SmallCaliberCentral

Sorry that this is a "little" off topic and not specifically about the .204 caliber, but I thought some of you might like to see these new .172 caliber bullets from Nosler.

A friend of mine from Oregon was at the Nosler 2nds Store last week and noticed some 20 gr. HP .172 caliber seconds available. He picked up a couple packages and shipped them to me. Here are a couple photos of them alongside the 20 gr. V-Max, 25 gr. Hornady HP, and 25 gr. V-Max. The 20 gr. bullets are around .493" long--base to tip. On my Stoney Point comparator they measured from .247" on up to .260" from the base to the ogive. Weights of these 20 gr. bullets varied from 19.82 on up to 20.02 gr.

The first two bullets in each photo are both the 20 gr. Nosler FB HP bullets. The one on the extreme left did not have any lead in it!!! It weighed in at 6.94 grains!!! They WERE labeled as seconds, but I didn't think there would be any bullets without lead in them???? I will definitely weigh all of these bullets before reloading any of them.

Side view. The dark tip that appears on the bullets is the reflection of the top of my table on the sides of the bullets. The bullets DO NOT have dark tips--SORRY!!!



Top view:



There is some material partially closing the tips on some of the bullet, but I think they will open up quite nicely when they hit gophers and prairie dogs.

Silverfox: Thanks for posting this!

My wife was "on alert" for their release, but appears she's too busy there to have noticed. I'll be emailing her right now to bring some of these little jewels home today.

My .17 Ackley Hornet should really shine on Skippy with these. Now I'm hoping for .17 caliber 25 grainers for my .17 Mach IV!

Rick--My only .17 caliber rifles are both .17 Remingtons. I prefer to shoot bullets that weigh a minimum 25 grains, but preferably even heavier than that. Right now I am using some 27.8 gr. Hammett BT HP bullets and they seem to be working pretty good. I am looking for some 27 to 30 gr. cup based bullets for my .17 Remingtons too. The old North Dakota wind seems to be pretty tough on those little 20 gr. bullets, but with some practice you can make hits even with those light weight projectiles in stiff winds.

Last November, my son and I went down to the National Grasslands on November 11 (right during deer gun season) and potted a few prairie poodles. He had my Lilja barreled .17 Remington and was shooting my 20 gr. V-Max reloads (muzzle velocity slightly over 4,000 fps). I was using my Tikka Master Sporter in 22-250 and trying out some 50 gr. Sierra BlitzKings and 50 gr. Nosler BTs I had loaded to see how they worked compared to my usual 40 gr. Nosler BT loads. They worked GREAT!!!

The wind was wafting out of the west at a steady 20 mph (Caldwell Wind Wizard reading) so we tried to set up so we were shooting with the wind or barely cross wind. Here's a couple of victims of my 50 gr. loads from the 22-250.

This one was lasered at 225 yards:



Here's one that met a 50 gr. bullet at 250 yards distance. I had to have my photo taken with that one. The orange vest was worn to try to keep deer hunters from mistaking us for deer!!!!



The prairie dogs in this little town had obviously been shot at quite a bit and weren't giving us many targets to shoot at, plus they don't seem to be nearly as active when the wind is whipping 20 mph either. Our final shots of the day were over 250 yards and the wind was almost 90º to the line of flight of the bullets. Both of us have trajectory and wind deflection charts on our stocks and the numbers for wind deflection are for a 10 mph 90º wind, so we just doubled that number for wind deflection hold off. We were both doing pretty good at hitting the little prairie dogs considering the distances and conditions. My son had made several hits on PDs out at the 250 to 300 yard range. Finally, we spotted three or four prairie dogs around a mound that was a tad over 325 yards away and decided that I would count out loud 1 - 2 - 3 and then say FIRE and we'd try shoot simultaneously to see if we could each score a hit. My son had two prairie dogs sitting pretty close together left to right on the left side of the mound and I had just one on the right side of the mound. When I called off the 1 - 2 - 3 - FIRE, we both shot and I made a hit on mine. I asked my son if he hit his. He looked over at me, smiled, and said, "I hit a prairie dog, but it was the one to the left of the one I was aiming at!!!" I told him, "See, it is better to be lucky than good any day!!!" We had a good laugh over that one.

There was one prairie dog a bit further out than those we had just shot. This one measured 353 yards on my Leica 1200 Range Finder. My son encouraged me to take the shot and I deferred to him. I wasn't real sure I could make the hit, even though it was only 28 yards further away than my last hit. He decided he was up to the challenge. We double-checked his wind deflection chart and the drop. I was spotting for him and told him to shoot when ready. He held off to the right and above the PD and squeezed off the shot. I could see just a tiny bit of RED MIST!!!! as the prairie dog tipped over. We both stood up and I had to give him a high five on that shot!!!

We walked out to where the prairie dog had been standing and I had my son pose with the unlucky prairie dog. He, too, is wearing the orange vest for self-preservation against deer hunters who might think we look like deer!!!



We called it a day and drove home for some supper.

SF: NICE! I don't blame you for taking a 'hero' photo with those unlucky dogs. Any time you can connect in wind conditions such as you encountered, especially using such light bullets, you have confirmed you're not only lucky, the dog involved was extremely unlucky, but also that both of you are confirmed riflemen! It goes to show what a man familiar with his rifle and cartridge can do under adverse conditions, even with such a light bullet that would normally be poo-poo'd by others for such use.

No one would argue that the 22-250 is a fine PD round, but I've heard others be negative on the 17's for such use. This story confirms that we should not believe everything we read on the internet about the sub calibers for use in the wind on the open prairie. One just has to know his rifle and cartridge, which your son seems to have done in fine fashion.

Nice shooting, the both of you. Thanks for sharing the story.

I wonder if those are a .17 cal version of the Dog Town, or as they are known in Australia, "Shots"? Sure looks like it.

Wifey brought some home today, and 'SHOTS' is Nosler speak for Cup & Draw process, and the packages are marked so. Any of their products made via Cup & Draw are labeled that way.

If they're showing up down under, I'd say you're spot-on WP. She tells me they send ALOT of product to our friends there.

I have not shot the .204 "Shots" yet. I have had a ladder load of them ready for 4 months but have not been able to get out on a good bench day for that long. The weather has been miserable here this late winter and spring. I was hoping for a -200 yard inexpensive bullet, but the jury is still out for me. A lot of the places I shoot in THE LEAD FREE ZONE, there are so many targets that that is our range. We go for numbers. Hope the .17's fly for you guys. This is getting more expensive by the day. Sort of like haveing a girlfriend (or wife) that wants to go out to dinner every weekend.

In case anyone is interested in these, I believe they are the same ones marketed by Midsouth as their "Varmint Nightmares": http://www.midsouthshooterssupply.com/i ... =000041720

My buddy who picked up the 20 gr. Nosler .172 caliber seconds for me stated:

As for the Midway .172 bullets, I would bet they are Nosler bullets. I know that Nosler has a relationship with Midway. The Dogtown, 20 cal, 34 gr. HP are definitely Nosler as well as the Dogtown .224 in 50 & 55 grain SP bullets.

Since I don't have any and didn't order any of the Midway or Midsouth 20 gr. bullets, I haven't had the opportunity to do any measurements on them, so I can't comment on where they might be from. Interesting, though, if these are the exact same bullets that the 20 grainers are selling for $10.99/100 at Midway and $29.75/500 or about $5.95/100 from Midsouth.

Is it possible that if they are both manufactured by Nosler, that the ones from Midsouth are seconds and those from Midway are top-of-the-line, manufactured by Nosler especially for Midway???

I can't speak to the .172s, but I have the .204s from both Midway and Midsouth, and they appear to be 100% identical (shape, finish, HP opening, weight). I know that Midway was carrying the .204s some time before they popped up at Midsouth, but at about the same time Midsouth advertised them, I saw that the Nosler 2nds shop was selling the .204 34gr SHOTS bullets online (for more money that Midsouth was charging). Hhmmmm....

I had a bunch of Hornady 25 Gr HP .172 bullets on hand for my Sako 17 Rem rifle when I got a 17 Fireball rifle last year. When shooting a few prairie dogs with the 17 Fireball at 280 Yds the 25 Gr bullet did not cause much splatter. When I run out of the 25 Gr bullets I give the 20 Gr Nosler and Hornady V-Max bullets a try in the Fireball and 17 Rem.

If you can't get one of the big-name bullets to work in your rifle, remember there are lots of custom bullet makers with bullets that might work way better in your rifle than the big-name bullets. C.E. Nagel makes fine .172 caliber bullets. I believe he is currently making 20 gr., 25 gr., and 30 gr. bullets in the .172 caliber. I also think he will make them with a huge HP opening or a smaller HP opening. There are lots of others out there too.