The 17 Remington Fireball

@T @troglodyte 4 years ago

From what I gather, this was one of the wildcat forefathers ideas, an offering from PO Ackley, of Ackley improved fame. Simply put he used the 221 Fireball case and necked it down to 17 cal. He called it the 17/21 and it could push a 20 gr bullet to just over 4200 fps, this all happened in 1962, thanks to Vern O'Brien, a Vegas gunsmith who took the idea and chambered it in rifles.
In 2007 Remington looked at the old Wildcat 17/21 and made a few changes to neck angle etc and called it the Remington Fireball, the cartridge we know today.
Today bullets are available in weights from 20 gr to 30 gr with the 30 gr Berger bullet being capable of 3500fps + and the 20 gr AccuTip realizing 4200 fps +
All this comes with only 16 - 20 gr of propellent being burnt, which was supposed to help reduce fouling, but reports are more to the lament of rapid fouling of the barrel.

The calibre is described as accurate, flat shooting and mild in recoil, suitable for medium range varminting. I would imagine that a 20 gr bullet does not come with much kinetic energy, even at 4000 fps ? Comments required here.

I do not know of this calibres application over and above shits and giggles in the RSA, perhaps Dassie and crows, I do not think (based on .204 Ruger results) that it would really be suitable for African vermin, like Monkeys, Jackal, if ethics are a consideration.

The Fireball it would appear lost popularity to the the 17 Remington, which just had an overall "better" performance and reduced barrel fouling characteristics.

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@A @againstthegrains

Little bullets that travel really fast can do quite a lot of damage. I love my 204 Ruger. Can imagine a 17 cal has a similar vibe to it. Shits and giggles and lots of dead critters.

@T @treeman

I have an 204 Ruger as well, incredible "dead right there" rifle for some species, but that DRT thing ends very abruptly as the animal weight increases.
A neck shot on almost any table fare is 50/50 and walk away wounded is far more common when shot behind the shoulders, far more.
I was able to do some very controlled research in a very closed camp once. The farmer had about 70 animals in a camp of about 5 hectare (I may be wrong, but small, look across small). We were asked to clean it out. Fallow deer, Impala, Blesbuck and springbok. I told the other guys 4 - 5 that I was to be experimenting a bit.
Please keep in mind this was not a hunt, it was a shoot with horses coming through every 20 minutes to collect animals.
All head shots went down on the spot.
All upper neck shot, base of skull went down on the spot.
All animals other than the Blesbuck were instant dead with middle of neck shot (two blessbuck needed second shot)
Only the springbuck I shot went down with behind the shoulder shots. Some springbuck also walked off. So much so that I will never use the .204 again for anything but head shot culling.

You may have noticed the term "walked off" - strange phenomenon I noticed was that animals shot with the .204 behind the shoulders did not dart or run off, they twitched, jumped, and then WALKED off.
Most not dead animals were shot with the .270 by myself from same position - just swop rifle.

A rare chance I had with this experiment, do not know if such conditions to do this without risk of animals not being found will ever be available again.

One more thing, the 40 gr bullet is 300 % more effective than the 30 gr bullet - at least 3 x. I do not see how the 17 can be used for anything over and above rabbit sized game.