Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Rimfires .17 HMR shortage has begun?

Those Gulag escapees are who ruined Colorado. Gut shoot 'em all.....

and the condors they rode in on....

Come to Michigan, we have PILES of that stuff. All makes and modles.

HE112: Rimfire ammunition has been in short supply for 20 months now!
But I will say this in my extensive travels and gunstore searching the 17 HMR ammo is the most available of the rimfires.
It literally FLIES off of the shelves here in the west this time of year (Colony Varminting season).
Of the 4 "stores" that sell ammunition in my town here in SW Montana they are all currently OUT of 17 HMR (and every other type of rimfire!) - but they all HAVE HAD 17 HMR ammo in the last 3 weeks.
If you are considering buying a rimfire with ammo availability as a critical criteria then the 17 HMR is THE best choice currently, IME.
Best of luck to you.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy
P.S.: I do take exception to your description/opinion that the 17 HMR is "only a 100 cartridge"!
I just got done hosting several Varmint Hunters from back east this last week.
They ALL had 17 HMR's along as did I - MANY kills on Ground Squirrels, Ravens, Rock Chucks, Jack Rabbits, Magpies and Badgers were made out past "100 yards"!
I lasered one of the Badger kills with my Leica laser rangefinder at 110 yards!
If you are familiar at all with Badgers you know they take a lot to bring to bag!
This big Badger was killed with one shot from a Volquartsen 17 HMR.
Flat country with no trees, shrubs etc is a little difficult to laser and our longest ranged kills on Ground Squirrels required the Hunter to go out to the kill and range back to his bench or vehicle - to obtain bragging rights.
We had several 17 HMR kills just beyond 200 yards on Gophers!

Varmintguy
It is now legal to take ravens, crows and magpies in Montana????

I know ravens and magpies are a federal charge..

But the reality is, Varmintgay probably never got off the couch.

Unbelievable....

Fred,

One thing I've seen over and over again is SOME people move to Montana to ignore game laws. Like Boone Caudill they feel too restricted in "civilization," so move Out West where they can supposedly kill anything they want.

In the 80's knew a guy who moved here from Pennsylvania, who always had some "rational" excuse to ignore fishing limits, not buy a bird license, or trespass to hunt anything. After a couple of years I quit fishing and hunting with him, because he was going to get caught and I would be there somewhere.

There's enough legal hunting and fishing in Montana for anybody who doesn't feel all freedom ceased after Lewis and Clark came through.

John
Couldn't agree with you more, although I have seen the same mentality in native Montanans, Vermonters, (Maine seemed to be the worst) and every other place I have lived.
And, to a man, they are enraged when they see someone that isn't a member of their hunting group breaking a law.

Besides guys, those birds all taste like spotted owl anyway. No good...

At my old Minnesota range the farthest we could shoot was 100 yards, at my new Texas location there is a 100, 200 and 300 yard backstop. All my rifles did well at 100 yards, the .17 HMR was scary accurate, used to hit bugs on the target paper. CCI even advertised a photo of this in their catalog from a photo sent in by their customer.

Once I started going to the 300 yard target several of my rifles just had trouble, inspired me to sell off a bunch and get my Mossberg .270 which thrives at distance. Mostly I got rid of the .17 HMR because I had other guns that could do the same and had better ammo maker sources like my .223, etc.

With the .17 HMR you have only one location/company in the world that makes it, just one, CCI of Idaho. If something should change, we are tough out of luck, wish Sellier and Bellot would go back to making it. Would be great if RWS, Eley, and Lapua, would get into the production, etc.

Winchester makes it as well.

Personally I'll be you'll see a shortage of 17 HMR for the rest of the year....and when it becomes 'available' again, you'll see the price of it being $19 to $20 a box, if not higher...

manufacturers are sure benefitting financially from all of this 'ammo shortage', as the price of ammo, components etc, sure has taken a climb in price.....

and the old "supply and demand".. can also be created by manufacturers and distributors, to jack up prices...

just like the 'oil shortages' back in the early 70s by the Oil Companies... claimed we had a shortage, while ships sat off the US coast for 3 to 4 months, because they couldn't dock to unload their cargo, because all the storage tanks were " full"...yet supposedly we had a fuel shortage....

suddenly when they had jacked the prices up 70 to 80%, suddenly fuel as "available" again

I started purchasing 22 RF ammo in 1948 and started reloading ammo in 1953. At times there have ben some short supply of reloading components that I wonted but nothing like the past few years when some rim fire and center ammo has ben available in limited supplies. I started purchasing rim fire ammo by the box and as I got older by the brick. Since retiring by the case before the shortage and price increases. Plague and poison has reduced the prairie dog population in the area I live so there is less shooting now then there was five years ago. I have an ample supply of 17 HM2 and 17 HMR ammo and also 22 RF and 22 WMR ammo. I stopped using the 22 RF and 22 WMR rifles for spring p dog shooting because the 17 rim fire cartridges are far better rounds. I use the 17 HMR for shots out to about 150 yards and switch to 17 and 204 center fire rifles for some longer shots. I don't know how available the 17 HMR ammo will be but for spring p dog shooting but try out a rifle if you can.

As mentioned by one other poster "Winchester."

I know I have Remingtons downstairs.


I think it is 17 HORNADY Magnum Rimfire.

The Hornady part of that equation is alive and well in Nebraska..........

poco lolo ranko: The day you get out and do ONE TENTH as much in the outdoors as I do, you might attain status to critique someone!
Til then ESAD there you punk turd!
When was the last time anyone was prosecuted for killing nest robbing (game bird killing!) birds here in Montana?
In the past I have had more than one Montana game warden and a biologist imply directly to me that our game birds and song birds would be a lot better off without as many Magpies, Crows and Ravens about!
One of the ranches we Hunted this spring had 7 newborn calves that had an eye pecked out by Ravens!
The owner of that ranch pleaded with us to shoot and run off any and all Ravens and Crows thereabouts.
Again, poco lolo ranko, even if you knew HALF as much as you thought you do, you are not in a position to criticize anyone!
Get back to your one handed typing there turd person!
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Varminguy, I am like you on the ranches that I do predator control in Montana when those unnamed birds show up they are just another target. I like it when the wind is blowing because I get to let the feathers fly.

#8933317 - 06/09/14 09:22 PM Re: .22LR [Re: Blacktail53]
There will be a fabricated shortage of .17 cal next so they can get those prices up. Think about it, in some places .17 is just as cheap as .22's.
_________________________
Don't mess with me, I'm too old to fight, too fat to run, so I going to have to kill you.

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I made this comment a while back and people told me it wouldn't happen