.17 HMR Issues Resolved 

I was having split necks and some cases were sticking and difficult to eject in my Marlin 917V. Changed ammo, with no improvement at all. Scrubbed the barrel, no help. Cases continued to split and stick in the chamber. It was time to get a little more aggressive. Removed the bolt and cleaned the barrel with Hoppe's No. 9.. With a short cleaning rod, I attached a .22 caliber cleaning swab to my cordless drill, and used Flitz to gently polish the chamber, not the bore itself, that's why I purposely chose to use a .22 swab not a .17 cal swab. Cleaned the barrel well and lightly oiled. No more split casings, no more casings sticking in the chamber.

Thank you for a great series of videos! Pushing through and finding a solution that you did not expect is awesome. I’d say that’s a hard thing to do when you are disappointed with something and had a reasonable conclusion (to me) on the last video. Subscription earner.

Awesome. Great to find out it's not a serious hardware issue on this kind of thing. Also great that you didn't buy multiple bricks of the bad ammo before finding out that it's defective.

Great job reviewing ammo & firearm. Thanks.

Glad I came across this video. I have a large stock of 17 ammo and am always noticing split cases at the neck. I also never seem to be able to get the kind of groups everyone talks about with this caliber. I’m running a savage 93R17 and although I thought the split cases aren’t helping things, just figured I got a below average rifle. Thanks to your video I’ll try some new ammo and see what happens. I like this little caliber for what it is and now I have hope to get some accuracy back.

i enjoyed your video! and your information. i own a savage b17f with a rotary clip, and am having one heck of a time trying to load that clip!

Glad you got it working.

I've used CCI A17 for a year or two. Always goes bang. I have a 93R17 and love it. Almost 20years now. Many groundhogs taken with it. Early on I had the same issue with ammo. I don't remember what brand, pretty sure Winchester, but not positive.

Nice video to pop up in my recommendations since I'm getting that same gun but with a wood stock next month

I had splits with Winchester ammo my Savage 93r17. Winchester wanted the remaining ammo and split cases. Never got a reason but they did compensate for 2 boxes. I had the earlier version w/o accutriger. I had chronic issues with the first round not aligning with the breach.

I've had split necks in my CZ452 American. Hornady ammo. CCI make all the 17 HMR ammo, and the problem was caused by an annealing problem. I had a round stop a few inches down the barrel, then didn't dare put another one behind it. I'm lucky to own a $4000 microscope, and so put the ammo I had under the scope at 80x mag to ID the spitters. I pulled out 40 out of 500 rounds that I daren't use.

Will be buying the recommended shells for my Savage .17 bolt action now. Very informative and hopefully this resolves the issue of jamming and not kicking up the next shell in the magazine.

very good series ... i learned that a split neck will cause accuracy issues...

The issue was...per online info...that the cases were primed 22 wmr brass necked down without annealing which causes cracks and stress on the neck/ shoulder areas

Ammo quality has been an issue with 17HMR.. seems most manufacturers have fixed it now though, but it's left a sour taste in the mouth of a few shooters here in the UK and many went back to 22LR.

Hmmm I have been shooting Winchester Varmint HV 17 Grain, and i had i had a lot of flyers. And seen many split necks, i always thought it was me not the the split necks. I feel much better now. Also i didn't know i could shoot the A17 out of my bolt rifle, thanks for the info. I still have magazine loading issues but that another thing.

I had the same problem. Was looking around and found some cci 20 gr game point ammo and no longer have the issue. My rifle is a marlin

Out of my b17 I've had the best accuracy with the 20gr Hornady hollow point. Recently found some other 20gr ammo so I'll let you know when I get a chance to test them. Idk if it has to do with the bullet or the barrel or something else...idk. But I have experienced similar issues. I think it could be the bolt and the way it seats the shell. It's not a lug or something very precise. It's kept in place by the bolt handle... it works but I don't think it is always the correct spacing. I think I'll be saving for a cz or something not so cheap.

I've got a 93r17, used mainly Hornady ammunition over the years with great results, though had a bad box with lots of misfires once. Recently I couldn't get Hornady, so tried Winchester 17gr VMAX, awful stuff!! Half of shots taken split the necks and nearly 2" groups at 50m thanks to those bad ones. Also one failure to eject. Luckily gunshop has agreed to exchange them for another brand.

Thanks for relating your 17 HMR split cases issue and accuracy problems. I'm shooting a Marlin and experiencing poor accuracy and split cases too. My ammo is probably 10 years old. Hornady, 17 grain V Max. I just checked two new old stock 10 year old boxes of my ammo by placing my thumbnail on the neck and bullet and rotating the cartridge to detect any flaws in the brass where it joins with the projectile. BINGO! 13 of 50 necks cracked before firing. Box 2: 2 split necks out of 50. 8 more boxes of 50 to inspect. The ammo sure is the problem! Use your fingernail to feel the cracks in the neck. You'll feel what you possibly may not see. I'll be buying some new ammo soon and hoping the ammo makers are doing better quality control. 400 more rounds to check.... It'll be interesting to see how many, if any, of my unsplit rounds will part upon firing and how bad the already split rounds will crack. Again, thanks for the education.

Did you check the neck size and brass thickness on any of your rounds with a caliper prior to shooting?

Good info on the holy .17 hmr... Thanks for posting, great content. Regarding hunting, anything other than full metal jackets/solid points for small game is literally overkill and unnecessary. Give the CCI 20 grain/FMJ a try and you'll never go back... Seriously. Both the entry and the exit wounds are exactly the same, which mitigates meat damage. Not only that, but you'll likely find that you have more consistent grouping as well... win/win. Save those Vmax for coyotes or varmint. This holds true for .22 as well, whether long or short rifles... solid points. 💪

I just got a hmr today for 225 an when the mag goes in it gets stuck an is super hard to take out ?

Checked some of my spent Browning 17hmr 17gr cases this morning... Yep...some are split.

any chance you know how it fire with 20 grain rounds? i have a few boxes of winchester super x but havent fired yet

Hard to believe you had that many split necks without there being a recall on that ammo.

Hey, like your videos, precise and well thought out. My R93 has alway shot well and it's one of my most accurate rifles. In your first video you showed the wear on the Bolt and speculated a possible 'head-space' problem. That really made sense, but nothing was said about it when the rifle came back from Savage.... Just - "head space good" - on the review paper from the Savage team. Explain.

Just bought a brand new Savage B17 and fired 18 rounds of 17gr CCI rounds and got 9 split necks out of the 18 shots!

I think it's the ammo, had a Ruger 77-17 varmint barrel, nice looking gun they don't make any more. Plenty of split necks, hang fires, and failure to ignite powder. primer would only ignite driving the projectile couple inches into the barrel. Well one day i was checking my zero, it was windy out side and i shoot suppressed and wasn't paying attention and wrecked the gun. I fired a round while the previous projectile was lodge in the barrel. So went out and bought a Savage 93 to replace the destroyed Ruger . Same results, split necks, hang fires. and primer only ignition. So i would say it's just crappy ammo. I purchased the 17 HMR in the early 2000's when they were introduced and it has been a problem i noticed early on. Have acquired some newer ammo in last year gonna give the newer stuff a try. My experience tells me more than likely bad ammo and maybe they have addressed the problem. Is it a brass problem or powder problem, manufactures likely know but doubtful they would talk about it publicly.

They use thin casings because it is a throw away casing with a high pressure. The necks are just going to split. Keep your chamber cleaned and polished so they will still extract. Make sure to actually clean your bore and chamber often. You are getting fliers because the copper fouling. It fouls so bad because the velocity and twist rate of the barrel needed to stabilize the bullet. Its the same concept as a "barrel burner" magnum cartridge.

I want to offer you one thing. Maybe a couple more. To explain myself, I just found your channel due to my buying a Savage 93R17 today. The reasons for buying the rifle are convoluted but I think it looks like a decent little squirrel gun. I have to wait 10 days to actually shoot the thing though. I've watched all your` video's about the rifle and they are well done, and glad I saw some of the potential problems that might crop up so I'll recognize them easier if they happen. Thank You. But I'm not sure you've solved it all yet. I will say that one of the first things I would have checked was the ammo. Also the scope, mounts, and your head position to the scope for parallax. A lot of your groups are just plain bad and it doesn't look like your hold or trigger finger. Ammo yes, but have you checked the scope to hold zero. I've had scopes that just wouldn't hold zero and that might be part of the problem. Also, on a lesser and remote scale, you should check the barrel attachment to the receiver. I've seen rifles that just couldn't hold zero with the best Zeiss scopes in the world mounted on them and that turned out to be the problem. The way this rifle is made leads me to think that this isn't the problem, but it should be checked. I would also have you disassemble the rifle and use Mil-Tec on it. When I buy a new weapon I use this and it's great stuff. Accuracy will improve and your weapon won't need cleaning nearly as much. I liberally coat all the parts, and place all the parts on a cookie baking pan covered with tin foil. I use my heat gun to heat up the parts. Once that's done, I burnish all the parts and let them cool. Then I do it again. And then I do it again. Makes all the parts smooth as glass. When you fire the weapon, just wipe it down and send a rag through the barrel. This stuff will make any firearm better. And the last I will bother you with is setting the trigger weight lighter. Making the trigger pull extremely light will improve the groups. Good luck with it.

Made a believer outta me. Thanks. Been sitting on a brick of that A17 ammo since before all this WOOHOO flu craziness began. Like commenter JUDKINS I too got ahold of some GAMEPOINT (& FMJ) ammo but for different reason..., less destruction on small game (regular ballistic tip stuff is "a little too" gruesome for something I want to eat). Haven't taken the time to observe neck splitting occurrence but will now. Might even put calipers to spent cases for comparison (just below bottom of split). I will state that I have been paying particular attention to the cleanliness of my rifles' chamber area to keep carbon build-up removed and minimize extraction problems. Plus that powder burning in shoulder/neck area is bound to cause pitting eventually if not prevented. (Same reason you don't want to shoot a lot of .22 shorts in a LR rifle). Another theory I'm chewing on is that if case splitting is routinely happening isn't expansion of the burning gases entering the chamber [on one side] BEFORE the bullet leaves the neck/throat/freebore creating induced runout/canting of the bullet before lands engagement [exaggerated/randomly clocked origination barrel harmonics]? Not to mention an increased ES since some of the gas pressure is being vented, contributing to shot stringing. Is the metallurgy of the A17 ammo casings different from standard ammo, or does the increase powder charge generate more heat that it actually anneals just enough to prevent splitting? I realize that this is probably not the place to present these inquiries but you never know when someone who has more comprehension of the science of a situation may contribute to the solution of a commonly experienced discrepancy. I'm just a need that thinks too much. :-)

My Tikka has never had a spilt case issue.

I had this problem with wiñchester polymer tip ammo switched to cci and hornady ammo never have a problem since

I've never had a problem with accuracy,split case necks. My problem is none of the magazines that I've tried will feed more than 3 rounds. I've messed with the feed lips(in and out) and it hasn't helped at all. Really sucks,cuz the rifle is very accurate. I have 4 savage magazines,and only "sacrificed" one of them to mess around with the feed lips. Even the 10 round mag will only feed 3 rounds,then they dip down and you have to use a knife to get the rest out. I even sanded the follower on the one mag,with no improvement. Inside of mag is fine,no dents,burrs.🤷‍♂️

Don’t know if I’m relevant with this statement, but have you tried the CCI 17hmr fmj? I would recommend it for small game. A-17 is varmint/pest control.

It is cheaper too punch hole in paper with a ink pen.

You should look in to glass bed the barrel and action you won’t believe how much it brings the grouping in

Anyone else see that bigfoot peaking from that tree behind him.

I have a rugar amercian no splits 0r issues with cci a 17 loads with 300 rounds

Hello sir cci makes a FMJ bullet for your squirrel hunting needs I think it's 17 grain bullet but that might help you out against meat loss happy squirrel hunting and thanks for the video

About how long did it take to get your gun back? just got one today and the bolt scraped the in the chamber and scratches it all up and gets hung…

Winchester used to blow the bottom off in mine.

Why are you not using the CCI FMJ for small game?

👍👍👍

how many yards was this done at?

rather it is bad chamber (to large or un-round) then the ammo. Special if you have it on several brands of ammo. Let's measure the chamber by a gun master or send it back to Savage. I had a similar case on on of my .22 WinMag. regards from Switzerland

My savage bvts 17hmr misfires on winchester nothing else... shooting 3/8" 5 shot groups @100yds. Best @ .323 worst was .625 using 5 different brands of ammo. It can't be beat...

For 200 yards those groups are doable

All rimfire ammo should have a bore snake every 10 rounds. Very dirty powder. I also foam bore clean my barrel everytime out.

What’s the range distance?

What caused the misfires in your rifle, I have one and can't stop it from misfiring.

CCI is a sister company of Savage

22 wmr all the way, better results

You might want to reconsider your sponsor,AARP. Aren't they anti gun?

Why comment that your armor got problems whit ammo? I shot a CZ 457 whit 22LR Mini Mag in 1" inch 50m and 17HMR in 100m with CCI Gamepoint and Hornady NTX. Either the problem is the vapon or the shooter!

*just a nerd*

You should have bought a real gun instead of a junk gun