Originally Posted By: KamronGI am in the game to buy a 17 Bmag. I have read a lot of mixed reviews on them and understand that people have had some accuracy problems with them. But my question is, will I be better off buying the one with the stainless steel heavy barrel or just the regular lightweight barrel? Is the heavy barrel going to make this round more accurate?
Thanks
The 17WSM cartridge is an awesome round, the rifles are a little less then desirable. I have both model B-mags and the SS/HB rifle is by far more accurate then the sporter barreled gun. I bought the sporter model back in October and sent in back to savage for accuracy and extraction issues. A new gun was sent to me that functioned correctly but still did not shoot well at all. With a lot of tweeking it now shoots fair. The SS/HB was a shooter right out of the box, quarter size groups at 100yds. Now the stock is a POS but that is remedied with a boyds laminate stock. If you need a 17 WSM now get the HB/SS no question. If you can wait for an unknown amount of time for a better gun then wait. One suggestion with either option start buying ammo now, it is not so easy to find at least not in the south.
One more note, the SS/HB shoots the 20 or 25 grain ammo well, the sporter model prefers the 25gr stuff.