What is the 17 hmr good for?

I use my 17 hmr mostly for gophers,they usally don't make back to there hole.Shot a few skunks that dropped with one shot.I have shot a few coyotes, they are a little tougher, depending on the range,under a 100 yards it does a good job on them.
 
For the cost of ammo it's cheaper to load some varmint center fires and re-use the brass umpteen times.........don't need or want one ,not putting them down for those that like them......Harold
 
Ammo cost is not good. However it's nice to have boosted performance over the .22LR, and keeping the noise down, and having zero recoil.
 
tiriaq said:
Works well for seal hunting from a boat in the summer.
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FLHTCUI said:
Nothing larger than a Coyote in my books...
As for Seals, I have no problem with the guys who hunt them to live off of, but .22 is cheaper...
Rob
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DEFINITELY not allowed. Illegal and should not be mentioned. Minimum of 1800 fps and 1100 ft/lbs at the muzzle for harvesting seals, .222 Remington is about the minimum in terms of energy.
 
Boomer686 said:
Totally useless for me: can't hunt with it which would be the only reason I'd want one. No gophers etc out this way so.....
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Been asking the Wildlife Division to bring changes to the regulations for ten years now without success. It is not a priority in a department that is not a priority, unfortunately.
 
mbogo3 said:
For the cost of ammo it's cheaper to load some varmint center fires and re-use the brass umpteen times.........don't need or want one ,not putting them down for those that like them......Harold
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This is precisely why I went with the. 17 Hornet. It's a potent little cartridge to be sure, but it's cheaper to reload, and future-proof to boot. I'm on my 10th reload with some of my brass.
 
When I bought mine originally it was because I was trying and failing to shoot ptarmigan and rabbits off a skidoo with a shotgun. Kept running into 50-100m scenarios and wanted to have a flatter trajectory than a .22. Plus, I've seen a lot of wounded chickens run off with .22 lead in them. The 17 worked great for that, took a lot of chickens at 80+m. But if you hit them in the body you lose half. Meat loss of rabbits was never a problem, big heads!

Now that I am back in shotgun country in BC and not hunting off the sled, i traded it for a single shot .22 which is more practical for plinking and less noisy (with subsonics) for hunting grouse in good deer areas.
 
I bought one box of virgin brass before I realized that it was cheaper to buy factory loads and re-use the brass from them. Besides which, it's a challenge to improve on the performance of the factory stuff. Not like in the old days.
 
What I like about the hummer are the frangible bullets. It has much more lethality than the .22 and there are no ricochet worries. Cattle farmers like that. Do a demo with a full water bottle. It blows up with the .17 and the .22 passes through.
 
Too fast for grouse??? Perfect frickin' laser beam for zapping the heads off grouse at 150 meters!!! Ditto squirrel noggins. Not meat lost in either case.

James1873 said:
Normally I'm just a plain 22 kind of guy for plinking and small game. But I recently traded for a 17 hmr Henry rifle. Then after some research about the 17 hmr it seems to be a niche cartridge. Too fast for grouse and squirrels to have much meat left. And too small for bigger critters like coyotes.

So is the 17 hmr more of a varmint removal cartridge vs hunting?
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