I've got a 597 LS in 17 HMR, but it's got the sporter barrel. I haven't had a chance to shoot it very much, but it appears that it'll be an accurate rifle. Yes, the Remington has a plastic (polymer) trigger guard, which is rather cheap looking, but it works. The fit/finish are much better than the 10/22 SS/laminated that I've got though. So far, I'm quite pleased with it. My rifle does have the new/improved metal magazine. It's stamped 17 HMR 22 WMR on the floorplate. The trigger can be fixed with a Volquartsen hammer, same as the Ruger. If you do choose to buy a Ruger 22 Mag, make sure you get the rifle with twin extractors, not the single extractor model. Ruger actually took the 10/22 Mag off of the market for a while to correct several problems, one of which was extraction. In addition to the second extractor, Ruger fluted the chamber to aid with extraction problems. One more thing, there was a problem with bolt stop pin breakage in the 10/22 Mag rifles. An aftermarket bolt stop pin appears to fix this also. MI VHNTR