In my previous Favorite Calibers post I listed three calibers that were instrumental in my development of a love of firearms and handloading. With this post I will attempt to fill in some Calibers gaps.

204 Ruger

Introduced in 2004 as a collaborative project between Hornady and Ruger this cartridge was boasted as the fastest commercially available cartridge, beating out the long standing venerable 220 Swift (another favorite). The 204 Ruger was advertised as driving a 32 gr projectile at 4,225 fps and with a 300 yard zero this would allow for a pretty much dead on hold out to 450 yards on coyotes. The 40 grain projectiles (which I preferred) boasted better ballistics and were capable of 3900 fps with certain powder combinations.

I purchased a Remington 700 ADL in a little gunshop in northern California and accumulated 1000 rounds of factory ammo that same year. Northern California not being known for it’s vermin and me not being one to waste powder and lead punching holes in paper I didn’t do much more than sight the rifle in and break in the barrel. I couldn’t wait to complete my education and return to the Prairie dog, jackrabbit, and coyote killing fields of southern Wyoming.

We moved back to WY in the summer of 2005 and by mid winter I was reloading all the brass for the first time. I decided on 40 grain bullets because they bucked the wind a little better and they packed a little more energy at a distance. The accuracy and capability of this cartridge is phenomenal, having seen it myself but also having experienced some disappointments.

Initially it was the velocity that was the excitement but eventually it was the velocity that lost the excitement. While finishing up the third reloading I began to see diminished accuracy. Cutting the block out of the magazine and seating the bullets further out helped for a while but by the time the round count was 3000+, powder and bullets combos quit working no matter what I tried.

The 20 caliber has it’s advantages when it comes to furs and pelts, smaller holes for one; lower recoil is also an advantage. The speed that these lighter bullets can be driven has definite pros, trajectory being one. A con is terminal performance at distances, they may start faster but they also decelerate faster and deliver less energy. Ultimately, I would not call the 204 Ruger a “Favorite” but it is definitely a cartridge I am very familiar with and I did “favor” it for a period of time and do “favor” it for certain applications.

17 Remington Fireball

The 17 Fireball (FB) was introduced in 2007 and is literally a necked-down 221 Fireball. It came out toward the end of the 17 caliber rimfire uprising in the early 2000s and breathed new life into 17 caliber centerfire cartridges for a brief period.

The 17 FB was not a new idea, as one learns about cartridges over time, but a reintroduction of what had already been. In 1962 Vern O’Brien developed the 17 Mach IV which is the 17 FB with a 30 degree shoulder instead of the standard 23 degree shoulder of the parent 221 case. For the first year of owning the rifle I used the Mach IV load data from the Hornady manual to work up loads.

Settling on the 25 grain weight projectile for most of my shooting applications, the lighter 20 grain pills at over 4100 fps on cool calm Wyoming mornings were murder on ground squirrels and prairie dogs out to 350+ yards. The long 26 1/2″ barrel was a little unwieldy as a truck gun when used for dispatching coyotes in the winter.

It was soon discovered that coyotes did not succumb to a “bad hit,” at least within a reasonable distance or amount of time as with a 22 or 6mm caliber or even the 20 caliber for that matter. This was a little disconcerting but what can one expect from a caliber slightly larger than a grain of rice and a projectile that weighs as much as a kidney bean.

This is not to disparage the 17 FB or the 17s in general. As a matter of fact I intend to re-chamber this barrel to a 17-222 Remington. There’s nostalgia in the caliber and most of it is in just having one. Besides a 10 shot, 100 yard group that looks like one shot fired from a 45-70 is quite impressive I don’t care who you are.