17HMR or 22WMR?

wayupnorth

wayupnorth

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ive been tossing around the idea of getting a bigger bang for my rimefire buck and had been mulling over taking the plunge of a 17HMR or 22WMR and now with Ruger putting forward a nice little RAR package with bull barrels and lam stocks i think ill definitely pick one up.

question is..... which one?

im kinda leaning towards the 17 as it looks to have a little more 'umph' to it than the 22 but i do already have a nice 223 bolt gun which might be pretty much like the 17, no?

again im a virgin for these 2 calibers.
anyone have some sage advice for which one might be better?

will be 90% for punching paper and 10% punching gophers when i get down south for visits.
 
I think the 17HMR is a "neat" caliber that's good for blowing up gophers. But the 22WMR makes more muzzle energy, carries more punch and is a more practical round.

I am not sure that 17HMR is inherently a more accurate round than 22WMR, but it seems to be more accurate shot out of most rifles sold now... or that's what the consensus seems to be.
 
everything above.
If its just paper and pests the .17 is nice. if you want to eat anything you hit, the .22 is a better choice.
I just made the same decision, in my area paper and small game are my priority, exploding small furry's while fun is a waste.
 
100 meters and under i use my WMR and over that, i use my HMR. I have both cause i like both but for versatility, i have to lean towards the HMR with it's flatter trajectory and higher energy 100m and over. I stopped using 40 grn bullets in WMR for everything over 50 meters, cause of the balloon trajectory. For me 33grn is top and gives great results. 90% paper punching? Well i'd go HMR again.
 
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what are you using it for ?
Target - 17
Tree rats, small game - 17
Coyotes - 22WMR (idn why you wouldn't use the 223 for this though!)

So yah, 17hmr lol.

Now you have me thinking of getting one of them in 17 hmr also. it is a slick rifle.
 
I had a 22WMR and sold it. I found that I would rather use the .223 bolt instead of it.

That being said, I just bought a CZ 455 in 22LR and 17HMR. I haven't shot it yet, but I will sell a rimfire to make room for it. The majority of my fun is paper punching and gopher hunting at the farm.

What part of the province do you live in, Wayup? I would offer an invitation to the farm outside of Holden in the spring to "help" with the gopher population!
 
Hey W-U-N, I think you'd be WAY better served by a 17HMR for the purposes you mentioned. They're both "magnum" rimfire calibers but that's (in my opinion) where the similarities end. For target shooting, I think you'd find 22WMR pretty underwhelming. It is not an inherently accurate ammo in my experience. Some of it is better than others, but if it shoots 1-1/2"" @ 100 yards, you're doing extremely well. So, the idea of a 22WMR "target" gun has always seemed like a contradiction to me. I do like the caliber, but it's a heavy-hitting...100 yard small game shooter at best.

17HMR on the other hand~the worst one I ever shot was still sub MOA, and I once had a CZ452 Varmint that could shoot under 3/8" @ 100 yards. It's a flat-shooting, reliably accurate caliber
no matter what gun is being used...provided you avoid Winchester-branded ammo. Target shooting with an HMR will bring a smile to your face, gopher shooting with an HMR...well...about as much fun as you can have with a rimfire. Don't make me post photos. :) A heavy-barreled 17HMR DOES make sense to me, though I have no experience shooting the RARs. That target model does look pretty slick...I can see the appeal.

How either stacks-up against a .223? Whether you reload or not, 17HMR is a pretty cool caliber. Mine lives in Alberta for gopher duty, but I hope to visit her this spring if WestJet has a seat sale. .223 is more versatile, but sometimes the extra power/noise/reach isn't something you want or need so I don't like dragging centerfires into a rimfire conversation. WHEN I do, it usually has something to do with price. I'd like to think 17HMR/22WMR ammo pricing has hit a ceiling...but I sort of doubt it. When the per-shot cost of 17HMR brakes the $.050 mark, my frugal side calls me to the reloading bench and I start prepping brass. 17HMR is worth having, an accurate target-shooting caliber, AWESOME fun on gophers out to impressive distances if the wind cooperates...I think you should get one. For me? If I lived in gopher country I'd probably own a progressive press and use my .223 for almost everything. As a traveling gopher-nator, 17HMR/22LR makes the most sense for convenience alone. Here in Ontario, for casual target shooting/plinking~.22LR gets the nod every time. I get almost as much satisfaction shooting little groups @ 50 yards with my 22s as I do shooting my .223 at 100+.

I hope this helps.
 
well i think ive decided, im gonna call my gun dealer (notice how i dont call him LGS or gun seller.... oh no, he's a drug dealer and his drug is guns!)
and have him look into fleshing out one of those new Ruger RAR is 17HMR for me.

will be my treat to myself this summer for being such a swell guy!
 
Lowestform said:
I had a 22WMR and sold it. I found that I would rather use the .223 bolt instead of it.

That being said, I just bought a CZ 455 in 22LR and 17HMR. I haven't shot it yet, but I will sell a rimfire to make room for it. The majority of my fun is paper punching and gopher hunting at the farm.

What part of the province do you live in, Wayup? I would offer an invitation to the farm outside of Holden in the spring to "help" with the gopher population!
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im about as far north as you can go before you hit NWT.
so wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy up north!

but my family still has land down around Carstairs/Linden so thats where i go when i want to shoot fur.
 
my dad has a Savage BTVSS in 17HMR but he didnt think much of it and i havnt seen him take it out last couple years.....
if he didnt have it on a damn right handed thumbhole stock i would liberate it from his gun safe and adopt it into my harem.
 
Neither of them. Reload for 223 for cheaper and call it a day. The hmr and wmr were a heck of a lot better when the price was less then $15 a box. Now not so much. At current component prices I reload 85gr speer btsp in my 6x45 they are doing almost 3000fps. All for $23/50 rounds tax included. Because of this I hardly ever shoot my cz hummer anymore.
 
Like someone mentioned above about .223. Nice round but way too noisy for gophers around here. In most cases all you're going to do is piss off the locals. Fine if you're only going to shoot 5 gophers. But most times there is more than one shooter and we are shooting 100 or more gophers in a day. Shoot .22/.17/.22mag all day and don't bother anyone.
 
SUPER TENERE said:
Like someone mentioned above about .223. Nice round but way too noisy for gophers around here. In most cases all you're going to do is piss off the locals. Fine if you're only going to shoot 5 gophers. But most times there is more than one shooter and we are shooting 100 or more gophers in a day. Shoot .22/.17/.22mag all day and don't bother anyone.
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If you reload you can tone the noise down a bit.
 
Yeah- I'm torn on the high end rimfires as well... at $20 a box for the hmr ammo it is a LOT less attractive- even though I love the little laser! When I got my HMR I bought a lot of ammo at $10-$13 a box and it is a hoot- especially for new shooters. Get a bunch of cans full of water at 100 yards and they just explode when you hit them. I don't shoot it much anymore.

The centerfires are a lot louder though if that is a concern... even a puff load. Good job on the reload pricing- where are you getting your stuff? With bulk components best I can do is around at $0.04/primer, $0.15/bullet and about $0.08/powder before tax which is over $30/50 after tax not including brass/time/equipment etc.
 
cartwheel said:
The centerfires are a lot louder though if that is a concern... even a puff load. Good job on the reload pricing- where are you getting your stuff? With bulk components best I can do is around at $0.04/primer, $0.15/bullet and about $0.08/powder before tax which is over $30/50 after tax not including brass/time/equipment etc.
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^my experience too. I only reload varmint bullets (Hornady V-Max) and in a pinch...have paid as much as $35 for 100 of them. So, for mine...it could be as much as;

bullet: $.40
CCI BR4 primer: $.08
Varget Powder: $.18

My groundhog slayers are about $.66 each without adding brass to the equation. .223 has allot of "thump" so better value depending on how you look at it...but I still think HMR has it's place.

SUPER TENERE said:
Like someone mentioned above about .223. Nice round but way too noisy for gophers around here. In most cases all you're going to do is piss off the locals. Fine if you're only going to shoot 5 gophers. But most times there is more than one shooter and we are shooting 100 or more gophers in a day. Shoot .22/.17/.22mag all day and don't bother anyone.
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^that's interesting. I have a buddy in AB who firmly believes no amount of noise is too much shooting gophers, but in my (much more limited) experience shooting gophers out there, there seemed to be an expectation that you'd use rimfires for the job. Nobody would care if you cranked a few with centerfires...would be puzzled when we used a shotgun for them...but day-in/day-out, rimfires were what you were sort of expected to use. No problem for me..as they were the most convenient/least expensive for the job. And a LOAD of fun. :) Anyhow, bottom line...HMR still has a place as far as I'm concerned, provided our weakening dollar doesn't take the price much higher.
 
.22LRGUY said:
^my experience too. I only reload varmint bullets (Hornady V-Max) and in a pinch...have paid as much as $35 for 100 of them. So, for mine...it could be as much as;

bullet: $.40
CCI BR4 primer: $.08
Varget Powder: $.18

My groundhog slayers are about $.66 each without adding brass to the equation. .223 has allot of "thump" so better value depending on how you look at it...but I still think HMR has it's place.



^that's interesting. I have a buddy in AB who firmly believes no amount of noise is too much shooting gophers, but in my (much more limited) experience shooting gophers out there, there seemed to be an expectation that you'd use rimfires for the job. Nobody would care if you cranked a few with centerfires...would be puzzled when we used a shotgun for them...but day-in/day-out, rimfires were what you were sort of expected to use. No problem for me..as they were the most convenient/least expensive for the job. And a LOAD of fun. :) Anyhow, bottom line...HMR still has a place as far as I'm concerned, provided our weakening dollar doesn't take the price much higher.
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I can buy 500 17cal zombiemax bullets for $100, or about 20 cents each. Using 9.5gr of Lil Gun, that adds up to 5cents per shot.Primers typically run me around 6 cents each. So we are looking at around 31 cents per shot. Using cases ten times works out to about 5 cents per firing, for a total of 36 cents per shot. Even if you only get five or six firings per case, that is still only around 40 cents per shot. In other words, for the same price or less as 17hmr loads,I can shoot my 17 hornet. As well, I managed to purchase 2200 bullets, 3lbs of Lil Gun, and 3000 primer for $500 on the EE, so those 2200 shots will run me about 27 cents per shot after paying for the cases.
 
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cartwheel said:
Good job on the reload pricing- where are you getting your stuff? With bulk components best I can do is around at $0.04/primer, $0.15/bullet and about $0.08/powder before tax which is over $30/50 after tax not including brass/time/equipment etc.
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I got everything local for the most part. Brass is on the ground at the range and free so that helps. Can get cheap 6mm bullets. I just input the price of the components on the x-reload cost calculator and it spits out a number.
 
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