.17 Hmr winchester misfires

Thomas Hart

New member
I'm beyond frustrated. A friend of mine and I both bought savage 93's in .17hmr. When I bought mine I picked up two boxes of the 17 grain winchester supreme vmax bullets. When Gary bought his, he got 2 boxes of the 17 grain hornady vmax bullets. His shoots MUCH tighter groups than mine and to top it all off, out of 80 shots, I've had 9 misfires. thats ridiculous. Gary has had one misfire with his hornadys. I'm just so frustrated about how many misfires and the lack of accuracy in these bullets. Anyone else have a similar experience?
 
Clean the [beeep] out of the bolt. Both my friends who bought the savage experienced the misfires and lots of cleaning later they improved.
 
Thats odd. I have a Marlin 917v and shoot the Winchester's more than I do anything and I have never experienced a misfire with them or any other .17hmr shell for that matter. They shoot extremley well out of my .17 as well. Many a squirrel have fell victom to them. Hope you can get it figured out.
 
I had 6 or 7 misfires from a box of Federal ammo in my Savage 93R17. However, I had no issues when firing Hornady or Winchester. As mentioned, probably a bad lot...
 
had same issues with my marlin model 17 its an early one that predates the 917 designation. never had an issue with hornady v-max or cci tnt's but ran out just before a shoot and all the store had was winchester's. out of two 50 count boxs I had 20 missfires! I'd say you just got a bad lot when it comes to the missfires but id put the accuracy on the gun dont like them id try some of your buddy's hornadys
 
Yeah I read somewhere else online where a guy did a test between the hornadys, the winchesters and some cci tnt's and he said his groups were .68 with the hornadys and 1.26 with the winchesters. He also had 9 misfires with the winchesters out of 100 rounds. I'm going to get some hornady's tomorrow and try them out.

On a good note, when that little round connects with a squirrel, man it does a job! We were throughly impressed with the squirrel hunting these things do. Might be my new favorite gun for hunting!
 
I have had about 15-20 misfires from a box of Winchester supreme 17 hmr ammo,the casing splits down the side. I'm calling Winchester tomorrow. I've got about 75 rounds left but I don't want to put any more of them through the rifle. It's a new gun and I had to pry one out of the barrel. Ugh.
 
I HAVE A MARLIN 17VS AND HAVE NEVER HAD A MISS FIRE WITH ANY BRAND OF SHELLS-----I'VE SHOT 1000'S OF ROUNDS THROUGH IT AND ITS STILL ACCURATE----I'VE UP GRADED TO WINCHESTER 17 WSM IN MY T/C CONTENDER AND HAVE HAD 8 OR 10 MISS FIRES FROM 200 ROUNDS--ITS A FINE ROUND BUT I DON'T LIKE THE MISS FIRES EITHER----COULD BE THE GUN---HERE IN MICHIGAN TO HUNT AT NIGHT WE CAN'T USE CENTERFIRES SO I PERFURE THE 17'S OVER 22'S--THIS 17 WSM HITS HARD AND SHOOT'S STRIGHT-------SVB
 
Between the wife and I we have shot close to 5000 rds or more of 17HMR and have shot all brands.

If you shoot enough 17HMR and get different lots of same brand of ammo sooner or later you will see you can get multiple misfires in one lot and nary a one in another lot of the same brand.

Winchester supremes 17 GR. shoot the smallest groups in my rifles.

As far as cleaning a Savage, I have not personally had any problems with my Savages even after shooting 600 or 700 rounds with out cleaning bolt face ETC.

Accuracy can be maintained by a quick cleaning about every 300 rounds.Give or take.

DAB
 
I put a few thousand hornady down the savage when I had it, 3-4 misfires in that number. Each one went with a 2nd tap. I'm not sure if its still the case but HMR used to be the same ammo, just different colored tip. CCI made it all.
 
Im having same issue with winchester ammo....cci/ federal 0 misfires....mine doesnt like any sort of vmax...just hollow points. So thats what i stick with...shoots .5 MOA @ 100 with them in 17g....vmaxs r everywhere.
 
Originally Posted By: SVBI HAVE A MARLIN 17VS AND HAVE NEVER HAD A MISS FIRE WITH ANY BRAND OF SHELLS-----I'VE SHOT 1000'S OF ROUNDS THROUGH IT AND ITS STILL ACCURATE----I'VE UP GRADED TO WINCHESTER 17 WSM IN MY T/C CONTENDER AND HAVE HAD 8 OR 10 MISS FIRES FROM 200 ROUNDS--ITS A FINE ROUND BUT I DON'T LIKE THE MISS FIRES EITHER----COULD BE THE GUN---HERE IN MICHIGAN TO HUNT AT NIGHT WE CAN'T USE CENTERFIRES SO I PERFURE THE 17'S OVER 22'S--THIS 17 WSM HITS HARD AND SHOOT'S STRIGHT-------SVB
Bad form to post in all caps.

Curious about your Contender in 17 WSM. Since the fire pins are fixed in the breechface and the bore center line is the center of the barrel....where does the firing pin strike ? I have considered buying a barrel or re-chambering my HMR. Sorry for the hijack...................
 
Has your buddy tried shooting the Winchesters in his rifle? Have you tried shooting the Hornady? It might be something with the rifle and not the ammo at all.

I also have a Savage 93 in 17HMR and it shoots the Winchester stuff the best out of anything I've tried, I can't recall even one misfire and probably only a handful in the 5 years I've had this thing. yes, it could be the ammo but my vote goes to an issue with the rifle. I've heard the same story's about Hornday ammo too. Just make sure you have fully tested everything before accusing Winchester of a bad lot of ammo.
 
Originally Posted By: BWBHas your buddy tried shooting the Winchesters in his rifle? Have you tried shooting the Hornady? It might be something with the rifle and not the ammo at all.

I also have a Savage 93 in 17HMR and it shoots the Winchester stuff the best out of anything I've tried, I can't recall even one misfire and probably only a handful in the 5 years I've had this thing. yes, it could be the ammo but my vote goes to an issue with the rifle. I've heard the same story's about Hornday ammo too. Just make sure you have fully tested everything before accusing Winchester of a bad lot of ammo.

Yes you can get a bad "lot" / BATCH in Winchester ammo. I bought two cases of Winchester Supreme 17 Grain ammo. As far as firing and accuracy went it all went bang and hit where it was pointed. BUTwhat I was having trouble with is chambering some of the rounds. For some reason many many rounds seemed that they were not sized properly or what ever it was but it was hard to chamber the rounds EVEN IN A CLEAN CHAMBER as my first thought was I had a dirty chamber, did the same in all three of my 17 HMR's. Once fired no trouble with extraction of the empty.
 
Read some online reviews at Cabelas, Midwayusa, & other places. Any gun can have issues, but some types of HMR ammo have more misfires than others. There was one that stood out with more problems on average, it very well may of been Winchester. You have to also filter out individual gun problems, some just don't do as well.
 
I've got 1000 +/- rounds down my savage, all CCI, with zero issues. Last week I bought a box of winchesters and had five out of fifty misfires
 
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