Marlin 917 and battle of the 17hmr's

[stagpanther]

The guys got me worked up with thier 22 rimfire posts--so I rustled out my 17hmr yesterday and got a pretty nice group at 100 with it--decided to go out a bit further today and shoot several magazines each of hornady's, CCI's and Federal's offerings. Hardly a controlled experiment--and 4th of July hangover may have played a role, but a lot of fun nonetheless. The Marlin has never had a failure of any kind for me, although it has one "weakness" if you want to call it that--and that is the bolt can bind (at least on my tupperware rifle) if you go much past 20 inchlbs or so of torque on the rear action screw.

The hornady vmax did well yesterday--but seem to fall off a bit at the longer range, whereas the CCI was pretty consistent (except when I pulled a shot)--the Federal was not in contention.

[stagpanther]

I discovered why the bolt binds when tightening the rear screw very much--there's nothing there except a thin layer of plastic. Wood stock just ordered!