.17 Bumble Bee

[Tommie D]

Anyone been playing around/loading the .17 Bumble Bee lately?

[Catfish]

I`ve never palyed with that one, But have palyed with the 17 AH, the 17-223 and the 17 Rem. It should be a real good groundhog round.

[Tommie D]

Seems like a fun low velocity round, and that's what I'm looking for.
I just got a old Lyman .17 Bumblebee case forming die for $13.00 off of Ebay. So as soon as it's get's here I can play around forming some cases.

[Catfish]

I would not call it a low velocity round. I get 3,500 fps. for my 17 AH with the 19 gr. Calhoon bullets an the Bee case has quite a bit more volume. For PD`s and groundhogs it should shoot point blank past 300 yrds.

[Tommie D]

Starting loads for the .17 Bumblebee, to me anyway are low velocity. 2033 & 2241 with H4227 and H110 but that's what i'm looking for. Here is a drawing for the .17 Bumblebee case.

[Tommie D]

Picked up a NOS box of Winchester unprimed brass for $15 and I have some old brass coming so i'll be able to experiment here pretty soon.

[dant]

Tommie D,

do you already have a 17 BB barrel ? If not, there's a 10" octagon factory barrel on GB right now ( NOT MINE, DON'T KNOW THE SELLER ). Starting bid is $400.00 but it's in pretty rough condition, very rare barrel. I have a book at home with a good article on forming and reloading the round. When I get a chance I'll look it up and let you know what book it is. I do know it said it was a p.i.t.a. though to form correctly. IIRC he wasn't getting much better velocity that the 17 HMR.

[dant]

The book is called oddly enough, "Wildcat Cartridges" by Wolfe publishing it's  a combo edition, over 1,000 pages, I think it cost around 40 bucks. It ( 17 B ) required two form dies and the reloading die set. First die set the shoulder back and the next took it down to 17 cal, but it also required neck reaming after setting the shoulder back so the neck wouldn't become too thick when necked down to 17 cal. He got 2445 FPS out of a 10" barrel.

[briannmilewis]

I would not call it a low velocity round. I get 3,500 fps. for my 17 AH with the 19 gr. Calhoon bullets an the Bee case has quite a bit more volume. For PD`s and groundhogs it should shoot point blank past 300 yrds.

The Bumblebee case is cut down from 1.345" to 0.920", so capacity is seriously less than the standard Bee.

[Tommie D]

Well that old saying "too good to be true" hit again with the form die I got, it turned out to be a .256 Winchester mag die. So checking around I found some heat treated 4340 in my stock pile that I will use to make a set of form dies on my 9" Southbend lathe. When I get my barrel chambered, I will also make a set of loading dies for it.

Tommie D,
do you already have a 17 BB barrel ? If not, there's a 10" octagon factory barrel on GB right now ( NOT MINE, DON'T KNOW THE SELLER ). Starting bid is $400.00 but it's in pretty rough condition, very rare barrel. I have a book at home with a good article on forming and reloading the round. When I get a chance I'll look it up and let you know what book it is. I do know it said it was a p.i.t.a. though to form correctly. IIRC he wasn't getting much better velocity that the 17 HMR.

I'm having a custom barrel made for my Contender for a lot less than $400. That barrel will never sell at that price in that condition. Their was another used one in excellent condition for $595, way too much for me. I would like to have an original T/C barrel but i'm not going to pay big $$ for one when I can have one made for under $300.
I also have a copy of Wildcat Cartridges, and some other good info on the Bumblebee I got years back when I was a member of the T/C Association.