.17 hmr advice

[rasheedfan2005]

.22 250

[rasheedfan2005]

Originally Posted by fugyaself Both are excellent rifles. The Savage can be had with a heavy barrel as well. Check out Savage and Marlin's websites for the different trim levels the rifles are available in. Walmart and any gun dealer should order whatever you want if they don't have it in. The Savage has an adjustable trigger that is excellent and it can be adjusted to under 1lb if you like. The Marlin comes with an acceptable fixed trigger at around 4.5lb. There are aftermarket adjustable triggers for it though. If you are planning on buying it at Walmart I would demand that they take off the trigger lock so that you can evaluate them properly before buying. If they refuse go somewhere else. The Savage stocks are known for being cheap but there are aftermarket alternatives for it. You can't go wrong with either IMO. Personally, I want a 17hm2 instead. It has less velocity than the 17hmr so it doesn't have the same range but it uses the same projectiles so it still shoots nice and flat. The hmr is around a 250yd gun and the hm2 is like a 175yd gun. If you really need the range the hmr is your best bet but if not the hm2 is far cheaper to feed. Where the hmr is around $250 per 1000 rds the hm2 is around $100 per thousand. There are only a couple manufacturers left for the hm2 though. Savage is the only budget offering. You might find a Marlin or CZ in stock somewhere though. You do not want to shoot a yote with a 17HMR if you have an alternative. It really isn't enough gun to make it DRT(dead right there) unless you aim for the head and have some luck on your side. If you are just going for extermination without any other care it will likely do the job though. I recently shot a yote with the 22LR and chased it for a good long time before finally losing him. I wouldn't have chosen the 22LR for the job but it is what I had in my hands at the time of the opportunity so I thought I would see what it would do. The land I was hunting is used for free range cattle so extermination was my primary goal. Better for it to run away injured and die slow than to leave it to potentially kill a calf further down the road. By the way I had the 22LR out because I remembered the grief some of the people here gave me for using the AR on jack rabbits. Well I gave the 22LR another shot and sure enough it was exactly as I remembered it. The 1 jackrabbit I got with it took like 6 shots on the run before it finally gave up and fell over. When I got to it it was gasping for air so I finished him with a 9mm to the head. I was going to give it another shot on the next rabbit but we ran into the yote instead. After that I put it away and pulled out the .243. If we ran into another yote I didn't want to just wound it like I did the first one.

wtf? AR would be much more humane, people are idiots

[fugyaself]

Originally Posted by rasheedfan2005 wtf? AR would be much more humane, people are idiots

That was my argument. A .223 will dispatch the animal much faster. My previous experience with the 22LR on jackrabbits matched what I saw here. 5+ rounds into them and they still run around like its nothing until they get tired or suffocate. Even headshots aren't perfectly reliable because the brain is so small. They really are resilient little suckers.

Often the .223 isn't enough to get them quickly on a single shot. It does a lot of damage but it doesn't always make them DRT. I have used ball, hp, and soft point ammo and nothing has consistently produced instant kills. I need to get some V-max rounds and see how they do. So far my .243 drops them flat and mostly just blows them apart. The only time they have kept going is when I hit toward the rear of them and take out their back end. They will pull themselves along by their front legs until they bleed out or you finish them when that happens. IT sucks when this happens too because they tend to cry when that happens and their cry sounds eerily like a baby crying.

[rasheedfan2005]

Originally Posted by fugyaself That was my argument. A .223 will dispatch the animal much faster. My previous experience with the 22LR on jackrabbits matched what I saw here. 5+ rounds into them and they still run around like its nothing until they get tired or suffocate. Even headshots aren't perfectly reliable because the brain is so small. They really are resilient little suckers. Often the .223 isn't enough to get them quickly on a single shot. It does a lot of damage but it doesn't always make them DRT. I have used ball, hp, and soft point ammo and nothing has consistently produced instant kills. I need to get some V-max rounds and see how they do. So far my .243 drops them flat and mostly just blows them apart. The only time they have kept going is when I hit toward the rear of them and take out their back end. They will pull themselves along by their front legs until they bleed out or you finish them when that happens. IT sucks when this happens too because they tend to cry when that happens and their cry sounds eerily like a baby crying.

.50cal

[fugyaself]

.50BMG costs too much for me. We get as many as 60 rabbits in a night and can fire a couple hundred rounds easy. Maybe I'll buy 3 or 4 rounds to shoot few with my buddy's rifle some day just to see what it does. I think I would rather get some of the super fast 55gr rounds for my .243. When I get setup for reloading that is one of the first things I am going to work on.

[rasheedfan2005]

Originally Posted by fugyaself .50BMG costs too much for me. We get as many as 60 rabbits in a night and can fire a couple hundred rounds easy. Maybe I'll buy 3 or 4 rounds to shoot few with my buddy's rifle some day just to see what it does. I think I would rather get some of the super fast 55gr rounds for my .243. When I get setup for reloading that is one of the first things I am going to work on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTi7edCfAbQ

[fugyaself]

Originally Posted by rasheedfan2005 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTi7edCfAbQ

My .243 already does this(not my vid but I get similar results):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGERHtb_Zw0

[rasheedfan2005]

Originally Posted by fugyaself My .243 already does this(not my vid but I get similar results): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGERHtb_Zw0