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John I believe my AI Hornet was only running 3100 fps, very mild. I sold that rifle many years ago and put it out of my mind then when the new wave of .17 Hornet interest came around I was surprised to see the reported velocities. I just never pushed mine hard, but apparently I was leaving a lot on the table.
The bullets that shot best for me were the 25 gr Rem HP and the 20 gr with red tip, V max I assume. I killed quite a few coyotes with it as well, some spectacular throat shots and instant kills but some terrible disasters too. Death-by-a-thousand-cuts type kills. Maybe if I had pushed it harder the results would have been different? At any rate, I had a Sako Vixen .222 magnum barrel set back and rechambered to .221 Fireball so the Hornet became less critical to my success.

In the back of my mind I always wondered if the .17 Fireball would have been the one. The thing I needed when I built the .17 Hornet was a QUIET round for calling coyotes in settled areas. It not only worked on the neighbor issue, it worked on coyotes that were gunshy when they heard my 22-250 blasting away. I was calling and killing multiples like never before, seemed to not alarm the coyotes at all. It just makes a pop, kind of like a noise you'd hear on a farm every day. Chain clattering, truck door slamming, tractor backfiring, etc. But it wasn't the best round for killing coyotes in the heat of a fast calling session. Shots had to be just right for quick kills, and I'm not that cool calm and collected.

Do you think from my description above I would have gained anything with a .17 Fireball over the .17 Hornet for what I did?


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The difference between them in the field is so small so almost unnoticeable when using the same bullets.
Except the fact that one heats up a barrel about twice as quick as the other, of course burning about twice the powder, it's obvious why.
After seeing 20 gr. v-max fail to fully penetrate full grown prairie dogs from time to time, it's easy for me to see the hornet lacks the umphh needed to kill coyotes reliably. On The other hand, load a fireball with 25 gr. hp's and it would do quite well on coyotes.


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You wouldn't have gained a lot from the .17 Fireball--but maybe not as much, since the .17 Hornet's a little quieter.

The bullet situation hasn't changed vastly, but there's a little more selection. Nosler getting into .17's with their Varmageddon line helped, but what would really be great (especially for larger varmints) is a .17 caliber Ballistic Tip or two. The heavy base helps them penetrate deeper, but all Ballistic Tips are boattails, and very few .17's are--which may be why there isn't a .17 Ballistic Tip!

Until relatively recently, powders were the problem with all the Hornet-based rounds. Basically, the powders that burned slowly enough to get higher velocity were too bulky to get enough in the case, and the smaller-granuled powders were too fast-burning. These days there's a wider range of suitable powders. I usually use Accurate 1680--which Hornady's manual lists as the powder getting the highest velocity with 20-grain bullets, 3750 fps from a 24" barrel. In the 22" barrel of my CZ, 12.0 grains of 1680 (.4 grain under the Hornady max) gets 3600 with the 20-grain V-Max and 3680 with the 20-grain Tipped Varmageddon. The V-Max groups a tiny bit better but the Varmageddon shoots a tiny bit flatter. In reality I can't tell the difference in the field, since they both shoot to exactly the same place at 100 yards.

But several other powders also work well. Both Accurate 2200 and LT-30 get around 3500 with 20's, and H4198 gets 3600. With 25's, Accurate 2200 gets 3100, and since the standard twist for the .17 Hornet is 1-9, it also stabilizes the 30-grain Berger. In my rifle H322 gets 2900 with the 30, and very fine accuracy. That might be the bullet for bigger varmints, but I mostly use my .17 Hornet for rodents.


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I find the .17 Hornet intriguing, couple of questions (off track a little, sorry) First, what is the noise like in a sporter rifle? .223 loud or 22 loud? Curious because much of my shooting happens is semi-urban areas where a rimfire goes unnoticed but a centerfire gets people looking around. Second, in the end is the .17 Hornet a lot better/enough better than the .17HMR rimfire to be worth reloading, etc? I currently regard the .17HMR as the best semi-urban rock chuck slayer I have ever tried. And last, what rifles is it even available in? Thanks.

Last edited by centershot; 05/23/17.

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centershot,

The report's between a .17 HMR and .223, but to me closer to the HMR, not surprising because of the small hole and using about half as much powder as a .223.

It's also definitely more than the .17 HMR on animals. I use the .17 HMR with the A17 ammo to open festivities on prairie dog towns, because while it will reach out to 200 yards the report's mild enough not to spook every PD within sight. But after all the dogs within 200 are either shot or down their holes, I get out the .17 Hornet because it's good to 300+ yards, and doesn't just kill them like the .17 HMR but often lifts them a foot or two.

Dunno what other models it's available in but mine is a CZ American, which they still offer, and I believe CZ also chambers at least one other rifle for it as well. Mine's very accurate, and I also like the single-set trigger, which breaks at 9 ounces when set.


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Doesn't take much more than a look at muzzle velocities to see that there is quite a margin between the hornet and hmr. About 1000 fps, depending on load. Zeroed at 100 yards the hmr will drop about 8" at 200 yards where as the hornet can hit a bit over an inch at 100 and hit zero at 200 yards. The hornet is available in CZ, Ruger, Cooper, to name a few.
You can reload the hornet for way less than you can buy hmr ammo. Very economical to reload for the hornet.

I sold my hmr a few years ago. It just underwhelmed me, once I got the hornet.


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TRnCO,

Well, you can handload .17 Hornets for "way less" than the .17 HMR if you use inexpensive hollow-points, but as I noted above, 20-grain HP's do not shoot nearly as flat, and drift a lot more in the wind, than 20-grain plastic tips, whether the V-Max or Tipped Varmageddon. If handloading plastic-tips in the .17 Hornet, it's hard to beat the price of HMR's. Also, the newer A17 ammo for the Savage semiauto .17 HMR usually gets around 2850-2900 fps in bolt actions. This ups the performance of the .17 HMR considerably, since it comes very close to the .17 WSM in performance.

I also live where about half the "small rodent" varmint shooting is Columbian or Richardson's ground squirrels, which are rarely shot beyond .,17 HMR range--which is why I've never even considered giving up my .17 HMR, and with the advent of A17 ammo am even happier.

But I also spend enough time handloading all sorts of other cartridges that it doesn't make sense to handload when I don't have to--and with the .17 HMR I don't have to for a BUNCH of my rodent shooting.


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I must say I'm intrigued about these bitty .17's, but with the paucity of gophers, prairie dogs, and ground squirrels around here I don't know what I would use one on. How do they perform on gnarly tough old groundhogs? I guess I could load one down to very mild velocities and use it on edible gray squirrels along with all the other squirrel killing machines in my arsenal. Coyotes are showing up in my environs but keep mightily to themselves and/or hide out behind suburban neighbor's houses. Transient black bears?


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gnoahhh,

Have killed enought "grarly tough old groundhogs" with various cartridges in the East (along with rockchucks in the West) to have full confidence in the .17 Hornet out to 250-300 yards.

In my CZ 527, 7.0 grains of 5744 gets around 2100 fps with 20-grain bullets, with head-shot squirrel accuracy out to 100 yards. With hollow-points (which are less explosive than plastic-tips) it works fine for small game. Essentially it's a centerfire version of the .17 Mach 2.


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I'm sold. Now to find someone to re-barrel a 22 Hornet for me.


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I wasn't aware of the newer higher velocity hmr ammo. offerings.
But I just bought another 400 20 gr. v-max bullets for $14./100. I use lil'gun powder at 9.5 grs. I figure a 100 rounds if I just get 6 reloads out of a case, cost me around $20. Don't think you can buy hmr ammo. that cheap, but then again, I haven't shopped for hmr ammo for some time, so I could be all wet.


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I only buy .17 HMR's on sale, because already have a bunch. Haven't paid over $11/50 for a long time, with a low of $9, so they've probably averaged around $20/100. Just saw some A17 ammo for $44/200 today on an Internet site, but passed, guessing it might go lower. It costs a little more than standard ammo, but I only used it on prairie dogs, not ground squirrels, where the regular stuff works just as well.

One of the reasons .17 HMR is reasonably cheap is popularity: Manufacturers can make big batches.


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I finally got my CZ out to the dog town behind the house.

My friend has one as well and we did quite a good lick of business on them. We found that we really had to pay attention to which way the dust drifted after the first miss......payed better attention after the second and third miss!

Pretty pleased with the gun and cartridge. Cheap to shoot. Cheaper to reload.

No recoil and pretty quiet. Noticeably quieter than the .221's we had with us.

I dont have a .17 HMR, but my hunting partner does. And he likes the Hornet better.


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Still like the idea of a 17 fireball, but reading that they heat up much faster and use twice the powder hmmm...


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Jim,

An older friend of mine came to Montana for his first prairie dog shoot last year, bringing his only suitable rifle, a .22-250. A lot of people unacquainted with PD shooting bring a .22-250, but like most he found it kicked too much, the barrel really heated up quickly, and he didn't get to observe the immediate results of most of his shots--partly because he's old enough that he had a hard time seeing dogs, even through binoculars, at much over 150 yards. Of course, I'd brought a bunch of other rifles, including a .17 HMR, .17 Hornet, .22 Hornet and .204 Ruger, and he shot them all as well.

He's coming again next month, and bought himself a .17 HMR, since out to as far as he can see PD's mine worked very well--and he doesn't handload. Of course, he'll also be shooting some of my other rifles again. :-)


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That sounds like a good compromise. Might as well not tote a super magnum hell blaster if you cant see that far anyway.

We found that anything past 400 hundred yards was a lucky hit if it was first round. Hell, much past 300 was lucky most of the time.

I might have had a better average if I had my 25-06 AI with me on the long ones, but the 17 Hornet was a lot of fun.


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I've hunted PD's with many superb shooters, including world-record benchresters, top military snipers, and long-range target shooters. None have been able to hit dogs more often than they miss 'em beyond about 350 unless it's close to dead calm--which is rare on the high plains!


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We actually had a lot of fun trying to figure out the wind.

We were shooting off a card table from bipods.....not very steady to begin with. Shooting north, up a slope with what appeared to be a steady north north east wind.

Often three consecutive shots with three different wind holds produced three different dust clouds. We had the best luck just holding a bit high for the first round and making wind adjustments with the next round.


No vegetation to watch sway in the breeze for a make shift wind flag!


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I'm familiar with that "wind condition!"


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