17 Remington or 17 Fireball?

l want a prairie dog gun l can point, shoot, and SEE the prairie dog BLOW UP. l have 221FB, 222REM, 223REM, and TAC20 varmint guns. None qualify for me. l think a 17REM or 17FB will.

17 Fireball should get you close to 17 rem velocity, less powder,longer barrel life. If that's a factor for you. Just my $.02

I haven't used either 17 round, but I built a sub moa .223 AR15 around a Larue barrel and it hammers prairie dogs. I built it heavy, with the old style heavier Magpul PRS stock and a stainless full length surefire suppressor. Not fun to lug around but it makes it very accurate because of the consistent light recoil and quality barrel. I can easily spot shots at 15+ power, as long as I have a halfway stable position. The 55 grain vmax rounds make pink mist out of the hits, and I've even gotten a double kill with the shrapnel off of a hit.

sw282 said:

l want a prairie dog gun l can point, shoot, and SEE the prairie dog BLOW UP. l have 221FB, 222REM, 223REM, and TAC20 varmint guns. None qualify for me. l think a 17REM or 17FB will.

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Turn your scope power down and you will see your hits with all of those cartridges. My favorite "red mist" cartridges are 204 Ruger and 20 BR with 39 gr BlitzKings. 6mm and up are a problem seeing hits, I won't use them.

I've donor and a blank and some other bits and bots. Recently did a search and 17 rem components are expensive but more common. Kinda want to do a 17-223 like the 17 kak for ease of components, but may hit easy button and do 17 rem as two of the smith's I've used in the past have a reamer on hand and it makes dies easier.

Wold think it won't take a lot of rifle weight to make spotting shots easy.

l'm actually leaning to the 17REM. l fell into a hundred NEW 17Rem R-P cases and dies a couple years back. Might even be able to come up with a donor action and stock

17 Fireball _ 17 Rem.



The .17 Remington Fireball in it's original form, .17 Mach IV, was the first wildcat and varmint cartridge I built years ago. The performance then was exactly what I was looking for from the lighter bullets to the minuscule powder load. I found Remington .221 Fireball brass at an inexpensive price as long as I bought 1,000 pieces.

The recoil was perfect for being able to spot hits on prairie dogs at reasonable distances. The weight of this rifle was heavy by design with a full diameter barrel at 22" and a 1:10 twist.

I later built another .17 Mach IV using a 37 grain Match (VLD) bullets. We originally used these in competition at 1,000 yards when the wind was nonexistent. We were able to achieve 1 MOA groups when Mother Nature cooperated. Any tiny little change in the wind guaranteed the possibility of missing the target completely! Muzzle velocity was nearly 3,800 fps with a lightly compressed load and a 28" barrel. I may have a few of these bullets left somewhere...

Any other time this rifle was my first choice for prairie dogs and the once in a while coyote.

sw282 said:

l want a prairie dog gun l can point, shoot, and SEE the prairie dog BLOW UP. l have 221FB, 222REM, 223REM, and TAC20 varmint guns. None qualify for me. l think a 17REM or 17FB will.

Click to expand...

I'm just now working up loads for a new one that I've built check it out at KAK industries it's a 17 556!
Pushing a 25 grain Vmax at 3705 ft./s
I've got some 20 grain Vmax that I expect to break 4000 ft./s with!

17 Fireball is more efficient per grain of powder. I'm getting 4200 FPS from a 25" custom. IMR 8208 is my go to pushing a 20 grain. Brass is easy to come up with. Getting ready to build a 221 heavy for the PD fields and strongly considered the 17 Rem but just don't need the extra recoil, noise and powder consumption. Will probably rebarrel my heavy 204 Ruger into the 221, I just don't even take the 204 anymore.

I didn't look today but the last time I looked 17 Remington is extremely high price to buy factory ammo. 221 is almost non existed. to buy new ammunition the last time my looked. I have guns in south calibers. A remington 221 fireball pistol And a Thompson contender 17 Remington along with a 17 Remington 700. The 221 is not the cartridge the 17 Remington is but it is a very nice shooting cartridge. My 17 Remington I reload with all molly coated bullets. I load them right up to 4000 fps. I have shoot as many as 150 round with out falling the barrel. My contender pistol I shoot factory loads in it. My rumington 700 I receives brass to its chamber. A buddy of my tried to shoot some of my handloads and could not close his bowl on his gun with my round. So that shows that my chamber has more heads faced than his. A 221 fireball would be a great rifle and I keep saying I'm gonna order a barrel for my contender. I only have about 300 round of 221 cases.
I have about 800 of 17 rem. All this said my go to prairie dog gun is a 223 Remington. I sure like the 17 for coyote shooting. If you can find brass for the 221. Without really researching it, it would be a gun that would shoot a lot longer than the 17 for barrei burn. I have a 204 and have only sighted that gun in. Got a good price on it and 140 rounds of ammo. The best answer to the problem is get both you only live one time and as your near 80 and you twin brother is on the doorstep of death with the rarest cancer in the world he still bought a new 300 Mag just because he wanted one. Last week he gave all his guns and ammo away to his son and 4 grandsons.

sw282 said:

l want a prairie dog gun l can point, shoot, and SEE the prairie dog BLOW UP. l have 221FB, 222REM, 223REM, and TAC20 varmint guns. None qualify for me. l think a 17REM or 17FB will.

Click to expand...

I have both, for high volume shooting, definitely the Fireball over the17 Rem. Barrel stays cleaner longer, I can easily get 3900 FPS out of a 25 grain Vmax, no recoil and consistent hits out to 500 yards. You only get the true red mist effect from 300 on it though.

Since you already have a 221 FB, you can use brass for either 17 or 221 and the FB brass is also far superior to the 17 HH when it comes to reloading. The 17 Fb is my favourite gopher gun.

Left hand factory made 17 FB, Varmint barrel in a Boyd's Light weight Thumbhole Varmint stock, Devcon Bedded.

sw282 said:

l want a prairie dog gun l can point, shoot, and SEE the prairie dog BLOW UP. l have 221FB, 222REM, 223REM, and TAC20 varmint guns. None qualify for me. l think a 17REM or 17FB will.

Click to expand...

I've owned both calibers, and in my experience the 17 FB is far superior. Accuracy, barrel life, less heat from repeated firing when shooting ground squirrels, etc.

338 dude said:

I'm just now working up loads for a new one that I've built check it out at KAK industries it's a 17 556!

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Is yours an ar with one if their barrels?

Was meaning to see if they let reamers out for bolt guns, then the parts went in the box and forgot about it.

Seems like with the way brass availability has been forn12 out of the last 16 years a 5.56 based 17 would make sense.

Here's the link to my post about building a 17 Remington. The only thing on wish I had was a little faster twist. Mine doesn't like the 25gr pills. Other than that this thing shoots great. Not sure you want a 17 caliber anything for longer shots or for shooting a lot at one time. Going to be replacing barrels frequently. I use mine mostly for red fox here in PA. Works amazing with little pelt damage. Not sure any 17 is going to make prairie dogs flip or explode the way you want. Want them to explode go 22-250 or 220 Swift in my opinion. Good luck on whatever you choose though because any prarie dog town would be fun to decimate with any caliber. Load data says you onlybuse 2-4grs. More for the 17Rem over the fireball so powder consumption and recoil difference would be virtually 0 difference.