Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Rimfires Why I gave up the .22mag.

Very interesting thread. Don't know anything about short barreled handguns but have shot thousands of rounds of 22Mag and 17HMR at varmints.

Every now and then I go back to Saskatchewan to do some gopher hunting. For many years I tried various centerfires but my CZ Lux in 22 Magnum worked so well out to 125-150 yards that I stopped using bigger guns. The 22WMR had excellent terminal effects out to 100 yards (read splatter) I found Win 40 grain HP's to be as good as anything else printing into 1.25MOA or better.

Finally found a 17HMR CZ for trade on a CZ 22LR and grabbed it. It's really something. it's an easy 40-50 yard improvement over the 22 Mag. One thing it doesn't do quite as well as the 22WMR is splatter gophers. The little 17 grain bullet is close...but doesn't quite make it to 22WMR for splatter factor.

I do however shoot about 3 rounds of 17HMR for every round of Magnum. Hits are just a bit easier. The 22LR.... results in lots of crawl aways. Never use it.

The likely reason that this thread went South is that the original author made a blanket statement about the inferiority of the 22Mag over the 22LR. Fired in a 1" smooth bore barrel this might have some validity. As a general statement it does not.