i am thinking of buying a 17HMR,in a savage bolt action. will this gun shoot one of the other 17cal?? and what are the differences in this caliber?? thanks

i am thinking of buying a 17HMR,in a savage bolt action. will this gun shoot one of the other 17cal?? and what are the differences in this caliber?? thanks

There are a few .17-caliber options out there. .17Rem, .17HM2, and .17HMR all come to mind. First and foremost: THEY ARE NOT INTERCHANGEABLE. Let me repeat that: THEY ARE NOT INTERCHANGEABLE.

.17Rem is an older cartridge with insane ballistics: 20gr at 4200fps. This is probably one of the fastest centerfire cartridges on the market, and will pretty much vaporize small targets. It's a centerfire round.

.17HM2 is a rimfire round based on the .22LR MiniMag cartridge. It's a bit cheaper to shoot than the HMR, but also has much lower ballistics - about 60% the speed, IIRC. It's faster than a .22, but not much more powerful because of the trade-off in weight (17gr instead of 36-40gr).

.17HMR is what you're probably looking at, and is a nice balance. It's a little pricey to plink with, at $12-15/box, but it's phenomenally accurate and pure murder on small game. The tiny bullet (17 or 20gr) is ripping along at about 2500fps. From a halfway decent rest my Savage will print 50yd cloverleafs all day long. They are, however, very sensitive to crosswinds - a 10mph breeze will knock things off by an inch or two at that same 50yd.

I love the Savage rifles, and think they're probably the best bang for the buck. .17HMR is a great small game cartridge. Just don't try to load one of the others in it!

Marlin rifles are good as well, if you want another option other than Savage. Not to take anything away from Savage mind you. These two are the best two shooting brands out there for the money as for rim fire bolt actions.

Zercool,

Good report!

Might also mention the .17 Fireball, a centerfire that makes more sense than the .17 Remington.

Good shooting.

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Good shooting.

Actually wasn't aware of the .17 Fireball - there are always a few more calibers out there. Time to do some research!

17m2 has an advertised velocity of 2150fps. the 17hmr is 2550fps according to my information, about a 20% gain for the 17hmr. the 17m2 will kill squirrels out to 100yds with ease. twice the cost of 17hmr ammo over the 17m2 doesn't justify the velocity gain in my opinion.

Matter of preference. A bullet that tiny gets hammered pretty hard by the wind, and the faster it's down range, the less it'll be affected.

Also, HMR is easy to find in my area, HM2 isn't.

Last but not least, I don't know where you're buying ammo, but prices I've seen are $7/box for HM2 and $10/box for HMR ... it's worth the premium to me; as I said, it's not a plinking round.

I own a Savage 93R17 GV (17HMR) that I bought new in 2004, and during that time frame, 17 HMR's were hard to come by. The Marlin guns were back ordered thru the factory, so I decided to try out a Savage rifle, which was available.
I had the trigger worked over to the tune of $25 bucks, and 1-1/2 pounds pull. Outfitted with a 6-24x target scope, she can take out a chipmunk at 150 yards, shooting off a rest.

Hope this helps with Your decision!

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It is....what it is!

zercool, i agree with you on the preference part but not the price. what i see is 17m2 around 7.50 a box and 17hmr over 13.00

Just double-checked...

MidSouth Shooter's has HM2 for $6, and HMR for $10.

I should order another thousand sometime soon.

One of the other advantages to the HMR is a wider bullet selection - 17gr or 20gr, ballistic tips, JHP, and FMJ. I've only seen HM2 in the ballistic tips.

i wanted to thank everyone for their input. i can always depend to find my answers here.great place to be,thanks.

So which one did you get??!?