I have to agree about the 17's being in many cases better than the 22's. I love my 22lr guns, and I love the economics of feeding them. 22lr is so cheap because of history, and it could easily have been a different bore size that caught on. Had the 17 bottle necked rimfires been devised long ago they may have won the race. 22lr has the advantage of a slower than the speed of sound option, which makes for much less 'CRACK", which is a nice option to have sometimes.
I just finally bought into my first 17 rimfire. I went 17hmr because I didn't see much 17m2 ammo on the shelves around here, and of course it's 'magnum'. If the M2 starts being on the shelves, I'll get one. It took me a long time and much self struggling to make the big step of the small bullet. I knew I wanted one as soon as I saw the 17 Aguilla at SHOT back in the mid or late '90s. I thought "Great idea!". It just never caught on, never making it to store shelves. There were some of the mail order ammo suppliers with it but it just never caught on. Made me think of those guys who had bought into the 5mm rimfire magnum back in the early '70s. Those guns were useless untill the ammo became available (again) just recently. The whole thing just underlined the addage that you don't buy a round that's too young to buy itself a beer. New whizz bang rounds come and go. Look at the book "Cartridges of the World" and see the rimfires and centerfires that just died off. There were 40+ rimfire cartridges at the turn of the last century, and 22 short, long and long rifle by the end of WWII. Anyway;the new breed of 17 rimfires seems to be ragingly popular and I hope that translates to 'here to stay'. 22 magnum caught on, and I think we're better off with it than without it. Some guys don't want to reload, and want to shoot small stuff. Rimfire is our friend. Save the reloading for the 45 and the high power rifles.
The 17 really has a lot to offer. 22 cal bullets are not really powerful medicine in the velocity that you get from 22lr. It's all about shot placement. I know I'm not the only one here who has killed plenty of stuff with a 22 (far from alone on that charge
) but we all know it was because we hit it where it counted. None of those kills wouldn't have happened withh a little less bullet. The flatter trajectory and therefor easier placement makes for more shots that count. That's the kicker. Better accuracy= more hits. Simple math. Now we have two options in widely available 17's. HMRs and M2s, and I apreciate those of you with both who are pointing us to the right one for our needs.
Knowing myself as I do; now that I have broken into the 17 rimfires, I'm going to be getting more....
