17 Ackley Hornet

[twhrider2]

Hello Everyone, just finished fittinng a 17hmr barrel I had for a couple of years to a BC frame and stock set purchased from a member here, and also doing the trigger. Hope to get the barrel to the gunsmith this week for rechamber to .17 Ackley Hornet. I know several here have done .17 cal. rechambers and was wondering if there is any prefered reamers to use and also opinions on tight necks vs standard. This will be my first rechamber project and wildcat cal. as well, so kind of new territory for me. Any thoughts, opinions or suggestions on getting the most out of this project would be appreciated.
                                                                                                                        Thanks, Ken

[reclusej]

I'm not familar with the .17 Ackley but I think it is a centerfire
and a  .17 HMR is rim fire so the firing pins won't line up.
                                reclusej

[quickdtoo]

I'm not familar with the .17 Ackley but I think it is a centerfire
and a  .17 HMR is rim fire so the firing pins won't line up.
                                reclusej

That's why he put it on a BC frame, BC = Buffalo Classic = SB2.  

Tim

Hello Everyone, just finished fittinng a 17hmr barrel I had for a couple of years to a BC frame ....

[alan in ga]

GREAT! I had a new in the box 17HMR Barrel but it did not shoot well [3/4" at 50 yards] so I did not go thru with rechambering it to 17 AckleyHornet which IS my favorite rifle of all the ones I've owned or shot.....and that is a LOT of rifles!
A 17AH in the Handi Rifle will be neat! I had the center fire frame and got a good lockup the the 17HMR barrel. All that was needed was to accuracy test the 17HMR barrel while still in the origional chambering. Didn't do well, project ended.
Looking forward to seeing how yours turns out!

[twhrider2]

Update on the .17 ackley hornet project. Picked it up from gunsmith last night and this evening was doing some checking for curiosity and found that the case rim is .018-.020 below breech face. When I fit barrel to frame I strived for as the closest tolerance as possible at barrel/breech fit(.0015 feeler will not pull out). Looking for opinions from the more experienced here, as this seems excessive to me.

[alan in ga]

With what you have said, it would seem he cut the rim recess [headspace] TOO DEEP.
0.018"-0.020" is about 0.014" too much cut, and excessive headspace.
HOWEVER, you can and should die form your cases to give a 'crush' [slight] fit in the new chamber and therefore create your own 'zero headspace' and be fine.
Just wonder why he cut it too deep?
 IF you were to rely on the rim recess as your only headspace control, you'd be out of luck.
This is only my opinion but it would have upset me as the rim recess cut CAN be CAREFULLY made to give correct headspace, so why not?

[trotterlg]

He definately screwed up for sure.  This is a problem with doing these barrels, cut the chamber too deep and you are SOL.  If you can get the fireforming rounds to fire you can then headspace them on the sholder, but it isn't really proper, and it is not good for accuracy in a break action rifle to have a sized round that requires a crush fit in the chamber.  Larry

[quickdtoo]

All is not lost if entire chamber is cut too deep, if you're willing to fit the barrel to another frame, or shim it, reface the barrel to eliminate the excess headspace, then fit it to a frame, have done exactly that with a 270Win, only in this case the chamber was too shallow after refacing the barrel due to a poor factory finish, I had to rechamber it to make it work again.

Tim

[twhrider2]

Thanks for the replies from all of you guys in the "know". Took gun back to smith yesterday afternoon and we tried to figure out what happened as he had carefully kept check with the 'gauges' during reaming. He offered to replace the barrel and start over, but I suggested that before we go to that extreme we should try as Tim said and set the barrel back and refit. So He chucked it up in the lathe and turned the breech to .0015 head space and I will try to refit this weekend. This way neither of us are out any money and and only a little labor each to fix the booboo. Now I'm hoping the rest of the chamber is better than the headspace was (sloppy).
                                                                                                                                                   Ken

[cwlongshot]

All is not lost if entire chamber is cut too deep, if you're willing to fit the barrel to another frame, or shim it, reface the barrel to eliminate the excess head space, then fit it to a frame, have done exactly that with a 270Win, only in this case the chamber was too shallow after refacing the barrel due to a poor factory finish, I had to re chamber it to make it work again.

Tim

 I have also done this to one barrel. It shoots well enough, but does require a bit of hand work and trial and error.

Effectively what you are doing is removing material from the breech, bringing head space back to near zero. Then shimming the hinge for tight lock up. Then re cutting the shelf for proper latch engagement.

Personally, I would be heading back to the GC. If he is honest he will acknowledges his mistake and make good somehow. I would be hesitant to allow him to fix this as we have suggested, unless you consider it a loss and he doesn't charge you anything. If he fails again, you would still be out a barrel... I would use my "gut" based on his response to showing him the problem he caused.

CW

[gendoc]

how hot are you planning on going with handloads?
our documents show 44k psi chamber pressure for the 17AH. you could try it on a sb1 receiver
if you load below max and the firing pin is small,  some are/ some are not.
 or any other sb2, if you have a spare.  who knows, you might get lucky and it fits
good luck
j3

[gcrank1]

What shame (and mess up)........
Hope you can salvage the project.
You will have some forestock fitting issues with the set back too, but dont do it until you know the barrel is going to work because after fitting to this one it wont fit anything else (the mount stud moves back toward the frame).
At least he did the right thing by offering a new barrel.

[twhrider2]

Crank you are exactly right about the forearm, I had to rasp out the hole a little for a non- binding fit after shimming for barrel refit. I have this barrel on a BC frame and stock set (long forearm) so guess it's dedicated now. Polished the barrel before rechamber so now that every seems good to go again I need a couple of good days for rust bluing. Got a scope yesterday also 6-18 VX2 w/ the fine crosshairs- should be good for minute of crow lol. Next for a set of Redding Dies(ouch!). Thanks for the info guys.
                                                                                                                                                               Ken 

[quickdtoo]

Glad ya got a handle on it, I prefer not to mess with the forend mounting hole on wood stocks, it's real easy to flat sand the spacer to fit a forend(FAQs), and it can be shimmed just as easy to go the other way. And the spacer can always be replaced for less than $5.  One of the problems with enlarging the mounting hole is it makes it easy for the screw head to pull thru the forend, that's been a common complaint over the years on unmodified forends, elongating the hole only makes it more likely.

Tim