Just a little update just got back from the ladies house to retrieve my packages and got the upper done. All parts are either NBS or where won sale/ Amazon chicom magic lol. They don't have the handguard I would have preferred so had to go with this 17" one, which looks a little goofy on a 18" SPR barrel but hy I own a hack saw and spray paint lol. Who ting went together super easy ,like 15-20min tops and most of that was just me trying to find my Allen keys since their never where I leave them . But yeah just waiting on the dies which I , for some reason bought a few days after the barrels and the bullets from powder valley. Still got 1200 or so pieces of same year lack city brass to use in forming so happy happy happy

I think you will enjoy the 17. They can do way more than they get credit for.

O yeah I think it's going to be pretty fun

Quote :Just a little update just got back from the ladies house to retrieve my packages


That part had me scratching my head there for a second . Just because you are not married yet

Lol she gets mail 3x quicker then me so I just send all my packages to her place while I'm gone

Thanks for clearing that up

You are right though it looks a bit goofy with that long hand guard and the saw and paint may be a good way to go .......... unless ...... you put a can on it

Donivan where did the barrel com from

Hay Mr cletis how you been well ! I bought min directly from KAK's website
https://kakindustry.com/17-556-cal-custom-18-inch-barrel/

And dies are in !...... wearing though you don't get a shell holder , that being said I don't think you usually do with Redding dies.... Regardless I have like four .223/5.56 shell holders so no big deal. So time to get to the house and see just how hard it is to re size some brass
Must say thought these are some BEAUTIFUL dies ! Still crazy tk me that these are still counted as "cheapy" or budget dies to a lot of guys I've ha e the joy of talking with

dont neck them down in one push. do a little back off and repeat.

So sized some cases and well, pretty straight forward honestly. Just really need to lube them up and not go too fast. Weird thing is you'll get 10 or so going great then 3-5 mess up then 10 more, tired alot of stuff but just kinda a pattern it seems lol. Was told a 20 practical die would be a good addition but eh , many the whole deal is to make this brass with once fired whatever, so really it's not that bad. Can still cut the crushed ones up for .30/bulk or .300hammer.
Just got some out of my lake city stash.

going to outside turn the necks??

you anneal the brass before sizing?

I'm seeing alot of messed up brass

Can't imagine necking it down in one step?

I necked some 7.62 nato head stamped brass down to 243. When I fired them they were about 50FPS faster. Now that they are fireformed I am curious to see what velocity will be when I load them again.

I did like I described earlier. I would push them in a bit then back off. Repeat till they were fully sized. I left out that I annealed them. I use a drill with a 1/4 inch drive socket chucked up in it. Socket on an extension. Turn the adjusting screw so it revolves slowly. Hold a mapp gas torch in one hand. Drill with a case in the other. Just heat till I see a color change. Works just fine.

Have had several people tell me thats dangerous. Might mix up rounds. I think if I stick a 308 in a 243 it wont chamber. I stick a 243 in a 308 I will just miss. IMO its safe.

for case forming,, best money I ever spent
https://burstfireguns.com/products/new-gen-2-burstfire-2-in-1-case-annealer-case-prep-center

edited to add:
are you lubing inside the necks?

Wolfe, if you could find some commercial brass it would be easier to size as it’s not as thick walled as LC brass. I understand having a large quantity of GI brass being part of the attraction of this caliber.

I would think that your squished brass percentage would go down a good bit if you anneal the stuff first

Now if you really want something zippy .......

Ok so in annealing.... apparently you don't , the guy on the companies videos SPECIFICALLY SAID DO NOT ANNEAL, Aso I haven't

I just have always used a regular full length resizing die with the depriming pin in place. Anneal 4-5 and see what happens. Dont do it in a single stroke.

No sir

the gaulding marks I see inside the sized case necks, says maybe lube inside, your brass may be 2 soft colapsing the shoulders.

O I was. Nothing super fancy though, just put the case mouth in the lube gave it a half spin. Would do that Evey 3 or so. Reckon I would use like a q tip or something?

Got the whole set up for that need to charge my drill and get a new torch though,

I would

Have a look see where the expander button is situated in the die. You may find that it into high up and you are smallerizing the neck while trying to enbiggen it with the button at the same time. That may be to much for the shoulders to bear and they collapse on you

Did I just convince my gf to let me drive an extra 45min on our date to get these ....mabye....but there's a other bookstore around and I found a great little reloading supply shop lol


I have. More ordered but their all delayed due to weather

You have weather in Mississippi ??

apparently where ever powder valley and Midway USA are loaded they have UPS backed up because of it

powder valley is just outside wichita ks and midway is in columbia mo. all hammered by snow and cold weather

I can't imagine NOT annealing a case before necking it down.
Wolfie, you gonna shoot those out of a .223 based case?
I feel you may have a chance at a catastrophic event in your future.

So ...after calling the local bass pro after seeing they where supposed to have some 20gr Vmaxs on sale they said they couldn't find them so to baton rouge I went. Got those ntx's well on the way back home we went by the bass pro and the gf wanted to go look at some achery stuff, well look. What I found on the self

Okie dokie, so a some updates tried what scuba said about taking the decapping pin out and my crush case amount went way more down which when you think about it it makes sense. More downwards force coming down on that neck as you try and shove it up and over that expander ball and all that, and I de cap everything Separate on a universal decapper anyhow. Interesting little deal reading has with knurled end here. Slips right in the case since it's smaller then the expander ball but still can see something possibly getting hung up




And just our if curiosity wants to see what the difference would be in one that that formed with the pin vs if I used the pin after forming annnnd noting noticable



And here's a pic of the whole build. Only think I'm missing is the dust cover which I just keep forgetting to get ordered lol.nwanna get a funny custom on though. But yeah just ripped the bcg out of my .223 while spr build and slapped it in its lower because that lower is so nice to shoot with the wide trigger and the luth mba fully adjustable stock

And today gonna be loading up some of the 20gr vmax's per KAK's load data. Did go and check my should bumps and all that and everything chambers super easy via me pushing ithe bcg in with my thumb.

Running some CFE 223

Will say.....I remeber why I don't like this bally flaky type powder very much , good ole statics

Ten rounds for initial " will this blow up in my face " and getting on target. Think these are supposed to be at 3800 something fps. And that's a starting load.

Good little bit of mag space as well to play with but apparently.17cals like to be jumped apparently so we will see

Spend a couple of bucks on a Lyman funnel .... Its made of cast aluminimum. Zero static and it has inserts that fit over the case necks of yer rounds .. I love that thing and trashed all the others I have tired out over the years.
Go to 1:50 of the video where I ramble on about that funnel

Now if you set the expander ball as low as you can in the die what will happen is. It will be through the neck if the .. then 223 case , so needs no force. Then the die does it work and on the up stroke when the die is out of the way, the expander does its thing ...... If that makes sense to you

Okie dokie got to do some shooting! New did make one or two little little mistakes involving trimming but after pulling some bullets got that fixed.

So the set up ( for the first then shots, more and more I'm just not enjoying shooting off of a front rest , idk just not my thing)
Prone , Caldwell rock BR front rest , magneto speed bayonet Chronograph. My heavy leather rear bag, 63 degrees out no wind



So first ten rounds didn't want to read or where reading some crazy numbers but j bore sighted and sent the first five in @50yd to make sure I was on paper. Also worked as a function test
And some screen shots I took in order of the first shot breaking





So looking like a out 2 o'clock ejection with means a few things according to this

Might play with something down the line but idk over gasses AR's are apparently not uncommon at all , might give her and adjustable gas block down the line. Also gotta say, this thing has like no recoil and I think I might start going the thread protector route.
Anyhow everything functioned perfect. 100yd group was ..meh but very rarely I've had a beginning load start great. Also might have just been me trying to get on a new build


Now the next loads (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman) better but started getting some problems , honestly the only problem I had with the 26gr load was the rounds weren't picking up from the mag. Walked inside switched mags problem solved. Was still having issues with the economy picking up these little bullets so only two sensible velocities


Now according to KAK's load data 26.3 gr is supposed to be the optimal load ( also the top end load for the powder bullet combo) this was where j was getting problems though. The main on being two of these.

Now at first I wasn't sure what to think . Did the whole SPORTS thing , drop the mag ,yadda yadda , and nother the bcg just would not grab the case, weird, well went inside grabbed a cleaning rod and a little tap tap and it came right out. But ....


Believe it or not but I think this is the first time I've had this happen to me in reloading , so very interesting experience . But easy fix . That happened twice but only on this load so ..neat
anyhow shot pretty decent. A adjusted the scope too low on the first shot and hit below the target hence only 4rd

So back that the bench not what I have fire formed brass I can finally look at some stuff I need
Left if freshly formed the right is fire formed


And some head space measurement. Again I Formed this brass per the companies instructions


Vs the fire formed one


So yeaaahhh I've been bumping these back a whole 0.008 vs... you know like the 0.003 I really need

I hope that when you reload the fire formed brass, your groups tighten up. My bet is that they will.
Your extraction issues will likely go away too.

So did some seating depth testing. Seated them a bit long and went back to 26.0 GR of CFE .223 . Also for craps and giggles threw that chicom scope on and gotta say, other then the really short eye relief, ITS NOT BAD !
Next to one of my 5.56 loads

And today's set up

I kept the same powder chard though all of these .....really not liking that S-D but hay

And the target

The ones on the right was something I was trying to do with some brass that wasn't quite right but not horrible


Aaannnd as usual I drop one out the group

And all the fire formed brass. The ones with the primers up are ones with damaged rims or similar they where either the hottest load or the messed up brass

Look what finally came in the mail !

Hay question, what's everyone doing as far as shot place with .17 cals ?

I always shot for the ribs, behind the shoulder. My load ran a 25 gr hp at 3993.

.17 cal has limitations for sure.
I have 2 .17_.204s. Facing straight on or broadside, pure MAGIC!
running texas heart shots, not so much. Just not enuff oomph to be reliable.

Okie dokie thanks for the info

So spend a few hours today freezing my butt of messing with these 25gr's and BLC-2 . Using .17-223 load data from hodgdons website and .....egh.


Much better SD but the groups just weren't much at all. Like 1.5" decided I only have a few days left till I have to go back to work so went back loaded up more 20 grainers with CFE .223 and got the NV set up


Fyi make sure you double check even with that one shot zero . But think th Las one ded center shows it works with a little patience lol

One thing Wolfie, those VMax bullets traveling that fast are most likely not going to be a consistent killer on coyotes.
Those are prairie dog bullets. In my opinion.

Check out Saubier.com. lots of great info for small caliber stuff.

And why is that ? Too explosive when it comes to on bone impact?

Yes. Vmax bullets are typically accurate ( and about the cheapest $ bulk) bullets to find.
Hence the popularity.
I've had to follow WAY to many coyotes in deep snow wearing snowshoes to finish them off from guys shooting them.
Mostly the lite for caliber ones.

Shooting targets,crows,chucks, have at it.

So, in that case probably need to take shots that make use of that explosiveness and say way from bones......
Hmmm
If these are right neck shots would be best and a high shoulder should knock out their nervous system enough to at least anchor them decent .

NOSLER ballistic tips work. VMAX sucks big time.

Boones old posts about 22-250 boat tail bullets vs vmax... maybe when it was him complaining about .204's I think. what are those ones called... Berger. Berger boat tail bullets are supposed to be the way to go.

You can read about .204 vmax splashing on entry. i.e. hit bone on entry, bullet breaks apart, no penetration kinda stuff.

I went with the bergers after reading all of that.

I do think I remember that , ole Boone knows what he's talking about when it comes to coyotes killing . Real professional learned a lot just following him on FB. Was looking at those Bergers though.

Nosler doest make .17 cal bullets far as I know?

As for you Wolfie, you seem to be having fun just playing/ shooting. Stick with the heavier vmax and bang away.

O I'm having fun shooting but I've been hunting with it too. Just not much luck. Gonna go out again in a few minutes actually


As far as nosler

I apologize if annealing collapsed your brass. I have only tried it taking 06 to 270 and 308 to 243. Worked fine on those two.

So decided to give annealing a try
Now just to be clear why I don't to begin with. KAK has stated that they made this up to be a simple deal for gus wanting to get into a .17cal centerfire. In their videos they started all you need to do to convert bras is a single run into the resizing die. I wanted to test those claims. I I just went and ran buckwild on some more advanced stuff then what would just kinda nullify that . It's like if I company said their after market engine will fit perfectly in a car but before you even tired to test fit you start cutting out the engine bay to make room or something. If that makes sense . Now according to them you want once fired brass because it's work hardened for initial forming. They said they initially tried annealing their brass but it resulted in too many crushed necks due to the soft annealed brass collapsing. And I can post a link to the video where they explain this if anyone wants.

Ok anyhow the test. Not the most scientific, took 20rd of brass from the same bag I've been working with. It's all been de capped cleaned ect . All same head stamp 23 Lake city 5.56. Made sure to chey they all had good looking case mouth and the like.
As far as the annealing just some Podunk flame change annealing with a 3/8's deep socket on a drill and a propane and torch. Angle isn't the best but trying to hit just that neck shoulder junction like your supposed to. Would have used my 750 tempilaq but I couldn't open the jar at all, and flame change always seems to work decent.

So our if the 20 , ten where annealed ten where not .


Interesting enough all the annealed ones seemed to have this same mark/pattern on them


So the it's the same as it's always been since I stared this . No de capping die, shoulder getting bumped back to 1.450". Hand lubing each one individually with imperial sizing wax

So our if the ten in annealed ones I got one crush


And the annealed ..... Well




All ten annealed ones where crushed , not one properly converted case....so yeahhhh, look like KAK was right with this one lol. Will be ordering a .20 cal due soon though as a step die.just gotta see what will work best , looking at possibly a .204 Ruger die or a .20 practical. Well see

Wolfie. I neck down .204 brass to .17 cal. I anneal the brass and neck it down in 2 steps.
Never crushed a case that I can remember.

Less brass moment less stress in the case is what I figure

So got called and told my boat is still in the ship yard and I don't have to leave out for a bit longer so since most every thing else is done figured I'd play with some loads again would go out an try and make a stand but I'm at like 15-0 so egh.
Anyhow after reading alot about 17-.223 most people got that data from .17 rem data. Wanted to try and use some kinda stick powder to hopefully get some better S-D's I don't like big velocity differences. So was trying to avoid .17 rem data since the cases are a bit different. Was able to find some 17-223 data on hodgdons webs site. They have a online reloading data base deal . They had some for 4895 which I just so happen to have picked up a can a few months back.


I went ahead and went a bit hight then starting just because those loads always run slower in a gas gun and these 17's don't seem to like goin slow.

Trying the 25's again because I now have 3 100rd boxes of them now that all my orders arrived. These are a it longs so figured I'd try doing some seating with them. Found the same point and backed off 0.004" they go in easy and no movement from being mag loaded.

I do need to get some new low capacity mags , these two 20rd I have are mostly plastic and are wearing out . Don't wanna hold the bold open on the last round out. My metal 30rd will but I hate walking around with those things in the gun .






Same set up as the last few days same brass ejection.
And the targets , bit better then the last bunch of 25gr loads. That 4895 going some good velocities but silk the group are a bit meh.






Think I. Going to try and get these up to 3900fps or till I see pressure signs. If I can keep the velocities the way these are I'll just work With seating depth.speakig of , no damaged brass, everything looks pretty decent.



So yeah, gonna go ahead and put her up for a rest be a while till I get to mess with it again

Gonna burn that barrel out son.
Better have a 1 piece Tipton rod to keep it clean!

Yeah thats one thing I always forget to buy , nice one piece cleaning rod... Need some more jags and brush's too.... But me and the gf decided where gonna try not to spend anything we don't need for the next two months, see how much we can save up. So no books, Starbucks,random what nots for her....and no new guns ,extra powder ,primers ,scopes ect for me. Think I can get a cleaning rod or two though

So the actual company who came up with this and made the barrel saw my videos and was kind enough to get some insight

So after a lot of peoples suggestions,tried another annealing test. Got a new nozzle for my torce sonits a much more precise flame. Making sure to just hit the necks and not over annel them with the help of some 750° tempaiq instead of flame change.
Now I put mine on the outside of the case because.....well I can actually see it, Neve really understood the whole deal with putting it on the inside of the caes because it's really hard to see . Anyhow 10 cass same bunch of brass. Took about 6sec in the drill



Due is still set the same as the last batches same lubing process just annealed the necks aannnnnd...



Got one successful case form ...so safe to say the KAK .17-5.56 works a bit different then traditional deals. And for something that's supposed to use 1x fired 5.56 brass .... I Mean the whole 39 pieces I've messed dup out of the 200 ood successful ones I've made up, I think that perfectly acceptable. I Mena the amount of brass I'd need to save to justify a busing die set up and what not....egh just not worth it imo. Now if I was trying to do this with brand new super fancy Lapua cases or something then yeah I reckon but again its ment for you to be able to go just pick up free 5.56 rang brass or buy dirt cheap once fired and run with it. But anyway I got plenty of brass from up for a while a box of rounds loaded up , time annoy the dog mess out my buddy and go to some spot we've scouted. He's supposed to be the big time predator hunter but according to him I'm bad juju so mabye well see a possum or something

Wolfie. Pure n simple, you are doing this necking down in to big of a jump at one time.

I neck down standard .204 cases to .17 in 2 steps using " button's " in my die. And I always anneal.
I can't even imagine going from .22 down to .17 in one step.

So made another 110 off piece's of brass should bring me up to 200 something now. Went and adjusted the die to only bump the shoulders back .003" between the new conversation and all the fired formed stuff I got I should be good for a good while.


Went back to messing with the 25gr Vmaxs since I have three boxes worth used .17 rem data and loaded them right at mag length


Took ridge runners advice and kept pushing them to try to get around 3900 and here you can see the progression


24.0 GR was giving me the best initial group ( 24.5 what staring to flatten the primers and showing ejector marks more ) so loaded more up just to verify and strange enough I shot better auto loaded them from the mag vs single loading

H4895 is showing to be a nice little powder.

And just about everything went well and fire formed beautifully... except for this deal , rim ripped off so it don't extract so the other one rammed it's self in. Easy fix few taps with the cleaning round and it came out




Also decided to see how dirty it was so sent a wet patch down and well.. egh


Bore isn't bad at all the star chamber is where all the gunk is but it's a quick clean. And ummm yeah gonna load a box and see what happens in the next few days.

Also if anyone was looking for low cap mags got reccomended these 5red roller mags and there pretty nice.

O boy o boy sooo I've been doing some more videos on testing various deals when it comes stop forming brass for this aaannnnnnd found a method that doesn't require anything fancy or expensive and so far has given me 100% conversion with 0 crushes ! One of the guys on accurate mentioned it when I was asking about bushing dies saying how it would probably work and be a lot more cost effective. What is it you ask ?...... running them through a gutted .22/5.56 resizing die first the though the kak in this case ive used a lee that scuba sent me a while back. Set it to where it bumps the shoulders back to where the .17 die only need to move them another .002" to set it where we want and I have had a crush yet ! Got a few videos I need to edit up but I've tried it with the regular brass , annealed, really really annealed.. everything except new brass and a neck/ shoulder joint anneal. Last batch from today 90% are just once fired non annealed, no problems easy peasy


Also gave it it's first kinda deep clean in a out 180rd the other day annnnnd not seeing the massive powder fouling issues it was supposed to have like other .17's. now all I did was give it a scrub with a nylon bore brush and some JB Bore paste . Not super aggressive or anything just doing what the bench rest guys advised short strokes all the way out to the muzzle . Then patches that out . Took about ten dray patches on a jag. Then used there wet pats with synthetic Hoppes let it sit for a bit then patches it out . Could have gotten it cleaner but this looks pretty good for me.

All patches sare in order from left to right up down




Finished with a few alcohol patches then dry patches to neutralize the Hoppes

Any further updates on the KAK .17-5.56 ??
How's the accuracy after breaking in the barrel and load development??
thanks!