Remington introduced the .17 Remington in 1971, and the case is a .223 Remington necked down to .172 with the shoulder moved back .087 of an inch. It went into the Model 700, and it was the first commercial .17 centerfire most American hunters ever saw.
It is also still the fastest thing on this site: 4,250 feet per second and 802 foot-pounds out of a 20 grain bullet.
The loads
Two, and both of them are Remington’s. Nobody else loads this cartridge.
| Brand | Load | Grain | Bullet | BC | Muzzle | 300 yd | 500 yd | Muzzle energy | 300 yd energy | 500 yd energy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Remington | Premier AccuTip-V | 20 | AccuTip-V | 0.185 | 4,250 | 2,529 | 1,684 | 802 | 284 | 126 |
| Remington | High Performance Rifle | 25 | Hollow Point | 0.187 | 4,040 | 2,402 | 1,595 | 906 | 320 | 141 |
The 25 grain is the better coyote load and it is the one nobody talks about. It gives up 210 feet per second at the muzzle and carries more energy than the 20 grain at every single distance, because a heavier bullet at nearly the same ballistic coefficient sheds speed no faster and started with more to spend. Thirteen percent more at the muzzle, thirteen percent more at 300, twelve percent more at 500.
Against the .17 Hornet
This is the comparison worth making, because the two cartridges look like the same idea and are not.
| .17 Remington 20gr | .17 Hornet 20gr | |
|---|---|---|
| Ballistic coefficient | 0.185 | 0.185 |
| Muzzle velocity | 4,250 | 3,650 |
| Muzzle energy | 802 | 592 |
| Energy at 300 yd | 284 | 200 |
| Energy at 500 yd | 126 | 85 |
Identical bullet, identical BC, and the .17 Remington is carrying 42% more energy at the muzzle and 48% more at 500 yards. That is the whole difference between a necked-down .22 Hornet and a necked-down .223: case capacity, and nothing else.
If you want a .17 centerfire that reaches, this is the one that reaches. The Hornet is quieter, cheaper to feed and easier to find a rifle for.
The wind problem, and why it decides this
A 20 grain bullet at 0.185 is a poor wind bullet no matter how fast it leaves. Wikipedia’s summary of the cartridge is blunt about it: poor ballistic coefficient and sectional density make it highly susceptible to crosswinds, with a practical ceiling around 440 yards on prairie dogs.
Prairie dogs are the operative words. A prairie dog does not need to be anchored, and a coyote does.
My honest read for coyotes: this is a 250 yard cartridge on a calm day and a 150 yard cartridge on a normal one. Not because the energy runs out, but because a 20 grain bullet in a 10 mile an hour crosswind at 300 yards is not going where you aimed it, and a wounded coyote is the outcome nobody wants. Take the 25 grain if you are going to hunt it.
Where it genuinely shines is fur. A .172 bullet that fragments violently on entry does very little to the far side of a hide, which is why the people who still shoot one mostly sell what they shoot.
It is not a replacement for a .223. It is a specialist, and the specialty is fur inside 200 yards.
Rifles and brass
Nobody currently chambers it. Remington’s own rifle line does not list it, and CZ’s 527, which was the last easy answer, is out of production. It is a used-rifle cartridge now.
What that looks like in practice, checked against a retailer’s live inventory rather than assumed: of six results filed under .17 Rem, four were mis-tagged .17 HMR rimfires — Savage 93R17s and a Ruger American with .17HMR in its own model name. The two genuine rifles were a used CZ 527 Varmint at $1,299.99 and a used Thompson/Center Encore barrel at $1,599.99.
So budget accordingly, and read the caliber stamp rather than the listing when you shop. That mis-tagging is not a one-off; it is what happens to every .17 on a retail site.
There is a smaller version of this cartridge. Remington necked the .221 Fireball case down to .17 in 2007 to get close to these numbers on less powder — the .17 Remington Fireball gives up about 11% of the energy and runs cooler for it.
Brass is the good news. Remington still catalogs unprimed .17 Remington brass, which matters more here than on most cartridges, because two factory loads from one manufacturer is not a supply you want to depend on.
Notes on the data
Velocities and ballistic coefficients are Remington’s published figures, from the 20 grain Premier AccuTip-V (part 29162) and the 25 grain High Performance Rifle (part 28460). Both were listed as available when this was written.
Energy figures are calculated, not published, using the standard formula from Remington’s own velocity table. Their published muzzle energy for the 20 grain is 802 foot-pounds and the calculation returns 802, which is the check that the rest of the column is sound.
Drop is deliberately absent. Remington publishes trajectory against a zero this page cannot verify, and a drop figure without its zero is worse than no drop figure.
Know a load that should be here? Tell me and I will add it. And check your state’s rules before you go — several states set a minimum caliber for predators, and a .172 bore is below it in more places than you would expect.