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CZ
Mar 15, 2010 22:48:55 GMT -5
Post by Purebred Redneck on Mar 15, 2010 22:48:55 GMT -5
Twomoons, a ground hog is a woodchuck. When the 17 rf's first came out, there were a lot of reports if the 17's not stopping a woodchuck- too many reports to ignore. Having hunted woodchucks daily in my younger years, and killed umpteen gazillion of them, I feel qualified to say that a woodchuck is a very tough critter, given his size. They can carry a lot of lead down their burrows, to die later. More recently, I've talked to a woodchuck hunter I know to be a good shot- he's abandoned the 17 HMR as not enough gun for clean kills on woodchucks. I'm not trying to start a fight- but I just don't see it as enough gun for woodchucks. For the smaller pd's, and even smaller ground squirrels, I think the 17 rf's would be great. I would agree with most of that, though I haven't killed many groundhogs. I'm more of an opportunist who can't resist groundhogs, coons, opposums, or anything else that might cross paths with me when no one's looking ;D But these larger animals are in a total different catagory than small game in regards to toughness. I almost have to lump the 22lr, 17hm2, and 17hmr all together in equal effectiveness...or sometimes lack there of. A bit ago, we compared the 22lr and 17hmr on squirrel and how the 17hmr was capable of tremendous damage. On the larger varmints, I think the same comparison is with the 17hmr and a centerfire 22cal. The centerfire is going to do so much more damage in terms of wound channel, shcok, and just overall weakening the animal to the point it has no other option other than to just lay there hardly able to move at all.
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bounce
Royal Member
Posts: 5,727
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CZ
Mar 16, 2010 5:30:08 GMT -5
Post by bounce on Mar 16, 2010 5:30:08 GMT -5
We realy don't have ground hogs hear to have any experance killing them, but on my experance with possom or coon ect. a .17 HRM will just mush all their vitals,but don't nessasaraly bleed and when you roll them over they much like a water ballon. So if a ground hog some how gets back in it's hole at least it's buryed as to stinking the air. jmo
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CZ
Mar 16, 2010 7:22:36 GMT -5
Post by jmarriott on Mar 16, 2010 7:22:36 GMT -5
Here is my grip one the 17 HMR. I had a 17 rem and had copper and moly fouling issues. I got it because of fur friendly pelts for fox and coyotes. The bullet would go in and not exit. Mainly they just dropped dead. Was nice on groundhogs also. I only had one shoulder shot on a coyote that exploded without penetration and that was a mess. The 17 was a great gun for 7 shots or less and then required a 1 hour scrubbing of the barrel to shoot 5 shots again. Never could figure it out and got out of it and into a 222 rem and never had a fouling problem again.
Thje 17 rem went in and exploded. the 17 hmr seems to explode on impact or just inside. and still blows out the backside of foxes. How with less powder that the 17 rem is the RED MIST FACTOR so prevalent on the 17 hmr. I know bullet construction has improved since I got my 17 rem in the 1980's. I have seen two foxes shot with a 17 hmr that looked like reds tree rats. A nice 2 inch hole on the backside of the fox lungs. My 17 rem traveling faster into the fox would not have and exit wound just on .17 hole on the entrance side.
I just can't seem to figure that one out. I can use the TNT speer bullets in the .222 for coyotes and they still exit the coyote 50% of the time. Now that i got a handloading equipment maybe I can get the .222 to act like the 17 rem. One little hole in and explode with no exit hole.
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CZ
Mar 16, 2010 8:19:43 GMT -5
Post by jimh on Mar 16, 2010 8:19:43 GMT -5
with the .17 HMR it is all about ammo selection, or bullet type selection. the game points (and there is another name for them) are tougher, will penetrate a lot more and exit on just about anything you would consider useing the 17 for at 100 yrds or less. then there are the medium tough bullets, will expand a lit more and if you put it into large bone area will fragment, and they make some that are very frangable, those would not exit on a fox but it you hit them in the shoulder you can throw that pelt away. just like anything else you need to select the bullet type for the job/prey and your intended and desired results.
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CZ
Mar 16, 2010 8:21:09 GMT -5
Post by jimiowa on Mar 16, 2010 8:21:09 GMT -5
I admit to having no use for a 17 rimfire. But the 17 centerfire is a whole different story! I would really like to have a 17 Ackley Hornet. As J Marriot says the 17 Remington got a lot of bad press for fouling. But bullet construction and cleaning techniques have improved greatly and that is pretty much a thing of the past. In fact bad mouthing the 17 Remington is strictly forbidden on the Coyote Gods Forum. As far as making the .222 perform like a 17 Remington, yeah maybe to a degree. Bullet performance will always be a little iffy and I think you will find it sometimes sucessful and ocassionally it will just plain blow the hell out of a pelt. the Hornet is slower than the .222 but I have found some bullets that pencil through(which is ok on a 10 lb fox, but won't stop a 25 lb coyote) and some that perform well without exit. Still searching for that perfect bullet!
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CZ
Mar 16, 2010 8:59:50 GMT -5
Post by Jack on Mar 16, 2010 8:59:50 GMT -5
Way back in Thee Olden Days, I had a 17-223. This was long before any major company made cleaning rods, brushes, or even bullets for 17's. Bullets I got from Sisk, and another small basement bullet maker whos name I can't recall. For cleaning, I used a long chunk of brazing rod to push patches through the bore. Needless to say, bore fouling was a nightmare. I finally got rid of the rifle. Things have come a long way for the 17 bore since then.
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CZ
Mar 16, 2010 9:06:36 GMT -5
Post by jmarriott on Mar 16, 2010 9:06:36 GMT -5
My gun was an original model 700 in 17 rem. I am not ing to bad mouth it to much as it was a one inch grouper with light wind for up to 7 shots. I think maybe the riffling was cut rough or something. I do know that custom contender barrels in .17 normally cost a extra because of the time to cut the lands and grooves in the barrel and the little hole seems to dull up the dies quick. after 7 shots the groups opened up to 2 inches 3 inches and stayed there until cleaning. The fouling issues bothered me enough to trade it up even for a sweet model 700 in .222. I could go years without cleaning that barrel and It would not foul out. ( I would not subject the rifle to such behavior. )
I have since shot a rem 700 classic in 17 rem and It had no fouling issues. Accuracy was great. My .222 does the groups without fouling and preforms well on coyotes. Maybe rem figured it out later in the rounds lifetime. The 17 rem is most likely a past life span with the 17 rem fireball round now.
Have you tried the TNT speer bullet in 40 grain. That is basically the winchester supreme loading that works like a champ in my .222. The winchester has the black coating but the TNT is just copper. The TNTin 40 grain is not as popular as the same the in 50 grain. The 40's most likely better in the 22 hornet.
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CZ
Mar 16, 2010 9:49:56 GMT -5
Post by jimiowa on Mar 16, 2010 9:49:56 GMT -5
Yes I have used the 40 grn TNT in my Hornet over a starting load of Hogdon lil Gun (12gr Don't hold me to that, check the manual first!) and it shot well enough I have not worked up from that. It shoots clean and manual published velocity was around 2,800 fps+(impressive for the hornet). Note I chose Lil gun because it does that at significantly lower pressure than traditional powders used in the Hornet.
I also have some 40 grn Winchester hollow points(bulk bullets) that I have developed some loads that run between the 22 rf & .22 mag in velocity for edible game(So I don't blow them all to hell like Red's picture of the Tree Rats ;D).
While there are published loads for 50 & 55 grn bullets in the Hornet, I won't go there. 40 & 45 grn's is where it shines. I think of it as a light varmint and small game rifle. If I want heavier bullets I'll go to the .223 with 1-9 twist barrel, mine seems to really like Sierra 52 grn.
Uh, Jack, could that have been Berger Bullets? They are the first name that comes to my mind when talking 17 Bullets.
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CZ
Mar 16, 2010 11:08:53 GMT -5
Post by twomoons on Mar 16, 2010 11:08:53 GMT -5
My apology $12.00 a box!!! Point made, I can shoot reloaded 223 at the same velocity for 1/3 of that. I still have 1500 hoarded 22 lr that cost $7.99 a CARTON.
I guess it all depends on the range and the shots offered, but a 22 HORNET or a 218 BEE would be perfect!
Everybody wanted a few boxes of the $7 ammo but no one wanted the 20,000 rounds I would have had to order.
The groundhogs I have had to dispose of were all inside 50 yards and I just waited to slip a 22 behind the ears,
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CZ
Mar 16, 2010 22:19:56 GMT -5
Post by Jack on Mar 16, 2010 22:19:56 GMT -5
Jim, I don't think it was Berger- this was back in the '60's. I'm not sure, but I don't think Berger is that old. They sure make an accurate bullet, though. Back then, I got bullets for my 243 from Ernie Gardiner, another small maker- he only made 6mm bullets, as I recall- and he made good ones. He's long gone, sorry to say. Several of us had fouling problems with 17's years back. I think, at that time, making a 17 barrel was something new, and hard to do. I suspect 17 barrels are a lot better now than they were back then.
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CZ
Mar 17, 2010 15:47:58 GMT -5
Post by twomoons on Mar 17, 2010 15:47:58 GMT -5
Ernie Gardiner boy I havent heard that name in YEARS. I special ordered some bullets from him when I used a 243 for varmits back in 1973 or so. I think I still have part of a box of his bullets, in a small green box if I remember right. The 75 grain bullets shot into 3/8" with a Ruger V77 with a 10X target scope. That was the first super accurate rifle I ever had. Bill Laughridge of Fremont set it up for me and glass bedded it and free floated the stock. He showed me how to lap the barrel with very fine lapping compound and boy would that gun shoot. I got in to muzzleloading and let it go, i wish I could have afforded both.
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CZ
Mar 17, 2010 16:22:16 GMT -5
Post by Jack on Mar 17, 2010 16:22:16 GMT -5
I killed several truckloads of woodchucks with Ernie Gardiner's 80 grain soft point varmint bullet. I was using a rebarreled 98k in 243, all sporterized. The barrel came from Herters, pre chambered and threaded- cost 9.95$ ! The stock was American Walnut, also a Herters job- my Dad finished and checkered it. The rifle had a few different scopes over the years- first a Weaver K4, then a Redfield 3-9 with Accu range reticle, and the last one was a Bausch and Lonb Balvar 8b- the first internal adjustment model from B & L- it was a 2-8x. Gardiner's 80 grain bullet shot better than any other bullet in that rifle. I recall kind of a plain white box, but it's been a looooong time. . seems to me it was about 1964 I started using them- box coulda changed, or I could have it wrong. Back then, I hunted woodchucks every day. We didn't have laser rangefinders, but, practice helps a lot with estimating range, and so does knowing the ground you're hunting on. Any woodchuck I saw in those days at under 500 yards was in BFT.
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CZ
Mar 18, 2010 14:45:47 GMT -5
Post by twomoons on Mar 18, 2010 14:45:47 GMT -5
Jack you are right it was a white box and 80 grain bullets I looked last night and there are 3 left. I shot 200 of those on praire dogs in one weekend. On coyotes I would wait till they stopped to look back at about 300 and then pop them.
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CZ
Mar 18, 2010 16:30:26 GMT -5
Post by Jack on Mar 18, 2010 16:30:26 GMT -5
Nice to know the memory isn't totally gone - yet! I sure wish those Gardiners were still in production- they were fine bullets.
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