I'm writing to announce that NAA will no longer produce any mini-revolvers chambered in either .17HMR or .17 Mach 2. There are two reasons for this decision.

     The first is that we could not make the revolvers work reliably. Because of the bottle-necked shape of the cartridge (and, hence, the cylinder chamber), the brass was driven forcefully rearward when the cartridge was ignited. While a similar force also occurs with ordinary .22 caliber rimfire ammunition, the internal forces cause the case to expand into the sidewall of the chamber and friction keeps the brass from backing-out of the chamber. With the .17s, however, the angle of the neck makes for additional rearward - vs. outward - forces. While the brass is largely secured by the firewall in the cylinder pocket, and the cylinder will continue to rotate for the next two shots, it protrudes just enough to interfere with the mechanisms when the spent case tries to rotate back inside the frame.

     This phenomena is not specific to the .17 HMR/Mach 2 cartridge but is also exhibited with other bottle-necked cartridges used in revolvers, such as the 22 Hornet. Nor is this phenomena specific to NAA revolvers; we have personal experience of this occurring in both Taurus and S & W revolvers.

     Attempting to solve this problem has been a particularly frustrating exercise. Not only have we spent a lot of time and money in the effort but we have found that the problem/solution is not repeatable. One batch of revolvers will work just fine while another, seemingly identical (as best as we can measure) batch will not. We have received a lot of advice and suggestions, virtually all of which we have tried, but to no avail. While I have no doubt that we'll receive more further still, I don't expect we'll try any of it as we have more important projects on which to spend our precious and limited resources than to try to chase this ghost any further.

     The other problem we faced with this cartridge was the erratic bullet flight which is, unfortunately, a simple function of trying to fire this rifle cartridge from this small platform. Not only do our revolvers not offer anywhere near the length of barrel required to impart the twist to successfully stabilize this boat-tailed projectile, that same short barrel means that the bullet loses much of the motive forces of the cartridge explosion - the bullet has already left the barrel while there is still a substantial amount of gunpowder as yet unburned. This greatly reduced velocity further compounds the lack of stability in flight. The combination of these two factors severely compromise accuracy and allow the bullet to tumble in flight, the results of which can be seen in tears in target paper, as compared to crisp, circular, wadcutter-like holes. Were we every able to solve problem #1, we would never have been able to solve problem #2.

     The expectations people have for the performance of mini-revolvers sometimes exceeds our capabilities and sometimes exceed reason. Rather than present a product which, in all likelihood and for a variety of reasons, will fail to reach people's expectations and achieve their satisfaction, we will not offer that product. It's disappointing to both us and possibly/probably you as well but we're convinced that it's the right decision.