17 Rimfire Vs 17 Centerfire

R

Roamin_Wade

Moderator
What are the pros and cons of 17 caliber rifles, both rimfire and centerfire? Also, to anyone reading this that has a 17 cal rifle, which 17 did you go with and why?
 
I use a 17 HMR almost exclusively for P-dogs here in western Colorado. The gun is a Ruger American predator with a Silencer Spectre II can.

That little rimfire is AWESOME. Zero recoil, you see your hits. Quiet enough for no ear pro. At anything under 200yds Its certain death.

Wind is an issue with that super light bullet, but when it hits its impressive.
 
The single biggest problem with rimfire .17 ammo is that it varies quite a bit from brand to brand and lot to lot. I have a 17HMR that is an outstanding tack driver.....with some ammo and lot numbers. I have fired five shot groups with this ammo that measure under .5" at 100 yards out of one box and the next box of ammo will fire 1.5" for five shots. Some other brands and weights do even worse. With a center fire you will get much more consistency and can count on your good loads shooting very well each and every time. The down side to center fire (if you can call it a down side....I don't) is that you have to load the ammo. Rimfire you just buy it and go shooting. Centerfire requires a bit of work on your part to make the ammo. One other thing about centerfire is that it is generally better at longer distances. The .17hmr is at most a 200 yard gun, and that's stretching it a bit. A 17Hornet is a pretty decent 250 yard gun and maybe even 300 yards on a good day. The only true competition to the Hornet is the 17WSM in rimfire, and it's noted as being even more inconsistent than the 17hmr as far as ammo goes. Depending on your actual needs, the 17hmr can be a very adequate cartridge. If you're not going to be shooting over 200 yards, and 1.5-2.0moa is within your criteria, it's probably going to be a better choice. You get a box of 50 for around twelve bucks and all you have to do is load and shoot. If you plan on doing a bunch of shooting at 200+ yards the center fire is the better choice. Just a couple of things to think about.
 
17hm2 is the best squirrel round produced imo.......flat as a laser at the usual squirrel distances out to 100 yards or so

at one time the hm2 was hard to come by but recently its abundant...if you buy one id stock up with a couple bricks to get you thru any ammo droughts in the future tho
 
"...rim fire and center fire..." That's an apples or oranges question. They just are not the same or even related.
"...single biggest problem with rim fire .17 ammo..." It's not the .17 cal part that does that. It's the rim fire part. With any rim fire, you must try a box of as many brands and bullet weights as you can to find the ammo your rifle shoots best. Cycling usually isn't an issue, but in the case of a semi-auto, the ammo has to do that reliably too.
And all that is is you can find the ammo where you are. That applies to .17 calibre centre fire ammo as well. One of the guys coined the term "The Wal-Mart Test" If you can buy it there, it should be in all Wally Worlds. "Should" being the operative word.
 
I would not own a 17 cal. I shot a 17 Rem when it first came out and there was some wind. Blew the bullet's all over. The 222 Rem I owned you could also watch the bullet's hit with and recoil was just not there. Those little 50gr bullet's at about 3100-3200 fps shot plenty fast enough. These days I don't even own a 22 CF. Have a 22 mag and my son has a couple 17 RF's and he hasn't been able to show me any good reason to change.
 
Biggest problem with .17 caliber ANYTHING is the bore is very small and is difficult to clean because of its size (small cleaning rod, small brushes, small jags, small patches). I remember really enjoying my 17HMR for the first few boxes of ammo, then the buildup of fouling finally started opening up the groups. Even though I have been a shooter my whole adult life, I did not have anything to clean the rifle with. Bought a good cleaning rod and brush and jag and got it back to shooting acceptably, but finding the right equipment would be my first caveat about a .17. 17 Remington has a reputation for fouling bores.
 
I've got a Savage 93r17hmr, and it's a fun gun to shoot, pretty accurate so far at 50, I'm still testing to see which ammo it likes the best. Had a lot of split necks with the Winchester brand ammo, so I'm avoiding it at all costs. I've got maybe 2 bricks of ammo right now, just waiting on the rain to go away long enough to dry out the range so I don't have to take my boat with me to the range.
 
I had a 17 Remington once. Jaded me on the 17 for life. Pressures would spike very quickly. It would foul in very few rounds. Cleaning it was a PITA.

Kills on woodchucks, unimpressive. But it was fast.
 
Pros:
They're fast.
All of them.

Cons:
.17 caliber barrels are known for copper-fouling very quickly.
They require "special" cleaning tools.
The wind plays hell with the light bullets.


I went for .17-223. Why? Who doesn't want 4,000 fps out of a .223-class cartridge with less recoil than an airgun?
Plus... I inadvertently ended up with 1,900+ .17 caliber bullets through auction lot purchases where I was after other items of greater value, and haven't been able to sell the bullets for any reasonable value. ...That was a big factor. (I wasn't asking for MSRP - but I also wasn't going to take $2 per factory-sealed box.)
How does it shoot? Wish I could tell you. I'm still waiting on the barrel to show up.......
I do already have all of the necessary cleaning tools, though.

If I were to choose a rimfire .17, it would be .17 WSM for speed (not the B.Mag!), .17 HMR for ammo availability, or .17 HM2 for fun.
 
I went with the .17 Hornady Hornet. I often thought about a .17 hornet and when Hornady standardize the wildcat round, I just had to get one. I wasn't interested in a non reloadable round and that took all the rimfires off the table...

Tony
 
I like the 17 HMR but also understand it's problems (susceptible to wind drift and often questionable bullet performance on bigger vermin).
I don't intend to get into handloading ANY 17 caliber so the little HMR allows shooting at reasonable cost vs a centerfire.
The kids love the HMR. It gives them a big boost over the 22lr when busting vegetables at the range and is adequate for closer range coyotes. I use a suppressed HMR during pest removal jobs and find it better than a 22lr for those purposes.
 
How many .17 cal designs are there not counting current experimental's?
1. 17 Mach2
2. 17 HMR
3. 17 WSM
4. 17 Rem
5. 17 Rem Fireball

Thats all I can think of but it seems like I'm missing a couple.
 
Your word choice makes that difficult to answer.
There are some extremely well-established wildcats that probably exceed the .17 WSM and .17 HM2 (and .17 Aguila) in popularity, combined. They're beyond experimental, and have well established load data and chamber dimensions - even if not recognized by SAAMI. One cannot, however, buy ammunition for them from WalMart. ...But you can't do that with .416 Rigby, either.

What do you mean by "experimental"?
Wildcats? - Like .17-223, .17 TCM, etc.
Or weird/illogical crap that will never catch on, even if it is moderately interesting? - Like .17 B&D, .17 SPC, .17-284, etc.

'Standardized', 'wildcat', and 'experimental' cartridges are not a subject as black and white as many people want to believe.

Everyone knows what the 8mm-06 is. It's even a standardized cartridge. However, the standard version of the cartridge cannot be chambered, nor can factory ammo be made for it, because the rights to the cartridge are tied up in legal disputes. A-Square owned the rights when the company folded. Now, if someone wants to run that "standard" cartridge, a modified (experimental?) version must be used.

Nearly everyone in the gun world knows what .458 SOCOM is. Nearly everyone in the gun world probably knows someone that owns a .458 SOCOM. In some parts of the country, one can even buy ammo for it at WalMart.

.458 SOCOM is not, however, a SAAMI-approved cartridge. Nor is it standardized. There WAS a standard, which Tromix, Rock River, and a couple other companies still adhere to, for reliability, safety, and licensing reasons. But PTG, Wilson, and a couple other companies tweaked the chamber dimensions, in order to avoid Teppo Jutsu's copyright on the case and chamber design, and created variants that don't always play nicely with each other (or with the original).

.458 SOCOM is not just a wildcat, but a wildcat with "wildcats of the wildcat" being the chambers found in the majority of the rifles on the market.
Yet, you won't find many people that are going to consider it an "experimental" cartridge at this point.


What would be "experimental" in the .17 caliber world...?
 
I like to punch paper with the 17HMR. I cannot claim bench rest quality accuracy. My little low end 93R17 mounts and old Intensity scope. The rifle is totally stock. On the low end the 17 HMR is expensive to shoot at paper-you can use up a bunch of cartridges. I would feel comfortable using the rifle for 100-150 yard shots at, for example, a ground hog. I'm poised to take out a Yote in the migrations through my back yard.
 
It's nice that Hornady made a standardized round very similar to the .17 Ackley Hornet. I don't think I would have bothered if I had to form cases for it...

Tony
 
I like the .17 HMR for smaller varmints up to woodchucks, under 130 yards due to our windy conditions, but for larger varmints and up to 300 yards, I prefer one of my three bolt-action .223 Rems with hand-loaded ammo and 53-55 grain varmint bullets.

If it's a windy day, I may even choose one of my .243 Win rifles.
 
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I was looking at a little Savage B Mag in 17 WSM, just a couple days ago. What is wrong with them. I was intrigued by something different.
 
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