My .17 Predator
by Dave Affleck
The impetus for building my .17 Predator came when I read Dan Clements first article about building his in Small Caliber News. I’ve been talking to Dan on various internet sites for years, and have a great deal of respect for his knowledge and passion. I knew he had been working on a new large capacity .17 caliber wildcat, but not until I read his article about designing the cartridge and building a rifle for it, did the details really hit home for me. The results he was getting -- a 30 gr. bullet, with a B.C. of .270, at 4100 fps, really fired up my imagination. Those numbers put the big .17 in a whole new class over the old .17 Remington. I already knew that the 25 and 30 grain .17 caliber bullets at high velocity are excellent coyote thumpers that kept fur damage to a minimum. But I had visions of a rifle that could serve double duty. A coyote calling rifle that would deliver extremely flat trajectory and sufficient downrange energy to anchor coyotes, while still allowing me to spot my own shots without needing a muzzle break, all in a rifle light weight enough to be carried all day. That sure sounded like one heck of a good setup for stalking rock chucks above timberline too!
.17 Rem. on left, .17 Predator on right.
The Cartridge
The .17 Predator is a wildcat designed by Dan Clements, based on the
ubiquitous .223 Rem. case. It has significantly more powder capacity than
the .17 Rem, nearly equaling the .17 PPC in volume. Dan designed it with
enough body taper and mild enough shoulder angle to assure slick feeding
from a Rem. 700 action. Top end working loads push 30 grain bullets well
over 4000 fps. Using the Kindler 30 gr. Gold’s, with a BC of .270, that
translates into some pretty awesome downrange performance in terms of
trajectory, wind deflection and terminal energy. For more background on the
.17 Predator, see Dan’s original article
here.
The
Cartridge
Choosing an
action
Choosing a
stock
Choosing a
barrel
The scope
The
Riflesmith
Loading dies & forming cases
Load work
Results in
the field
Final
thoughts
Rocky Mountain Varmint Hunter
R.M.V.H., LLC ·
436 N. Redwood Rd · Salt Lake City, UT · 84116
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