Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Rimfires Ruger American 17HM2....

As I type these words, I have 2 boxes of 17HM2 ammo on the table next to me, 1 Eley brand and 1 Remington brand.

Both are 50-round black plastic boxes that are nearly identical, except for the labels.

The bottom of the Remington box has the following molded into the plastic: "Manufactured by Eley Limited, Minworth, B76 1BA, England".

The bottom of the Eley box has the same words molded into the plastic, plus "www.eley.co.uk", below them.

The Remington box has a label on the side that reads, in part, "MADE IN ENGLAND".

Both boxes have similar labels on one end that read. in part, "BIRMINGHAM CIP APPROVED". I don't have any idea what that means, but it appears on both boxes.

Deductive reasoning would lead one to believe that both boxes of ammunition were manufactured by Eley in England.

Fortunately, I still have around 2,000 rounds of both Eley and Remington on the shelf, plus about 5,000 rounds of CCI and about 4,000 rounds of mixed 15.5 and 17 grain Hornady.

If I ration myself to just 200 rounds per year, used exclusively for hunting fox squirrels, I'll still have Eley and Remington ammo on the shelf when I am not longer physically able to go afield. Since both CCI and Hornady are available on-line and regularly go on sale, they are my brands of choice for casual shooting and plinking.

I would agree that there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to rifles, ammunition, and accuracy potential.

That said, in my small sample of rifles chambered in 17HM2, 15 or 16, and Eley ammo from a single production lot, 4105-40073, I don't recall a single time that CCI or Hornady made better 5-shot groups than the Eley. As we all know, rimfire ammo can vary from production lot to production lot, not all are equally accurate, so maybe I just got lucky with this lot of Eley and less lucky with the multiple lots from CCI and Hornady.

I can only report on what I've seen and what I've seen is, as things are prone to be, different from what you've seen.

EDIT: One reason that I won't buy rimfire ammo from MIDWAYUSA anymore is their policy of breaking down cartons of rimfire ammo and packing/shipping it as individual boxes. Awhile back I ordered some Hornady 17HM2 from them and received 20 individually wrapped boxes that came from 3 different production lots. When I contacted MIDWAYUSA to ask why they didn't just pack and ship 2 cartons, I was told that they only sell rimfire ammo as individual boxes, even if the order is in carton size units.