 10 years old.


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[bfoosh006]

Hope the wife is ok.

Interesting that the cases split at all... I was not aware of that possible issue with .17 HMR.
I hope that was just a bad batch of ammo brass.

[LittleLebowski]

Hope the wife is ok.

Interesting that the cases split at all... I was not aware of that possible issue with .17 HMR.
I hope that was just a bad batch of ammo brass.

See the links I posted; it's not just a bad batch nor is it limited to one firearm design/type. Too bad as I love that round. I had a kaboom with it and a Remington semi auto rifle. Remington pushed out a recall saying that Hornady recommended against using the round in semi autos. However (looking at my links above), one can see that there's issues with the round itself.

[SecondsCount]

If it were me, and had concern about the safety of the 17HMR, I would have the rifle rebarreled in 22LR.

[GJM]

If it were me, and had concern about the safety of the 17HMR, I would have the rifle rebarreled in 22LR.

I asked Jim Brockman about that, and I thought he said the .17 was a .22 magnum necked down, and it would have to be .22 mag, not LR?

[SecondsCount]

I asked Jim Brockman about that, and I thought he said the .17 was a .22 magnum necked down, and it would have to be .22 mag, not LR?

Jim is correct, the 17 is based on the 22 Mag. It may be action dependent but guys are purchasing 22 Mag rifles and putting 22LR and 17 barrels on them.
For instance

The rim diameter on a 22Mag/17HMR is .016" larger than a 22LR which I guess is not enough to matter.