The rimfire shooting world has gotten a lot more interesting with the recent introduction of the 17 Winchester Super Magnum.
The rimfire world is the last frontier of the single-projectile universe. We've taken the centerfire world as far as it can go with the 50 BMG. A few wildcatters have built shoulder cannons as big as 1-inch diameter, but those are gimmicks designed to produce funny videos of recoil junkies getting their brains and shoulders scrambled. The 50 BMG is at the outer edge of mass appeal.
New cartridges come out all the time, but they are generally redundant. The 6.5x284 is trendy, but it's no faster than my souped up 6.5x55 Swedish loads or, for that matter, my simmering 264 Winchester loads. The 260 Nosler screams. That's fine if you want to buy a proprietary Nosler rifle to shoot it.
Oh yeah? Well, the 6.5x284 gives you 100 more feet per second in a short-action case.
Here's a quarter. Call someone who cares.
It's the same with the 25-, 7mm- and 30-caliber cartridges. We've done all we can do with them.
The rimfire world, on the other hand, is wide open.
Introduced last summer, the 17 Winchester Super Magnum is advertised as the fastest rimfire round ever developed. The published velocity is 3,000 fps. Its closest competitor is the 17 Hornady Magnum Rimfire. It redlines at a little over 2,500 fps. It excited the rimfire world when Hornady introduced it in 2002, but it didn't displace the stalwarts of that world, the 22 Long Rifle and 22 Winchester Magnum.
The 17 HMR is based on a 22 Winchester Magnum case constricted to take a .17-inch diameter, spitzer bullet with an aerodynamic polymer tip. That's a thinner, lighter bullet than the 22 Winchester Magnum, but it travels about 400-500 fps faster. Its trajectory is flatter over a longer distance, which some say makes it more versatile than the 22 WMR and the 22 LR. Every major manufacturer chambers a rifle for it, and ammo is easy to find.
The 17 Winchester Super Magnum is an overall upgrade. Based on a 17-caliber nail gun, it pushes a 20- or 25-grain bullet with more powder packed into a longer case. Savage makes the only rifle chambered for it. The ammo is more readily available than the rifle.
If you want to go faster, you have to upgrade to one of the .224-cal. centerfires, like the .223 Remington, .22-250 Remington or the long-reigning speed king, the .220 Swift. The .204 Ruger is another option.
Why bother?
Again, the rimfire world is the last place where there is room for improved performance.
Two, rimfire ammo is cheap.
Three, very few people reload rimfire ammo. It's complicated and requires more specialized tools than ordinary reloading dies. Manufacturers control that market, and the consumer is at their mercy.
Despite its superior speed, the 17 WSM will not make the other rimfires obsolete. With its 11-year head start, the 17 HMR is firmly established. Those who have it love it.
Likewise, the 22 WMR is more appropriate for some applications than the 17s, and the 22 LR may well be the most useful, most versatile cartridge of all. It's peerless in a woodland setting, but it's fast enough and potent enough for all legal applications out to about 150 yards.
One of my favorite rifles is a CZ 455 Super Exclusive, a 22 LR with a 28-inch barrel. The adjustable sights (front and rear) are so good that I don't use a scope. It's wicked accurate, and that long barrel makes it very quiet, even with hot rounds like the CCI Stinger or CCI Velocitor.
I qualified for my concealed carry license with a Ruger MkII 22LR with a bull barrel. The qualification exercise required putting 10 rounds in the chest of a silhouette at 20 feet and 10 rounds in the head at 10 feet. I shot the head and chest completely out of that target. This drew a lot of attention from classmates who struggled to hit the silhouette with 44 Magnums and 45 ACPs .
My all-around utility rifle is a Smith & Wesson M&P 15/22 LR. It has a Simmons .22 mag 3-9x32 scope for distance shooting and a Sig Sauer laser for point shooting. It's fun, but it's also dependable and extremely accurate.
If you doubt the 22 LR's capabilities as a do-everything cartridge, check out youtube.com/watch?v=yKFvrqCG118. It's a range test with some interesting results.
Also, the clip at youtube.com/results?search_query=22LR+tracer+hog demonstrates the 22LR's effectiveness against feral hogs.
Sports on 01/18/2015