KAK .17-5.56

Wanted to show off my new little build. Been waiting to get into .17cal for a while but in the last few years the barrier to entry has been pretty sucky due to brass availability,parent cases availability ect . And honestly I just wanted to pay with it because I thought "little bullet go fast = fun " . So couldn't really justify dropping $1200 on some semi custom wild cat or something. That and I hate talking on the phone so....
Well three months ago was looking around and saw KAK came out with their .17-5.56. They where selling barrels ,brass does and completely uppers all in house ready to buy . And according to them they looked at all the compliments other .17's had and tried to make theirs to where it could be a very easy and cheap case conversion not requiring a bunch of extra bs . Basically just a one time deal of running 1x fired 5.56 in the resizing die and boom. 17-5.56 brass. So was $200 for the barrel $150 for the custom redesign dies and I just bought 1300pc of once fired L.C 23 head stamp 5.56 brass from a guy soooo seemed like a great option for a budget play a round gun

So just was gonna run this as an upper and again play around budget deal so legit went and bought all NBS /cheap parts . I'm honestly just not one of these AR guys who feels they need to have mil spec every thing in Evey AR they build....and as someone who spent 6yras in the army gaurd turning wrenches on mil spec gear......yeah not a huge fan honestly . Not like I'm traving in the mountains on horse back or air locking out of a submarine or something.But yeah random NBS discount parts and chicom rails and mount from Amazon.


15min later ( why I love AR's so much)

O and the dies. First ever set of Redding dies very nice

And the complete build, I just slapped it on time of my SPR lower ,and used its .223wyled BCG.
Ended up switching the scope and bipod out

Annnnd brass forming is stupid simple. Now the only deal is for it to work properly for a since stop process you NEED to use 1X FIRED BRASS brass has to be work hardened for it to work like this properly. I know I know Annealing before forums is what you do when converting brass but look...this is just a different critter. But yeah little lube run it up and boom .17-5.56

Now you will get some crush cases . Right now I'm at like 45 out of the last 200 or so I made. But I mean honestly the whole deal behind this is to use once fired 5.56 so is not like your loosening Lapua or something I have buckets of once fired range brass along with this same head stamp so honestly I pretty acceptable. Will say though de capping and cleaning your brass before forming then removing the re capping rod from the .17-5.56 die really helps cut down of crushes.

The one in the white holder are crushes and as you see it's not growing much . Those are ALL the crushes I've have since I started and I think that was the 2nd or third full rack of converted cases

And had to do a lot of hunting to find some .17 call bullets since my orders online had got delayed .

Ran starting loads from KAK' info

And very first shot

Dint really have many problems till I start getting to the max load and we'll... Just had to pop it out with a clean in rod but max load was just a bit much . Ripped the rim off no ejection double feed

And freshly converted vs fired formed


But switched scopes got on the bipod and rear bad like a preferred and went back down to the middle of the road load with this powder

I definitely don't need another project but that looks like fun, be cool in a Howa mini.

You could try loading the rounds shorter to decrease the pressure of near at max loads... I'm sure some small critters aren't going to like your 17!

You got me beat. I jumped on the 204 20 inch ar15 years ago.

I got into trying h414 and 2000-mr in heavy for caliber even without load data in my 204 and valkerie. I found this load on for the 17-223 on Hodgdon reloading with a 22 inch and 25 grain.

Looks like way more fun than 22mag! Awesome project!

Are you still learning this caliber or move onto something else? Did you find any pitfalls or outstanding things about it?