.17 HMR

oklahomaman · Post by **oklahomaman** » Tue Apr 15, 2003 6:23 am

When the .17HMR 1st came out, a fellow club member showed up with one chambered in a T/C Contender rifle. I looked at his 50yd groups that were about the size of a nickle and his 100yd groups that were in the 1"-2" range, not very impressive. He handed me the rifle and I sat down and shot about a 1.5" 100yd target and thanked him and handed it back. Not impressed at all!

Sunday morning I was at the club before sunrise trying to get a wind-free morning to test .22LR ammo and another fellow was there shooting a T/C Encore with a Bullberry .17HMR barrel on it. I swung my benchrest gun around and checked his 50yd and 100yd targets, exactly the same as the ones were a year or two ago. I just went on about my business. After a while he came over and showed me a CCI .17 HMR HP that has just came out and that he hadn't tried yet. The hollow point was huge for such a tiny bullet. I grabbed a gallon jug of water out of the truck and set it on his 100yd berm for a little testing.

Right off, he started talking about how accurate this stuff was shooting but I didn't bother to look. A few more minutes go by and he says he is ready to shoot the water jug so I swing my target rifle around to watch. I really wasn't expecting much but when he fired, that gallon jug jumped about 2 feet into the air and disappeared over the berm. We walked out to look and found the .17 caliber entrance hole and on the opposite side, it was completely ripped and sheared from bottom to neck and not a bullet fragment in sight. I was impressed with that!

He then started pointing out targets, the Hornady ammo targets were the standard 2" group and then he pointed at the next target which had 5 shots in about a 3/8" group! I was very surprised! We then walked back and he grabbed his 50yd target and it had a .22 caliber hole with a .17 caliber hole almost touching it. He then explained that the .22 hole was 4 .17's and the last .17, the one not in the same hole was his own fault from being so flustered by the previous 4 going into one hole.

I'm going to have to rethink my opinion of the .17HMR now. It looked pretty lame at first but the groups that fellow was shooting Sunday sure opened my eyes. The effects it showed on the gallon water jug definitely put it into the short range coyote class which from what I have read, the .17HMR is not supposed to be able to achieve.

oklahomaman.

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