17M2 is fun on gophers. This past spring I found myself glassing across a chewed-down pasture, the dirt edge before it went up the hill. A few holes I could see without the scope, the mounds around them. Wondered if the M2 had the reach, what the drop could be, how far it even was. Range finder literally in the small backpack beside me, dragged it across Canada but too much effort to pull out.
I'd shot down the pasture itself which admittedly wasn't much. Some of the little turds scurrying along a drying, muddy cut in the field that looked like it was formed by draining water. Got myself inline with their little straightaway @ one end and about every 3-4 minutes one would round the bend and run straight towards the wrong end of that .17 ID pipe pictured below. The odd one would pause for a snack and meet the same fate, + some very judge-y comments from me.
With no gophers obvious, I took a poke @ one of the mounds and the POI looked exactly like the POA. I was maybe a little higher elevation but it seemed too far for that to be the case so I took another shot=same result. Second shot startled a fat, confused gopher I hadn't seen, and it only ran a few feet before stopping. The little M2 cracked a few seconds later and Mr. Wiggly toppled over like a bowling pin. I'd never pushed 17M2 past 100 yards, nor had I spent much time even considering its ballistics much beyond that. Only 1/3 of the M2s I had a lot of time behind previously was sub MOA and barely that. Also hadn't considered this gun's trigger before trying to aim @ a gopher that far away. It'll need a bit of an upgrade if I'm wanting to keep reaching out. Which isn't my style. lol
Always saw more gophers with the .22 in my hands
