Throat erosion---17HMR/17HM2

[Double D]

Has any one noticed throat erosion in the 17 Rimfires?

[Dean2]

I sold one Savage at 50,000 rounds, and sold a Marlin to my hunting partner at 30,000 rounds. I think he is up to about 34,000 on it now. My current CZ is at 32,000. I did not see throat erosion in the Savage but it was starting to show slightly larger groups at 100 yards. It was starting to push one inch, when new it would do .7s.

I have not seen any throat erosion in the Marlin or the CZ and have not seen any change in their accuracy on target at 100 yards, yet. I am sure the barrels will eventually wear out but it is going to take a hell of a lot of shooting. The ammo costs WAY more than a new gun. (32,000 rounds is $9,600 so barrel wear is the least of my problems).

[SShooterZ]

Dean2 that is an amazing amount of shooting!

How do you manage to squeeze off so many rounds?!

[Dean2]

Originally Posted by SShooterZ

Dean2 that is an amazing amount of shooting!

How do you manage to squeeze off so many rounds?!

Gopher shooting. The amount of gophers that were around Calgary when I was living down there was truly amazing and then on top of that we would do a couple of trips to Sask every year just for fun. The limit on daily through put wasn't targets or daylight (sun is up at 5 and down at 11) it was that your thumbs got sore from reloading magazines and/or your neck got stiff somewhere between 700 and a thousand rounds. It was very common to go through 25-30,000 rounds a year of mixed ammo, 22 RF, 17 HMR and small center fire.

All that shooting really made a dent in the populations in the fields we shot regularly but regular means 3 or 4 days a week. Thus 4 of us couldn't do much control work on more than a few sections of land.

The gophers got so out of control in many places they had to re-institute the poisoning programs and started allowing poison again about 4 years ago to control the gophers. There just aren't enough dedicated shooters available to effectively control the populations, especially in Saskatchewan. Since they started poisoning the number of gophers has come down a whole lot. It would be hard to go through that much ammo the past couple of years, but I now live in Edmonton so am going to have to find some new spots anyhow.

[SShooterZ]

I can't even imagine the fun you had. Shooting those rimfires all day for that many rounds. What more could a guy ask for. Thanks for sharing!

[Daryl]

In talking with the lads over on the Canadian air gun forum, I'm told a lot of ranchers in the Calgary area only allow air guns now.

The ranch area South of here where I've been shooting them since 1996 about 6 ranches), has gone dry. Last year, a waste of gas and a week's time trudging around on our quads to fine one there, a few over there, damn thin - might have shot 300 total - terrible trip. No one in that area has used poison for 20 years, I'm told. Next year, new area a little further South, maybe as in the Lac le Hache area.

Since discovering the HMR's, we've even used them in normal Ruger 10-22 areas, close tight swaths of pasture along the Horsefly River and creeks feeding it. At a maximum ranges of about 125 yards, we found the HMR's are still fun at that close in, .22 LR range shooting.

I've not shot over about 5 or 6 thousand rounds of HMR in either my SS or the Marlin - but noticed no accuracy fall-off in either rifle, however did notice the Martini now also likes the WW brand 20gr. HP. It would not shoot any HP's under an 1" at 100 Meters when the chamber and barrel were new, but now will shoot 1/2" with the WW 20gr. The Hornady still remains the most accurate, however - and the Fed both with the Vmax. The headspace on the WW 17 gr. Vmax is too tight (thick rims?) for the Martini. In a box of 50, there will be a single hole for 25 or more shots about 3/8" in diameter centred at 50 meters, there are rounds that are tighter when lifting the block(some more than others), those print out of the group, to the right, up to 1 1/4" out of the group at only 50 meters. That explained some of the misses with the WW brand. I went back to either Fed or Hornady, the missing stopped. Too - many of the WW 17gr.Vmax split the cases.
The bolt guns do not care about WW brand vs. Horn or Fed - all shooting the same in the Marlins. The Savage,however, also had preferences and did not like ANY Vmax loads, only the 20gr.HP's.

[Chickenthief]

Just got a massive nosebleed!

50,000 rounds of 17HMR would cost me @$35,000.

[Dean2]

Originally Posted by Chickenthief

Just got a massive nosebleed!

50,000 rounds of 17HMR would cost me @$35,000.

That would give me a nose bleed too. Think of all the money you could save by making a trip to Saskatchewan and burning up 10,000 rounds over a couple of weeks. The money you save on ammo would pay for the trip. Damn, that makes it free. Got to do it.

[hemiallen]

I haven't found the limit myself, but can a person heat up a Varmint diameter 17hmr barrel by shooting too fast, or do they seem to cool enough to just keep on shooting? I imagine factors like outside temp and in shade or sun make a difference, just thinking out loud and wondering.

I had a situation last spring where the young squeeks resembled the pop up game that you use a hammer to knock them down, and I probably shot 60" rounds in 30 minutes off of sticks, but I don't recall feeling if the barrel was hot on my Savage 93 HB gun.

Thanks

Allen

[Daryl]

We've had the Marlins pretty warm as I used 7 , 7 round mags., but just bout time you think - hey, I've got to let her cool down, the shooting slows and it's fine when the shooting picks up again, as long as you can put it under the bike in the shade. The Savage had 5, 10 round mags but they would not work with more than 7 rounds- go figure.

The Martini, being single shot and a stainless bl. had never been too hot to shoot.