johnw,
The 20-grain Gamepoint is designed for people who want to shoot edible game with the .17 HMR, but works for larger varmints too. The bullet's both tougher and slower than other .17 HMR loads, so results in less meat damage.
The hollow-point loads, as somebody already noticed, don't expand as violently on small varmints like ground squirrels and prairie dogs as the plastic-tips. The HP's also don't shoot as flat, and drift more in the wind, than plastic-tips.
As Travis noted, the CCI A17 ammo for the Savage A17 autoloader (a plastic-tip 17-grain) is noticeably higher velocity than the standard 17-grain plastic tip load. The published ballistics say its only 100 fps faster (2650 fps vs. 2550) but that must be in the autoloader. In bolt actions it averages around 250-300 fps faster, which makes a noticeable difference both in trajectory and splat-factor. In my CZ 452 the A17 shoots to exactly the same place at 100 yards as the standard 17-grain ammo, with the same accuracy, but is a LOT flatter at 200, and drifts noticeably less in the wind as well.
The downside is the A17 stuff is usually more expensive. I generally shoot the A17's at prairie dogs and the standard-velocity plastic tips at ground squirrels, since PD's are larger and usually shot at longer ranges.
John,
Agreed on all the above.
A question- does Winchester in fact load their own 17HMR or does CCI even load those as well?
