Cleaning the 17 HMR - The Easy Way!

All of my center-fire rifles copper the bore to some extent.  If I go too long without cleaning they buildup significant amounts of copper that can be a real chore to remove.  Since the 17 HMR uses a jacketed bullet at 2550 fps, I figured it would be just like my center fires.  I use a 17 cal cleaning rod for my 204 Ruger so I was set in that department.  The first few times I cleaned the 17 HMR barrel I was looking for the green-blue color on the patch that tells me copper is being removed.  You know what I found?  Nothing.  Nadda.  Zilch!  There was no sign of dissolved copper whatsoever.   I shined a light at the end of the barrel and even took it outside in the sun looking for copper and never found any.  I'm not saying it doesn't copper foul at all, but if it does it is minimal.  Ramming my cleaning rod through a barrel with lands only a few thousands of an inch tall just to get powder fouling out makes me a bit nervous, so I looked into a bore snake.  Dragging a dirty rope down the barrel didn't sound like the best idea either so I kept looking.

Somewhere in my internet searches a forum member mentioned a patch worm.  What the heck is a patch worm I thought to myself.  I tracked it down to this Patch Worm.  It is essentially a length of weed wacker string with one end sharpened to pierce a patch and with the other end having a small fitting slightly larger than the string.  For different calibers a different size button is slid down the string to the large end.  That button is a little smaller than the bore.  Then you use the sharp end of the string to pierce a patch and slide it down the string to the top of the button.  Soak the patch with some solvent, push the sharp end of string through barrel out muzzle, and just pull the patch through.  Bloody genius!

Me being fiscally challenged I skipped on the nice commercial version at a whopping $6.50 and headed out to the garage.  I cut about five feet of weed wacker string and headed back to the basement workbench.  With the gentle use of a lighter, I heated the end of the string and pushed the end into some sheet metal I had laying around.   Then I sharpened the other end of the string with a Dremel tool with a sanding drum.  I used the same Dremel setup to carefully round the previously heated fat end of the string so it fit the bore with a patch over it.  A little trial and error and had a good fit between my flannel patches and the bore. 

Time to test this thing out.  The little Savage was dirty having close to a hundred rounds through it without cleaning.  Heavy carbon fouling was easily seen the entire length of the barrel.  I whipped out my general purpose gun cleaner that consists of a 50/50 mix of automatic transmission fluid and acetone in an old saline solution bottle, (remember that fiscally challenged thing I mentioned earlier?) and wetted down the patch.  With the excitement only a do-it-your-selfer would display, I pulled the patch through the barrel and held the gun up to the light looking through the barrel.  Son of a gun!  That looks pretty clean!  I'm sure it's not as clean as I'd get it with a rod, but this is so much quicker and doesn't risk damaging the rifling.  I ran another wet patch followed by two dry patches and called it done.  I intend to use this cleaning method on the 17 HMR from now on.  I'll probably still pull out the rod and jag on occasion, but not after every session.

I posted a picture of my home made patch worm below.  Another nice thing is it stores easily in a ziplock sandwich bag which fits inside my gun case a lot easier than a cleaning rod.  Let me know if you have any questions or comments.

Savage 93R17 Range Report

Today was my birthday and besides turning 46 I treated myself to a day of leisure.  That included a nice trip to the range to do some testing.  When I left the house the wind was minimal, maybe a couple miles per hour.  By the time I got to the range and set up winds were gusting from mostly calm to 10mph or so.  Normally I wouldn't even comment on this wind but you'll realize why later.

My previous experience shooting the 93R17 revealed an accu-trigger that was a bit of a disappointment.  I had read how great it was a few too many times I guess and my expectations were too high.  Reality was I had the trigger adjusted all the way down and it was still rather heavy, had creep and over-travel.  Even after doing some light modifications to get the pull weight down it still was nowhere near the quality of my CZ527 trigger.  The pull weight was now much more in line with the guns purpose though and didn't feel too bad.  The lighter trigger felt much better than the previous trip, but groups only narrowed marginally.

The rifle seemed to like the Hornady 17g V-maxes the best.  A normal group would run about an inch and a half with a couple groups over two inches and a couple as small as 3/4".  I know what you're thinking.  Those 46 years are starting to take their toll!  I may be aging a bit but I can still hold a lot smaller than 2 inches!  The problem was mostly lateral stringing.  A quick check of a ballistics calculator showed the .125 coefficient bullet moving over 3" at 100 yards in a 10 mph wind!  I guess I'll have to wait for some better weather to see the real potential of my new rifle.  I show a couple targets below.  The one on the left is one of the better groups, the one at right more typical.  For reference the square is just under one inch.

A couple things were of note.  First there was a big improvement in the trigger.  I no longer felt I'd pass out before the trigger let go.  A small amount of creep was noticeable, but not on every shot.  I may go back in and smooth the trigger a tad more, but it's pretty good now.  I think the additional weight I added to the stock also made it easier to hold steady on target.

The last interesting thing was a couple groups with vertical stringing.  I use one of those bunny bags at the rear and I usually have it sitting on a 2x6 chunk of wood to get it to a comfortable height.  Today I forgot the wood and had the rear bag sitting on a sand bag instead.  Every time I'd fire the sand bag would settle just a little.  The result was me constantly playing around with the rear bag to get the correct elevation.  The next time out I won't be forgetting the wood block.  Heck, I might even show up with a real front rest instead of a pile of sandbags!  Until the next time, keep your stick on the ice.

Savage 93R17 FV W/Accu-Trigger

I talked to a couple of guys at the shooting range some time ago that laid praise on the 17 HMR cartridge.  A couple stories they told sounded good and the groups were very nice.  I've been wanting something accurate that I don't have to reload just to be able to afford shooting it.  The 22 LR is as cheap as it gets, but it doesn't perform well when you get much past 50 yards.  I suppose it can perform with match ammo and a thousand dollar rifle, but that's too much money.  This 17 HMR was looking like just what I wanted so the cartridge was chosen.  Now I just needed an affordable rifle to shoot it in.  The 17 HMR is chambered by all the big makers so it was just a matter of finding something I liked in my limited budget.  Marlin, Mossberg, and Savage all make affordably priced 17's.  I have a Mossberg shotgun that has served me reliably for thirty years.  My 444 Marlin I've never had a lick of trouble with and shoots surprisingly well.  What I didn't have was a Savage and I've read a lot about the Accu-Trigger being a nice piece.  My CZ 527 has the best factory trigger I've ever felt and I thought it would be interesting to see how the Accu-Trigger stood up with all the hoopla.

I perused the Savage website and found a 93R17 FV with Accu-Trigger, cheap synthetic stock and heavy barrel for a list price of $295.  After looking at online prices I found I could order one for $220 plus the $25 transfer fee from my FFL.  I was ready to order online when I decided to stop by my local gun store.  I kind of know the guys in there and figured I owed giving them a chance, but honestly didn't think they could compete price wise.  Well, I was happily surprised.  Three days later they sold me the same rifle for $249 plus tax.  It cost a little more than online, but I prefer to keep my business local.

It's a plain blued steel action and heavy barrel on a black tupperware stock.  No sights are installed but it came with Weaver style ring bases installed from the factory.  Savage lists the weight at six pounds and it sure feels light with most of the weight forward in the heavy barrel. It's not good to dry fire rimfires, so I resisted the urge to try out the lauded Accu-Trigger until I got some ammo.

After mounting a scope, see separate article here, I picked up three different boxes of ammo from Walmart and waited for a trip to the range.  I shot the Winchester 17g V-max loads the first day out.  Five shot groups were in the 1.5" to 2" range at 100 yards.  Better than a 22 LR, but nothing to brag about.  The thing was, most groups had three or so bullets clustered nicely and then a couple off on there own.  This rig may have potential.

On my second range session I shot the CCI 20g FMJ and Federal 17g V-max rounds.  As I got more rounds down the barrel two things kept going through my mind.  Despite being adjusted as light as it would go, the trigger was too heavy.  The trigger has a little creep and some over travel, but besides the heavy pull, it was pretty good.  Now combine that heavy trigger with the light weight of the rifle and it was hard to get a clean let-off without the gun moving.  Upon returning home I checked the posts on Rimfirecentral.com.  It seems the trigger can be lightened even more by simply modifying a spring.  I tore the action down and trimmed a coil and a half off the spring and put it back together.  After chambering a spent casing, I tested the trigger for feel, pull weight, and safety.  It now breaks at a little over two pounds on my fish scale.  Now that is more like it!

With the trigger setup to my satisfaction, it was time to see what I could do about adding some weight.  As I stated earlier, the rifle weighs about six pounds without scope, with the majority of the weight in the heavy barrel.  I pulled the butt plate off to find a nice hollow in the stock.  I also just happened to have a sand bag on the work bench, when a flash of semi brilliance hit me.  Pour the sand into the stock!  Now I'm sure somebody else has already done this, but I was pleased as punch as the sand poured from the bag into the stock.  After re-securing the butt plate, I gave it the old hold it in your hand and heft it up and down a couple times test.  Yep, it's heavier.  It actually feels pretty good with the extra weight rearward balancing out the heavy barrel, so I'm off to get the digital bathroom scale.  I couldn't tell you how accurate the scale is, but after balancing the rifle/scope/sand combo on it, I got a reading of 8.7 pounds.  I like it just like that and I can't wait to get back to the range and test it out.  I have very high hopes.
 
Update:  See my latest post HERE for another range report including group sizes and target pictures. :)