.17 HMR

Won a Savage .17 HMR at a DU banquet this week. Came with a decent scope and has the AccuTrigger on it. Seems like it will be a fun gun to pump holes in paper, but is there any other practical purposes for it? I’m sure it would be good for whacking prarie dogs, but the only ones I know of around southern wisconsin are at the zoo, and i’m sure they would frown upon me shooting those. Seems like too small of a round to be useful on anything larger than a squirrel.

An interesting question, and on predator hunting forums all over the question of “is the .17 HMR enough gun for coyote/fox” has launched some roaring debates.

IMO, the HMR’s uses are kind of limited. There are a lot of things you CAN use it for, but it’s optimal for almost none of them.

The 17 is fine, IMO, for fox and coyote, but not an optimal choice for either. For me the best coyote rifle is a shotgun followed by a .22-250 that can reach out and touch them at long ranges.

No doubt it’s a great round for small varmints and pests at moderate distances, but conditions and distances have to be in your favor.

It nice to win something, but other than paper punching, I don’t have a lot of answers as far as which problem the HMR solves best.

Grouse

I have one too and love it at the range. After having a .17 hmr a few years I haven’t found anything its the best for. Its great for any varmint shooting that you don’t care about pelt or meat damage. It really is too much for squirrels and rabbits, better be a head shot or it ruins a lot of meat. I would say on a fox out to 100 ide feel it’s adequate, but I’m not sure for coyotes and have not tried it. It’s a fun accurate round just not a lot of practical uses in my opinion.

Makes a nice red mist out of chipmunks.
Flat shooting, but just fragments really bad.

I sold mine and wouldn’t consider another one if I had to pay for it.
I’m in the heart of the debates on the con side of the fence. I’ve seen way too many coyotes shot with the 17 that we had to track, shoot again, or unfortunately…couldn’t find.
Fantastic round for squirrels/rabbits at reasonable distances. I had no problem plinking squirrels at 100 yrds with it. But even with squirrels, we had some that we didn’t recover that I felt should have been DOA shots.
Last year I recorded about 100 kill shots on prairie dogs. Now I know the 17 doesn’t compare to the ‘250 and that’s not where I’m going with this. We had a lot of reasonable distance shots (under 200 yrds) that we thought were possibly a miss with the 17hmr. After playing the video back in slo-mo, you could see the impact and the PDs still running/crawling back to their holes. After that experience, I lost all interest in it.

Now, for a gun to simply go plinking with and maintain practice on your trigger squeeze, VERY NICE!!

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Now, for a gun to simply go plinking with and maintain practice on your trigger squeeze, VERY NICE!!

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That’s what I figure I will use it for. Having been predominantly a shotgunner my entire life, I am a trigger puncher. It kills both my rifle and handgun accuracy. I figure the .17 will be good for just working on fundamentals.

It sucks send it to me!

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Last year I recorded about 100 kill shots on prairie dogs. Now I know the 17 doesn’t compare to the ‘250 and that’s not where I’m going with this. We had a lot of reasonable distance shots (under 200 yrds) that we thought were possibly a miss with the 17hmr. After playing the video back in slo-mo, you could see the impact and the PDs still running/crawling back to their holes. After that experience, I lost all interest in it.

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A very interesting comment and backed by evidence instead of speculation. Thanks for sharing that.

Grouse

I included one of the shots in this vid. just fast forward to about 30 seconds. We thought this one was a miss and just stumbled when it ran into its other hole. In slow motion you can see its upper center mass hit. This was roughly 180 yrds +/- (can’t memorize them all)

http://youtu.be/EyZ2fE4yR_E

I love mine for everything up to yotes. I will shoot a yote with it though if it’s all I got. On Dad’s farm, we don’t allow much for varmints with 5000+ pheasants being raised. Great gun for plinking.