.17HMR OWNERS

[Knackers]

G'day fella's Just wondering who owns a .17HMR what make and model and have you tried it off the bench and how did it go.

Do you find big flucuations in group size with different brands and weights of ammo?

I have a CZ varmit, trigger job,(excellent) plus floated and bedded. I have once and only once shot a .263" group at 50 yards, most of the time its about .5" I can consistanly head shoot rabbits at 120yards ( with a rest of course) and once put 10 shots, a whisker inside a 30mm circle at a mesured 150 metres(164yards) I've only done that once too.

I find it an excellent hunting rifle, and very accurate but cannot make five bullets touch again Its had about 2600 rounds through it.

Wondering what others have achived and am I expecting to much from this little bloke.

[zzsstt]

I have an Anschutz 1517DHB with a Leupold VX-II 3-9x33 "Rimfire" scope and Harris bipod, and I find it very difficult to get good groups. When I first started shooting the Anschutz it did worry me a bit, because everybody talked about groups of .whateverofaninch and to me they seemed impossible. However much I practiced things did not seem to improve, so eventually I gave up trying. I did come up with a theory to explain it though. I suspect it's because on the first shot the fox is standing up, but on subsequent shots it's lying on it's side in the grass.....................

By the way, I have tried ammo from CCI, Federal, Hornady and Remington and to the best of my ability to tell (though I admit I'm not a vet), the foxes died with all of them. One particular fox made a particularly high vertical jump after being hit with a Remington V-Max, perhaps this is significant?

(No, I've never used it from the bench. The closest I've got was running in and sighting using a Caldwell "Tack Driver" bag on the back of the ute, where three holes touching from 50m was not unusual).

[Knackers]

zzsstt, nice rifle, scope setup. Agree all brands kill well' on cats and crows too! very often can have three touching at 50yards but carnt get that fourth and fifth to join up.
For my rifle, Remington has the greatest spread and hornady the tightest, I have a target here that shows 5 shots from a box of rem's landed on the target sideways straight after shooting Hornady? god knows why but it was only five and the rest grouped ok. I kept that target.

[Knackers]

There must me more than two .17HMR owners on this forum?

[Archfile]

I've got a CZ 17HMR in the 452 Varmint style, ammo here is a minimum of
$24.95 a box, so I'm using the 22-250 with reloads, its cheaper.

My cz prefers the hornady ammo, which we havent seen here in 3 months! So i'm dying for a brick of HMR ammo and some time to practice with it.

[Knackers]

Yeah Arch, we've got a gunshop dealer like yours up here. $24.95 for a box or cop this $240 for a brick
We are lucky to have another dealer just 3kms round the corner and he only charges $18.00 a box or $170 a brick. The first bloke is losing customers hand over fist and carn't understand why

[Rick1970]

Got a Marlin 917V in 17HMR, found it liked Hornady 20gr XTP's. Didn't like any of the 17gr v-max stuff, wouldn't group better than 2" @ 50m.
Its now got about 500 or so rounds through it, and i shot off the last 17gr v-max (federal) i had this morning. Shot off two mags worth (14) quickly over a homemade rest on the back of the ute. Didn't expect much, but bugger me if there was only one shot that went outta a 1 1/2" circle @ 100m
Only mods to the rifle is a (slightly) lightened trigger, and i normally use 20gr XTP with good results on bunnies and foxes, tho may give the v-max another look now.

[zzsstt]

OK, I thought I'd have a quick go so I set up a target (textered cross on a piece of paper stapled to a fence post!) and had a go from a bipod on the back of the ute, using Federal, Hornady and Remington V-Max's.

Initial group was about 0.75", then I checked the parallax and discovered that the Leupold's range scale was way off - at 50m you need an indicated 85ish metres.

With a minute between shots, given a very variable cross wind, I could get under 0.375" groups (five holes touching). One thing I noticed was that the single time I took five quick shots the result was five touching holes in an almost vertical line, first shot at the bottom..........

Didn't seem to matter which ammo I used, but I didn't get time to try the TNT's.

[glenn asher]

I have an early Marlin, it will, after a lot of tinkering, average .6" with Hornady VMs. The best group I've gotten with it, was a .256" @ 100 yards. It won't shoot the hollow point loads as nearly as well, but it loves that original loading. I've hit prairie dogs at 250 yards with it, though I couldn't get a clean kill with it at that distance. I now limit it to 175 yards on prairie dogs, to be more humane.

All of the HMR loads, as most of you probably know, are loaded at CCI. They load all of it, just changing the bullets for whichever company is contracted for whichever lot they are running. It SHOULD all be the same, but sometimes it isn't. A Savage I had, would shoot everything right at 1", nothing better, nothing worse, it was much more forgiving about ammo choices. Still, I decided to keep the Marlin, when it's good, it's awfully good.

[zzsstt]

All of the HMR loads, as most of you probably know, are loaded at CCI. They load all of it, just changing the bullets for whichever company is contracted for whichever lot they are running. It SHOULD all be the same, but sometimes it isn't.

Glenn,

Do you know this for an absolute certainty, by which I mean have you been told it directly from an employee of one of the companies involved?

I have seen this posted on the net before, but I have equally been told by a gunsmith that one of the reps (Remington?) told him that it was rubbish and that the companies all make their own HMR ammo. He apparently said that there was some inital period during or immediately post development where it was all out of one factory, but this has now changed, although the V-Max projectiles are all from the same source.

Certainly all the cases have the stamps of the various companies on them, they are not all stamped CCI. I also noticed that the rumour that the V-Max tips are painted to suit is not true - if you disect one they are self coloured not painted (at least the Federal that I tried was).

[Easy Rollins]

I have a Savage Stainless /Synth,haven't shot it in ages.Must fix that soon.

[glenn asher]

The packaging is still, all the same as CCI, and that's still the story from a CCI employee who posts on rimfirecentral.com. I've heard the same from another poster who lives in Lewistown, ID, too (where CCI/Speer is located, it's a small town). I still assume that's the case, still.
I knew the tips were not painted, you can look at them and tell that the color goes all the way thru. I've been to the Hornady plant on two occasions, and seen a bullet press making V-Maxes, it's an awesome sight, spitting out a bullet at about one per second, running all by itself, at about 50K per day. One day's production could keep me pretty happy for several years
Hornady supplies Remington with it's AccuTip bullets, too, they are just V Maxes with another colored plastic tip (gold colored, or the older green ones, which probably got them in trouble with Sierra). All told, I suspect the Remington rep, who talked to your gunsmith, was the one spreading rubbish. I live very close to the Remington R&D plant in Elizabethtown, KY, and I've heard some silly things from Remington people, who hang around our local gunshops from time to time.

[glenn asher]

As far as headstamps go, that's easily changed during the manufacture of the ammunition. It's just a die stamp, it stamps the headstamp in forming process, before the priming compound is spun into the rim (centrifugal force). Change out the die stamp, and go with a new headstamp..
As far as some brands splitting case necks go, while my rifle doesn't do it, I've found all the different brands with split necks at the range I use, so it's not one brand, or one rifle. One of my friends has several HMRs and a couple of them will split a neck now and then, no particular rhyme or reason behind it, probably a bad lot of ammo or something.

[siacci]

I have a Ruger Timber/Blued. The scope is a VX1 4-12x40 which I use at 6X most of the time out to 150 metres. I have only use the Hornady VMAX pills. I have shot rabbits and foxes with it. I don't really like it as it doesn't kill as emphatically as the Tikka 223. Pill size obviously has a lot to do with that. It is good in areas where there are a lot of small farms and close to built up areas. This is the reason I keep it. The last fox I shot was whistled to 50 metres and he got a 3rd eye for his curiosity. On another fox I pulled the shot at 120 metres and lung shot it. It walked 10 metres and fell over, I had to finis it off with another shot. I have found it shoots very well for me off the bipod but I cant hit shit off hand. Yet I do all my fox shooting with the 223 offhand and don't often miss.

Maybe I just dont use it enough.

It is still worth having in the gun cupboard, but I may try a straight 6x40 as I dont Like the VX1 much. All my other scopes are VX2's.

Dave Saicci

[crowbuster]

G'day fellow 17hmr shooters, I have a CZ varmint 17hmr & agree with some of you that initial groups were disappointing after all the accuracy hype. I use the hornady 17 gn mostly and find it as good as any. I then had the barrel recrowned, trigger tuned & action epoxy bedded, and am now happy with it's performance. It's not the tack driver my 22/250 is but stiil good enuf to head shoot a fox at 100+ metres. The biggest game I have taken with it is a small goat, after dropping a few adult goats with my .243 I ran out of ammo, so used the 17 & nailed the little fella in the eye from about 25 metres. I have never seen anything fall down so quickly -very humane.....!
My favourite target with the 17 hrm is the humble crow. It's flat shooting & fragmenting projectile is ideal for ol' blackie....