Any love for the 17 HMR?

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My RAR Target doing what it excels at, sniping hyper-sensitive digger squirrels in the Hazelnut orchard. Flat shooting with minimal ricochet liability and responds well to suppression. 310 squirrels KIA so far this season.
That's a lot of tree rats
 
Might not be so much an issue now but I remember when the .22 drought was going on for a couple years (2013ish IIRC). I was still able to get my 500 round bricks of 17 grain vmax or the 20 grain CCI gamepoints with minimal looking and reasonable prices online.

As far as the NRL stuff goes what kind of distances are the steel targets at? I have cheap rimfire grade steel targets I got at academy that my 17 won't dimple past 75~100 yards. It obviously won't do anything to AR500 steel. Curious because I see a lot of guys mentioning that and I figure thats the reason why it's 22s only? Wouldn't mind getting into some of the NRL but I offloaded my 22s during the drought and after shooting a bunch of 17hmr I doubt I will go back unless it's exclusively for competition like the NRL stuff.
 
Might not be so much an issue now but I remember when the .22 drought was going on for a couple years (2013ish IIRC). I was still able to get my 500 round bricks of 17 grain vmax or the 20 grain CCI gamepoints with minimal looking and reasonable prices online.

As far as the NRL stuff goes what kind of distances are the steel targets at? I have cheap rimfire grade steel targets I got at academy that my 17 won't dimple past 75~100 yards. It obviously won't do anything to AR500 steel. Curious because I see a lot of guys mentioning that and I figure thats the reason why it's 22s only? Wouldn't mind getting into some of the NRL but I offloaded my 22s during the drought and after shooting a bunch of 17hmr I doubt I will go back unless it's exclusively for competition like the NRL stuff.

You can find the nrl22 course of fire here... http://nrl22.org/downloads/
The September course calls for targets from 25 to 100 yards.
 
I have shot the HMR quite a bit on prairie dogs, ground squirrels and badgers.

It’s excellent to 150 meters on the smaller stuff. Beyond 150 meters it is about done .

Never a good killer on badgers or coyotes unless very close.
 
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Was just out banging steel at 350 yards with my cz455 wearing the hmr barrel. Both the quad range in 22 and the 455hmr were a blast to shoot. Honestly the 22 was easier to hit the steel though, but the hmr was no slouch either.


Parire dogs out past 150 yards with the hmr is a blast, and just about to easy at times
 
I have a Savage 93R17 BTVS and a Ruger American Target in .17 HMR, a Savage B-mag in .17 WSM, and looking for a bolt gun in .17 HM2 to replace my Ruger 10/22 that was converted to .17 HM2 and became unreliable. I've shot thousand of sage rats with the HMR and hm2 which had replaced my Ruger M77/22 mag about 10 years ago. The laser accuracy of a good HM2 is hard to argue from 25-150 yds, the HMR is not that much better from 25-125, but beyond 125 out to 225 it flexes is muscle in my experience. The .17 WSM hit quite a bit harder than the HMR and it's accuracy appears to be similar.

The .22 LR just doesn't do much for me sage rat hunting. Too much time calculation/guesstimating hold-overs when targets abundant. It also wounds more than kills allowing the squirrel to hole up thus taking food away from the beneficiaries of our Raptor Feeding Program.

If I could only have one .17 it would be the .17 HMR. If I could only have two they would be the HM2 and WSM. Thankfully I can have 3+ because they are very fun, effective, and affordable to shoot.

At the range I shoot more .22 lr than anything else and thoroughly enjoy it. Ringing 10" round steel at 300 yds consistently with a suppressed .22 just makes me grin.

But if I could only have one rimfire it would be the .17 HMR.

My Ruger American .17 HMR in it's happy place:
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Does anyone sell a chassis for this rifle? Would like to make it more of a tactical look
 
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