I was after a .17 Remington Fireball as in the UK this one of a few calibres you can use on vermin (Rabbit) and Fox but after looking on the Remington site out of 9 rifles with the, 17 calibre as an option 7 had the .17 has been discontinued even the new 700 VTR is the .17 Remington fireball being killed off?

I am not familiar with the legalities of reloading in the U.K. but once you are outfitted it should be easy to sustain. I would imagine a kilo of powder would last quite awhile with that low volume of fire. I don't pay much attention to the popular girls, just the fun ones. And that sounds like a fun one!

Clembob are all 17 calibers allowed-like the 17 remington(which is a 222 rem case necked down I believe)?.17 rem fireball is a 221 rem fireball necked down if memory serves me.A slightly less powerful cartridge!

IMO I think the .17 FB will be around for a long time to come but will not achieve a level that merits it being chambered in vast numbers.
I wouldn't be surprised if Remington dropped it for a few years and brought it back out again. The demand for this style/type of cartridge usually goes up and down.

I agree with the others Clembob. If you reload, then the calibre will only go out of favour when you decide to get rid of it for whatever reason.

Both the .221 Fireball and .222 Remington have been around for many years, and cases are always available, as are bullets for the .17 calibre. This may mean that you will have to do a little case and fire forming, but that is part of the joys of reloading. A "stiff" load of 19gn in the 17 Fireball will give you 810 loads out of a kilogram of powder, and for the 17 Rem, 24.5gr will give you 628 loads from a kg...pretty cheap in my books mate.

Cheers, Vince

clembob, why going to a smaller caliber? In my opinion you are still allowed to use a silencer on your rifles. Using a silencer asks for a lower velocity when you expect it to work as requested. Low velocity asks for a heavier bullet when you want some energy...
so why a .17?
I even would recommend a .22 in a PCP!

Aloysius wrote:

I even would recommend a .22 in a PCP!

Sounds like federal trafficking charges...

I went for a .17 Fireball as this I already use a .17hmr for rabbits which is great but I'm not allowed under the conditions of my certificate to shot a fox with a .17hmr but I could if I had my .243 but then only the fox .
Yep that means carrying two rifles around with me.
If you look at the rules.tif you can see the calibres you are allowed to shot vermin and fox with that why I went for the .17 rem fireball
Thanks for the comments

And all this time I believed that the UK only allowed shotties!
Where are the 204 rugers?

We are allowed .204 but only for fox did try for both vermin and fox but not allowed .

I see that your rules are even more stupid than ours.
We only have a maximum for shot dimension (max. 4 mm).
For bullets we only have minima, so we are allowed to shoot a fox, a rabbit or a dove with a .50 BMG
But we are not allowed to use something in .17(7), our minimum is 5.6 mm for fox, rabbit and dove, 5.6 mm and minimum 820 J at 100 m for roedeer and minimum 6.5 mm and 2300 J at 100 m for the bigger ones (deer, fallow deer, wild boar...)

But when I see your list, I'm almost sure I would take the .22 Hornet, or if you want to upset your controling guys: the 5.6x35 R Vierling

You might be interested in the .17 Hornet then. Savage makes a rifle for it.

www.hornady.com/store/...t-NewAmmo/

www.rifleshootermag.co...17-hornet/

clembob, Not sure if you understand or not but a .17 Remington and a .17 Remington Fireball are two different cartridges !!!

The .17 Remington is a .223 necked down to 17 cal. (20gr. bullet approx 4250fps)
The .17 Remington Fireball is a 221 Remington Fireball necked down to .17 cal. (20gr. bullet approx 4000fps)

the hornet has been around for a long time and will be for a long time to come. between the two it would be my choice. very very cheap to reload and not hard on barrel wear but very good on animals .alot of big red deer were even shot with the humble hornet back in the skin hunting days over here. there are some great projectiles around for that cartridge too.

A guy I sometimes go hunting with has been using a Hornet to hunt fallow deer for years and swears by the calibre.

Personally, I am of the belief that it is not big enough for a humane kill on deer. Neck it down and put a 20gn boolit in it and it will be devastating on anything up to, and including, a fox...in fact I couldn't think of a better calibre for feral cats, regardless of what the powers that be say (they are probably all closet greenies anyway).

Cheers, Vince