It was some of the original Hornady stuff that I bought when the round first came out. The bullet was discovered stuck about 1/2" in the chamber AFTER my wife fired the NEXT round, which blew out the rim of that round with the bullet still seated in the case mouth.
Anyone ever have a similar experience?
Yes, with a VQ 17hm2, but we checked the barrel when the shot sounded off and smoked some. The bullet was lodged pretty good, and took some doing to dislodge. Also first run Hornady.
Glad you posted this. Last Range trip, Buddy with a 15 year old 452 American .17 HMR with less than 500 rounds thru it. Shooting some "vintage" Hornady 17 gr ammo and one round did this same thing. Bullet stuck just far enough in that he couldn't chamber the next round. That's the only thing that saved him from a disaster. A little work with a cleaning rod did the job and we continued shooting without incident. I will pass this on to him.
Edit:
My buddy just called with an update. I'd sent him a link for this thread and it got his attention. Checking his stock, he's still got 21 boxes of that ammo. Made a call to Hornady this morning and they're going to replace all 21 boxes and told him not to shoot any more of it. That's pretty good Customer Service for this late into the game.
I guess I will have to check tomorrow and see how much of that early ammo I have and give Hornady a call with the lot numbers as well. I am glad I checked back on this post; there were no replies for quite a while.
I called Hornady this morning and explained my experience with a squib round. I gave the gentleman the lot number on the bottom of the boxes and he said they were in fact the first round of production. He said they are aware of this and it is a problem only with rimfire NECKED DOWN case ammo. He said that it is their policy to only replace ammo that was 10 years or less old. And since I lived in Calif. the cost for me to ship them back plus for them to ship to a ffl/ammo dealer the cost would outweigh the replacement purchase. I had 12 boxes of fifty left. Bummer!
I have some of the first year production ammo. I bought a bunch and have tried to save it for the egg shoot matches. My belief was that the first year would have new machines making it with a bit extra quality control. It has been pretty accurate. Hornady offered a jack knife with a .17 HMR cartridge on it. Of course, I had to get that too. My rifle is a Ruger 77/17 and it was sent to Randy at Connecticut Precision for his TLC to make it more accurate. This rifle and ammo are at my place on Cape Cod. I won't be back there until the spring. I have not decided what I will do with the ammo.
If the bullet gets pushed into the case while being fed into the chamber it will sound like a squib and lodge the bullet a short distance into the barrel.
Have had this happen several times.
Anyone have any lot #s? I bought my Rem 597-17HMR in 07 or 08 and lots of 17HMR ammo then as it was the only rf stuff available locally back in the Great Ammo Shortage of 08.
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