.22 WMR Savage 305 vs. 17 HMR Mossberg 817 Plinkster

[TheCoachZed]

Anyone shooting either of these guns? The Mossberg looks pretty cool, but I haven't seen much in the way of .17 HMR for sale locally, and what I have seen is more expensive (marginally) than .22 WMR.

I won't be buying either gun next week or anything, but I'd like to know what people think about them. I would be buying it for mainly long-distance crow assassination missions and target practice. I might use it for coyote hunting, but probably not more than a half-dozen times a year, if that.

Of course, this will may touch off that .17 vs. .22, accuracy vs. bullet weight debate....which interests me as well.

 

[snowshoe]

I went with the .22 mag just because of the coyote thing. I use the rifle for bush walks and Ruff Grouse, and the .22 mag is better in my opinion for the odd coyote that comes by. I have the Savage 93 model and like it a lot.

 

[Bobby Ironsights]

.22 mag, I'm saving for one now. .17 is interesting, but you pay too much for too little.

The straight walled case is efficient., the bottlenecked case is not, and there's just not enough extra ooomph in that little puppy to get spread around on driving that pill down the little .17 caliber bore.

If I wanted more spark, I'd got to the little hornet, K-hornet, or even one of the .17 or .20 caliber hornet derivitaves, or the .204 ruger. As long as I'm staying with a rimfire, I'll keep the straight walled .22 mag.

I'm biased though. I don't need the straightest possible trajectory, as I'm a paper puncher, not a hunter shooting varmints at uknown distances.

 

[BabySeal]

The straight walled case is efficient., the bottlenecked case is not, and there's just not enough extra ooomph in that little puppy to get spread around on driving that pill down the little .17 caliber bore.

I once got gopher on my shoes when I shot a close one with my 17 hmr.

The result is much the same at 150m and only slightly less past 200.

And you only have to aim about 6" over at 200.

Doesnt seem like any energy being lost there.

Bottlenecks inefficient???

So, for example, a 9mm bullet in a necked out .223 case would be more efficient than your standard 5.56?

 

[Bobby Ironsights]

Bottlenecks inefficient???

Oh yeah! You have to use substantially more powder. It's not immediately apparent when you look at the energy numbers, because of course it's mass x velocity squared, and of course the velocity is going to skew the numbers there.

It only became readily apparent when I was realoading and saw that using bottlenecked cases to run the same bullet weights to equivelent velocities as the .357 magnum pistol cases took alot more powder. I asked on a forum and got various replies that can be summarized as "duh, you didn't know that already?".

I'm a science geek so I felt kinda dumb I didn't. I really should have wondered why I could drive a 158 grain bullet to over a 1000 FPS with only 4.5 grains of powder in my .357 magnum, but it takes me 50+ grains of powder to drive a 160 grain 7.62x54r bullet only 2600 FPS. Ten times as much powder for only 2.6 times as much velocity with almost the exact same bullet weight?

It's not the end of the world. You get diminishing returns, but powder is cheap, (or at least it used to be). The real downside is that the high pressure small bore cartridges have substantially more bore erosion from the venturi formed by the transition from the case to the bore.

 

[.17]

Anyone shooting either of these guns? The Mossberg looks pretty cool, but I haven't seen much in the way of .17 HMR for sale locally, and what I have seen is more expensive (marginally) than .22 WMR.

I won't be buying either gun next week or anything, but I'd like to know what people think about them. I would be buying it for mainly long-distance crow assassination missions and target practice. I might use it for coyote hunting, but probably not more than a half-dozen times a year, if that.

Of course, this will may touch off that .17 vs. .22, accuracy vs. bullet weight debate....which interests me as well.

Try shooting them both.I use my .17 just about every day.The .22 mag and .22LR never get out of the gun cabinet anymore.I have shot beaver,fox,coyote,racoon, with the gun and am very happy with the results.One coyote out of six wasnt a clean kill and all were inside 150 yards..Nothing wrong with the .22 mag either but I prefer the .17 for my job.