Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Predators and Varmints 223 vs the 17 HMR for fun factor...

Jim..I agree with your post as well, handloading used to be a hobby, it is now a chore..
My problem is I like the shooting end too much, and have come up with pretty much the same figures you did for costs, and have batted that argument around with myself, and others....
But the bottom line is I like any of the little guns that go bang, so I settled it by just shooting BOTH!

As you said so cryptically...its all good!

Ingwe

Handloading is a family value at my home.. not a chore...

it keeps me out of the wife's hair...

and she is happy I am busy doing something.. instead of complaining to her about how she is married to the damn TV and it being the center of her social life...

I like being busy.. she loves sitting on her fanny in front of the TV not doing a darn thing...

so see, it is a family value...

If you say so..

I like the HMR a lot. I think of it as a .22 hornet I don't have to reload. And, unlike my centerfires, I'm not that anal about cleaning my HMR thoroughly at the end of the day.

If I'm going out on a Sunday to shoot, I have to come home early enough to get my centerfire clean before I go to bed which can take a couple hours. Gotta get up by 4:30 for work which means being asleep by 8:30, which means being home by 5:30 to get chow and clean gun. Which means leaving the killing fields by about 4:00 or 4:30 just when the fun is starting to pick up.

Or I take the HMR, shoot 'til 7:00, put my foot into the skinny pedal, grab a cheeseburger on my way into town, have it choked down before I get home, throw my day pack and HMR on the floor and roll into bed.

Almost 3 additional hours of shooting. HMR has a purpose!!

Another angle is, if I feel like hiking in, ammo is a lot lighter and I'm not trying to save my brass, so the empties can go down a squirrel hole where they're not an eyesore (might puzzle some archeologist of the far future, but that ain't my problem), the ammo boxes can go in the first unburned slash pile I find so they go up in smoke .. etc. Major convenience factor there.

Finally, I like packing a 2nd rifle. Twice a couple years ago I drove 2 hours to a shooting spot, burned a bunch of ammo, then had a primer pierce and destroyed the trigger. The first time I finished the day leaving the action open, then putting the safety on, only chambering a round when the sights were pretty on-target, and firing by taking the safety off which dropped the firing pin. Not ideal. Interesting, but not ideal. The second time I happened to have a 16-1/4" TC carbine barrel in .32 mag with a Weaver 2.5X disassembled and stowed in my pack. I put that together and shot another 30-odd diggers. Good day. So ... I learned. 2nd rifle is a good plan. There is nothing that sucks worse than having to drive home mid-day with a busted gun and no more shooting. And the HMR fits in a gun rug with 4-5 boxes of ammo really well.

Which is not to say I'm giving up my centerfire any time soon. I love big splat. .204, Swift, 6x.284, etc. But some days small splat will do.

One thing you do that I don't think I'll ever get into is the reduced loads thing. It sounds interesting, but there are too many other things to do first!

Tom

You CLEAN your centerfires??? More than once a YEAR? Wow, dude, life is way too short for such. My 222 and 223's will shoot under a 1/2 inch all spring and summer long, THEN I will spend about 15 minutes with some foul out and Butch's bore shine and a bore snake. A topper of a smidgen of light oil and we are good until the following spring.

lol.. I've got a guy in another thread telling me I'm horribly abusing my rifles for not scrubbing the bore after every 20 shots.

Seafire,
I agree with alot of what you post, and you love to champion the cause "shoot shotgun powder instead of rifle powder for a reduced load............".

But to just put a different spin on things if I want a reduced load for my 223.... I will use my 222 Remington.
If I want to reduce my load further I will use my 221 Fireball.
If I want to reduce my load further I will use a 22 Hornet.
If I want to reduce my load further I will use a 22WMR.
If I have left over Blue Dot I will use it most likely in a shotgun.

My point is if you have a date with the "Prom Queen"(223Remingon) Why dress her up as a "Crack Ho"(22Hornet)and put a bag on her face.
why not just buy a 22 hornet in the first place.
B

Well Boat Anchor, ACTUALLY given the volocity ranges of his Blue dot loads, Seafire is getting Fireball velocities, if I am not mistaken. So since he handloads ,he has no need for a Fireball.

Period.

I don't know of any rifle chambered in .221 Fireball that is not chambered in .223 as well. Fireball brass costs about 40% more than .223 and is harder to find. If you are going to shoot .223 reloads anyway, the only change is the powder, to get the same performance.

But then again ,all this is MOOT since the thread was about reduced .223 loads vs 17HMRs.

BoatAnchor..

I have to admit..

I don't own a 222, or a 22 Hornet or a 221 Fireball...but do own several 22 Mags..

however with all the 223s I have, I have brass that fits them all, yet at the load bench.. I can have a 222, 22 hornet or a 221 Fireball...

I don't do this to get into competition with anyone of what is better...

My use for Blue Dot in the 223, is for high volume shooting.. there is a lot of advantages..

of course if I was only shooting a few rounds in a day at rock chucks or ground hogs.. I wouldn't bother with it at all..

I also develop all of these loads for versatility with ONE cartridge ( and duplicate it with the 22.250 also!)

22 hornet or 218 Bee provide excellent velocity for high volume sage rat shooting... but 223 brass is more plentiful and available.. as are 223 rifles..

Flexibility and economy are my two major factors of working with these loads..

stationary varminters, I run loads with 55 grainers running at 2800 fps..

on a walking varminter in 223, 2400 fps works more than fine..thinner barrel, lower charge takes longer to heat up..etc...

I don't advocate replacing regular 223 loads with these lighter loads... but I advocate the lighter loads can offer versatility to a fire arm...

Please tell me more about this dual chambering concept

He meant, I am sure, that rifles available in 221 can also be purchased in 223. Mostly true I suppose. I load everything I have up to max speeds and go down in chambering or cartridge class as needed which gave me the excuses I needed to buy the wonderful SAKO riihimaki 222 that has now graced my safe for a decade or so and to play with a myriad of 22 MAgnum and 17HMR rifles over that same span. No more 17RF's in my collection, just accurate 22 MAgnums and LR rimfires.

Yeah, definitely. I "never" put a centerfire back in the safe dirty. It may not matter with relatively low performance ... say 3300 fps or less? ... cartridges but when you start running up 4000 and beyond, copper buildup can hammer accuracy, at times it can even initiate bullet jacket failure.

Extreme examples:

My great grandfather had an old Winchester 95 in .30-40 Krag. He got really mad at me 'cause I "ruined" it. It hadn't been cleaned in 40 years and he was sure it wouldn't shoot straight after I cleaned the barrel.

OTOH, I had a .17 Remington TC Contender barrel that shot just under .75 MOA when clean, but between rounds 15 and 17, accuracy fell off a cliff. It suddenly became a 2 to 2.5 MOA rifle.

Each gun is different. If your gun remains accurate enough and you're comfortable with leaving it dirty, I'm not going to tell you not to, but on the other hand, I'm not planning to join you.

I guess I should have put MODEL OF RIFLE .. in the sentence.

And I stand by that.

Shooting sage rats or whistle pigs as I call em, with a 17HMR almost isn't in the same ball park as a 22 centerfire, Hornet included, for terminal results. Good 22 Mag ammo comes closer but still falls short. At least this is my experience. No expert here but have, use, and own, all of the above.
That said, we still shoot far more with a 22LR than all the other's combined

As far as cleaning goes, for the last couple of years I've been using a foam cleaner "wipe out" with excellent results. Just a patch or so after the foam does it's job. Has to be much easier on the bore or so it would seem. I never did like the idea of running a rod back and forth through my rifles bore dozens of times like some seem to do.

700LH: You ARE right about the 17 HMR and 22 centerfires NOT being the same!
Thats obvious.
And comparing a rimfire to a centerfire is NOT practical or useful in terminal results OR in ballistics.
What MANY fail to mention is the CONVENIENCES of the rimfires over the centerfires!
I Hunt Varmints with many Hunters who do NOT reload!
They (and I and many reloaders!) LOVE the 17 HMR.
Compare the costs per round of 17 HMR ammo with factory loaded ammunition for your favorite centerfire Varminter someday - now theres a comparison!
THAT is a more apples to oranges comparison as opposed to the apples to grapefruit comparison of dangerous squib loads in a centerfire vs the safety and convenience of factory loaded 17 HMR ammunition!
I go through MANY thousands of rounds of rimfire ammunition (22 LR, 17 Mach2 and 17 HMR!) in a year and the time and tedium that saves me in not having to handload those MANY thousands of centerfire rounds is WORTH it to me!
In spades.
Plus I Hunt several farms/ranches where centerfire rounds are not allowed for Varminting - rimfire ammunition is perfect for these situations and extending the "fun factor"!
And, I also must "settle" for 22 L.R. ammo for much of my Ground Squirrel Hunting - its still FUN and I learn a lot from the use of this tiny but accurate round.
I had three friends out last week from the west coast - we were Hunting Ground Squirrels, Badgers, Weasels Rabbits and other assorted Varmints.
Along on the Hunt were 12 Rifles (not counting mine!) and they came in calibers including 22 LR, 17 Mach2, 17 HMR, 218 Bee, 204 Ruger and 223 Remington.
90% of the rounds fired on this 6 day Hunt by my friends were 17 HMR rounds!
My friends ended up with a kill count (kept by me on a thumb clicker!) of 2,965 Ground Squirrels, alone!
One of the Hunters had to return to town twice to buy more 17 HMR ammo!
When traveling and the "shootin" gets good - the factory 17 HMR ammo and its availability ADDS to the "fun factor"!
No time or place to reload centerfires need be planned for when use the highly fun, accurate and lethal 17 HMR!
Plus the quiet report of the 17 HMR will NOT put down Colony Varmints any where near the degree that centerfire 223 ammo DOES!
That adds to the "fun factor".
Plus the absolute absence of recoil with the 17 HMR allows the shooter to ascertain the point of impact of his bullets and this adds to the "fun factor" as compared to the relatively significant recoil and muzzle blast of centerfires (including the 223!).
Again, you ARE correct about the 17 HMR NOT being in the same ball park as the 22 centerfires - but it IS in a ball park I would rather be in for much of my Varminting!
By the way we made shots on Varmints this past week with the 17 HMR out to Leica and Zeiss lasered ranges of 240 yards!
DON'T sell the 17 HMR short - its a fantastic cartridge in MANY ways and instances.
And its safer and more convenient than 22 centerfires - is it not?
Long live the 17 rimfires!
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy