Remington built the .17 Remington Fireball in 2007 by necking the .221 Remington Fireball case down to .17, as a factory answer to the .17 Mach IV wildcat. The idea was to get close to .17 Remington velocity on significantly less powder, which means less heat, less fouling and less barrel wear — the three things that actually bother somebody shooting a small bore all day.
It worked. Then Remington fell apart, and the cartridge has been living on one factory load ever since.
The load
One. Not one brand with several offerings — one load, from one company.
| 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 | 4,000 | 2,360 | 1,555 | 711 | 247 | 107 |
I checked what is actually on shelves rather than what is catalogd, and across a hundred in-stock listings from a dozen retailers every single one was this same product — part R29165, twenty grains, around $1.31 to $1.38 a round. There is no second option to compare it against.
Against the .17 Remington
This is the comparison the cartridge exists to lose narrowly, and it does.
| .17 Rem Fireball 20gr | .17 Remington 20gr | |
|---|---|---|
| Ballistic coefficient | 0.185 | 0.185 |
| Muzzle velocity | 4,000 | 4,250 |
| Muzzle energy | 711 | 802 |
| Energy at 300 yd | 247 | 284 |
| Energy at 500 yd | 107 | 126 |
Same bullet, same ballistic coefficient, and the Fireball gives up 11% of the energy at the muzzle and 15% at 500 yards.
That is the deal, and it is an honest one. You pay about a tenth of the performance and you get back a smaller powder charge, a shorter action, less blast and a barrel that lasts longer. For a prairie dog shooter putting two hundred rounds through a barrel in a weekend, that is a straightforward trade. For somebody who calls a dozen coyotes a season, it is close to irrelevant — you will never shoot the barrel out, and the 11% is real.
If you already own one, none of this matters and you have a fine varmint rifle. If you are choosing between the two on paper, the .17 Remington is the better cartridge and the far easier one to feed.
Who makes a rifle for it
Nobody. This is the question people actually search, so here is the plain answer.
Remington does not list it in any current rifle. Cooper, which built some of the nicest ones, is gone. Checked against a live retailer’s inventory with a filter proven to work on other cartridges — the same filter returns six results for .17 Rem and 247 for .17 HMR — the .17 Remington Fireball returns zero.
So it is a used rifle or a custom build, and that is the real cost of entry. Watch for the same mis-tagging that plagues every .17 on retail sites: listings filed under one .17 are routinely a different one, sometimes with the correct caliber printed in the model name. Read the barrel stamp, not the listing title.
Brass is the saving grace. Remington still catalogs unprimed .17 Remington Fireball brass, and on a one-load cartridge that matters more than it would anywhere else. If you shoot this, you should be reloading for it. That is not a preference, it is the supply situation.
On coyotes
The same verdict as the .17 Remington, moved slightly closer.
Twenty grains at 0.185 is a poor wind bullet, and a hundred fewer foot-pounds does not change what decides the shot. Call it 200 yards on a calm morning and less when it blows. The energy is adequate well past that; the wind drift is not, and a coyote that gets hit badly runs.
Where it earns its keep is fur. A .172 bullet that comes apart on the near side does very little to the far side of a hide, and if you sell what you shoot that is worth real money. The quietness is not nothing either — a mild report gives you a better chance at a second dog on the same stand.
It is a specialist, and a scarce one. If fur is the priority and you already have the rifle, it is excellent. If you are buying into a cartridge, buy one you can get ammunition for from more than a single company.
Notes on the data
Velocity and ballistic coefficient are Remington’s published figures, from the 20 grain Premier AccuTip-V, part R29165, listed as available at $44.99 when this was written.
Energy figures are calculated from that velocity table rather than published. The same calculation reproduces Remington’s own published muzzle energy on the .17 Remington exactly, which is the check that the method is sound.
Drop is deliberately absent, because Remington publishes trajectory against a zero this page cannot verify, and a drop figure without its zero is worse than none.
Know a load that should be here? Tell me and I will add it — and if a second manufacturer ever picks this cartridge up, that is the update this page most needs. Check your state’s rules too, because several states set a minimum caliber for predators and a .172 bore is under it in more places than you would expect.