22 LR<vs>17<vs>22 Mag

when was the last time you went bear hunting with your 410? using what a 90 grain slug?

hah. you can keep it.

Here's some numbers are the remington cheap stuff.
.410 2 1/2" 1/5 oz. Slug 1,830fps 651 ft/lbs
12G 3" 1 oz. Slug 1,760fps 3,009 ft/lbs

Now a midgrade pistol round
.40 S&W 155gr 1,180fps 479 ft/lbs


I guess your 410 is special though

I never thought to use the 22-250 for a varmit gun since its a deer rifle. And a powerful one at that (saw my cousin hit a squirel from across 25 acres cause he was bored waiting on a deer one time.......really nothing left). The problem with a 22 as a varmit gun is that you actully HAVE to be a good shoot. I was the only one growing up who ever took the time to practice enough to be able to hit anything at any kind of range with it. They all used shotguns.

Thanks for the heads up about the ammo!!!! I WILL be looking it up!!!

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Joy Alba
Oak Hill Ranch
since 1834
Bedias, Texas

Giggle. That DOES IT!!! grin. Out to my "shooting range" for me this weekend. (Dont worry....I know how to be safe) I need to be reminded what makes the biggest hole anyway. Its been too long, and I need to teach DH how to shoot anyway (hes a city boy).

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Joy Alba
Oak Hill Ranch
since 1834
Bedias, Texas

22 is great
17 is great

I like the 17 better than the 22 mag though. 17 is not hard to find shells for. Heck even wal mart has em.

here is the definitive place for all things smallbore

alot of opinions are shown wrong here with nothing but hard facts. so if you are interested in the truth and not just rhetoric here you go

http://www.rimfirecentral.com/forums/

I'd give the old reliable .22 a try first to see if it serves your purposes. It is really tough to beat the price rifles and pistols. The sheer selection of models available. The prices of cheap practice ammo and the wide selection of ammo for hunting and more accurate varmint whacking duty. It is really hard to beat the regular old .22 rimfire in terms of economy and versatility. The old reliable Ruger 10/22 is pretty a ubiquitous homestead a farm tool around my area. Stop by the gun store and pick up a brick of .22 ammo and you have a Saturday afternoon's worth of entertainment that you sure can't equal on some barstool. Pick up a 50 rd mag or two to save you fingers for those extended shooting sessions though. Murder on the thumbs by the 5th or 6th box.

The other rounds have their place. They are capable and do what they claim to do as advertised as far as I can tell. I shot a little .17 HMR over Christmas and was really impressed. Quite the little rocket. Deadly rabbit medicine and some unholy ranges.

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Respect The Cactus!

.........DS , that is a very informative website . The Taurus that I looked at was a well made rifle . I'm going back to the store that had the rifle and take a second look and findout the model number so I'll have a frame of reference . Guns n' girls , looks good , feels good , shoots good . , fordy...

Midkiffsjoy, Sorry to burst your bubble on this one. But, the .22-.250 is the ultimate all time favorite VARMINT rifle. Sure it will kill a deer, but it was designed specifically for shooting varmints. Maybe your interpretation of a varmint is different than mine. We call groundhog sized critters varmints in the north east. I don't know where you got the idea that a .22 is a long range weapon?? And, as far as the .410 goes, they are just a toy. Fordy, get yourself a .22 rimfire in a Ruger Semi-Auto. Ammo is cheap and if you try different brands, you will hit on one type that works better than others in your gun. The .22 mag is usually too powerfull and expensive for plinking and the .17 rimfire is cute but doesn't do anything that a .22 rimfire won't do and the ammo is way too expensive. I don't know about the .17 rimfires but most .17 cal chamberings are notorious barrel foulers. I have had .17 centerfires and they fouled very quickly. Usually needing cleaned every 25 rounds or so to maintain accuracy.

If your "varmints" are coyote or something of the sort. Brett is right on. The 22-250 is a tack driver at 200 yds. But a .243 with an 80 grain bullet is tops in my book. I can shoot varmints or up the weight of the bullet and shoot deer at 300 yds.

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We have now officially entered the twilight zone.

http://www.henryrepeating.com/leveryouth.cfm

Couldn't say enough about this rifle - light enough to pack a long distance if needed, great action and packs a punch.

I haven't had a chance to shoot a .17 yet, but I've been shooting the .22lr for 51yrs. & the .22mag for about 40yrs. I think that they both have their uses. I recently bought a Ruger mod. 99 lever-action in 22mag with a nice 3-9 power variable scope. The action is very smooth, & I've found it to be very useful for varmits like skunks & possums out to about 200yds. Much beyond that & I would have to go with my Rem. mod 70 in 22/250. I like the venerable .22lr for hunting small game like squirrels & rabbits because it kills without so much damage to the game that I want to eat. I use the 22mag for longer range sure kills of pests. From what I've read about the .17rimfire, it was developed as a cheaper alternative to the .17cal centerfire cartridges. As someone said, the .17 cal centerfire cartridges had a tendency to foul the bore because of all of the powder going down that BB sized barrel.The smaller bullet will definitely be more affected by winds & blades of grass or twigs. If you are looking for a realitively cheap semi-auto rifle to kill varmits out to 300yds I would suggest the Ruger Ranch Rifle in .223. It will most certainly take care of any varmit, 2 or 4 legged, at the ranges that 90% of amateur shooters are competent at. Ammunition is readily available, & can be reloaded if you are so inclined. At 3300+fps with a 55+grn bullet,it is a true Varmit cartridge. If you just want to plink & shoot the occasional pest in your yard or put down an animal, get something in.22lr. Be carefull! A .22lr is potentially deadly at 1 mile!

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Freedom isn't Free

One advantage to a >17 is the lack of overpenatration and lessend chance of richochet... If you need one and only one the .22lr is good allaround but if you are after smaller pests around the homestead a case COULD be made for the .17hmr ... those that don't like it seem to not own or use it... but it is not a big animal buster

Guns are fun. Many a campfire has burned to ash whilst the folks around it argued calibers, ballistics, knock-down power, kineseology vs kinetics, and all matters velocity and meplat.

At the end 'o the day, however, most homesteads can do it all with 4 weapons - a 30-06 bolt action, a 22LR in your choice of action, a 12 gauge shotgun, and a 38 spl, 3-4" revolver.

That covers it all, from rooter to tooter, from mouse to mammoth.

I'm sure that my opinion is one all gunnies can agree with...absolutely!

I've never really been overly impressed with the accuracy of Ruger Mini-14 and Mini-30 rifles and frankly never seen what all the fuss was about when it came to them. I'm as big of a Ruger fan as anyone but I was never enamored with them. OK the stainless Mini-14 folder did look cool but looks was about all it had going for it. I couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with the one I had. That gun was just all over the place. You knew it was going to put rounds in a general area but that was about it. I've shot one Mini 14 that had acceptable accuracy but the rest were atrocious.

What the Mini-14 does the AR series does far better and marginally cheaper. What the Mini-30 does the AK series does far far far cheaper and far far better.

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Respect The Cactus!

Yeah, I've been hearing about how Mini-14s aren't as accurate as ARs, but that seems to me to be Opinion! The Only way to Prove it is to be able t9o shoot.

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Freedom isn't Free

OK, how's this? About 3 years ago I worked for an outfit as a paid hunter, killing feral hogs. We had probably 20 grand worth of guns to use, including 2 tricked out mini 14's with aftermarket heavy barrells and tons of gunsmithing done to them. I was the designated gunsmith/gun cleaner/ammo reloader for our group. I shot everything in our arsenal. The mini's were BY FAR the most inaccurate of the lot. I tried every load and bullet combination I could,based on my available components and never got better than 2 1/2" groups out of them. Most pet loads from our other 223's produced 3 to 4" groups in them. The JP enterprises AR's we had shot circles around the rugers.
As for the 17hmr versus the 22 mag and 22lr. After shooting a couple thousand rounds of 17hmr in all currently available ammunition brands, I can say I don't care for the round. It's great on cottontails out to 100 yards, but not any better than a 22lr. Killing effect just isn't there past 50 yards. Yes, it kills, but often with agonizing slowness. My friend shot a jackrabbit 2 years ago at 25 yards, and it took it almost a minute to die. NOT GOOD. The reduced ricochet stuff is baloney too. We shoot prairie dogs almost every weekend in the summer. My friends 17hmr ricochets just as much as my 22lr does. Some people rant and rave about the 17hmr. I just think it's a bunch of marketing hype. It's just as expensive to shoot as a 22 mag, but doesn't hit half as hard. The 22lr will do anything the 17hmr will, with only a scrifice in trajectory. For those of you who don't know, There's a neat trick you can do with most rifles chambered in 22lr. If you have your scope dialed up to 9x and sight in at 50 yards, you can use the point of the bottom vertical reticle post as a 6 o' clock aiming point at 100 yards.
I think you'd be better off with a good 22lr rifle and go buy about 5000 rounds of ammo ($100 worth) Go shoot at least 50 rounds a week, and in a very short time you will be a crack shot with it.

I've had very good luck with accuracy with AR rifles. I've got a couple. I've got a HBAR National Match rifle that shoots far beyond my capability to take advantage of it's accuracy. The one I use most is a little M4 Carbine clone that I carry as a general purpose farm gun that is remarkably accurate considering is has a 16 inch barrel and the fact that it gets knocked around all the time and rarely gets cleaned. It has the collapsible stock and I use an EOTech Holosight with it. It is deadly for coyotes and stray dogs. Just a great little gun. Used it to smack a vicious pit mutt in the cranium at 270 yards the day after Christmas.

I'm really jazzed on the EOTech Holosights. I use one on my AK for brushy country deer hunting and as a general purpose farm gun. Took all my doe tags with it this year. Great for heavy brush. Holds a good group out to about 250-275 but I don't shoot much further than that. I did take a doe at a shade over 300 this year but that is stretching it for the 7.62x39 round. Stopped her cold though. Those EOTech Holosights really shine at those ranges. I'm sold on them. They're not really expensive as far as quality optics go. They are an improvement over iron sights without the drawbacks that a scope has at shorter ranges.

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Respect The Cactus!

personally I'd either stick with the 22lr or go to a 22x centerfire. I like the 22 hornet myself.

To me the 22lr is the most economical (500 rounds/<$10) where as the 17 and 22 mag are a bit pricy. I'd go the centerfire route, but then again I reload.

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"Let the beauty we love, be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground." Rumi