.17 HMR Fox- heart or heart shot? Plus ammo.

[BenBhoy 4,706]

1 hour ago, Sausagedog said:

Never used it mate but understand it to be very flat.

When I was younger and had good eyesight we were always looking for targets at range.

We would pass on rabbits in the hedge we were stood next to but try for one hundreds of yards away! We would shoot foxes at 300yds at night too.

222,223,243,6.5&308.

In reality though it gets bloody expensive! It was great that on one estate the gaffer paid for ammo but when that stopped! Ouch.

I had squirreled away thousands of primers and bullets, some powders too but eventually it was used up.

I've gone full circle, just a couple of rimfires and do I shoot any less? No, not at all.

Whilst I think anyone that wants to shoot a large rifle should do so by all means but please don't think it will be a panacea. It will come with its own set of issues,pressures and costs.

For instance I recently checked out 17hornet wondering if I could be better off with one. Then I saw how much the rifles are! Then I saw how much the ammo is!! Then I thought about reloading again!!! I had to slap myself and ask " how much better off in the field would I really be". I came to the conclusion that I would not really know what to do with all the extra perceived vermin I would shoot with one!

And that's the nub, all the years I have shot I have forked out thousands chasing panaceas and for what? To shoot a crow or other varmint of little value over a great distance!

By all means scratch that itch but please be more realistic about than I ever was!

Very honest account Bernard, cheers.

[Deker 3,453]

I deal with a lot of foxes, and a lot in peoples back gardens.

.22lr, HMR and WMR are all very capable of fox.    Of course there are times a C/F will prevail, but comments I hear regularly that rimfire is no use on fox you need centrefire is bollocks, It's about the situation!!!

Same with head/chest/bib shots, none are better than the other, you have to weigh up every situation and place the shot to best advantage.

.

 

[Deker 3,453]

2 hours ago, BenBhoy said:

Obviously my knowledge of rifle shooting is next to none (yet) compared to most of you fellas, but what's thoughts on 204Ruger?

Now there's a strange thing, many here have spoken about various rimfires bouncing on their quarry, of course it can happen, but I actually witnessed a .204 splash on a fox, fortunately the guy shooting was alert and good and got another off quick, one regret I have is never taking a picture of the splash.

Some who have .204 swear by them, others have moved on quickly and whichever way you look at it .204 has not taken off in the UK.

[ianm 2,594]

Here's my ten penneth for what its worth. Some years ago i took a bloke out on one of my permissions foxing with a lamp ( a lamp how quaint ). He was a decent shot and still is. It wasn't long before the first opportunity came in the way of a half grown cub. Now matey boy had with him an HMR because he was having some work done on his "proper" rifle. The cub was approx one hundred and ten yards from us and he shot it straight in the bib and down it went. I kept the lamp on it and a couple of seconds later it was up and staggering about. He put another three into it to kill it. We moved position to a flood bank as a vantage point to wait for more fox traffic and within half an hour one turned up. I held the lamp on it and squeaked it in to seventy yards. He took his shot and down that one went but i had heard a sound like a richochet. Again after a couple of seconds it was pushing itself along by its back legs with the front ones tucked up underneath it. I told him to wait for it to stop and give it another. It eventually stopped about one hundred and thirty yards away as it rolled over in to some long grass. Within a couple of seconds it bounced up tail out straight and ran off apparently  no worse for wear. I have never used HMR on a fox because of that night nor will i allow anyone i take with me to use one.

In answer to the question of 204 i have used them exclusively for fox for the last eight years, i own two of them. I will have shot in excess of twelve hundred foxes with them and never had a "splash" issue yet but i suppose there is time to do so. I know at least a dozen or more men who have tried the calibre and afterwards ditched their 222s and 223s. Its a great situation for me because several shoot hornady 32grn ammo and i have an endless supply of once fired brass to reload. I don't know about them not taking off in other parts of the country but they certainly have round here, in fact they are the most popular round amongst the foxing and varmint shooters in these parts.

 

[Sausagedog 7,381]

12 minutes ago, Deker said:

Now there's a strange thing, many here have spoken about various rimfires bouncing on their quarry, of course it can happen, but I actually witnessed a .204 splash on a fox, fortunately the guy shooting was alert and good and got another off quick, one regret I have is never taking a picture of the splash.

Some who have .204 swear by them, others have moved on quickly and whichever way you look at it .204 has not taken off in the UK.

Seen the same thing D with 22-250. It does happen.

What most forget is that these superfast rounds were developed by Americans for shooting prairie dogs at distance and at a time when everything in America was cheap!

A dog town may cover hundreds of yards and a day could be spent with non stop shooting them.

They are tiny critters and a bullet need not penetrate deeply on them.

We get the same bullets but shoot them at fox's, heck some use them on deer!

A lot of British shooters only see feet per second, ft/lbs and trajectory gains but completely disregard bullet performance. Many believe rapid expansion is perfect and often it works. Sometimes though it doesn't! Some can not comprehend Newton's findings of force! When a bullet hits a target there is in fact as much force acting on the bullet as it  is imposing on the target. Couple that with flesh constituting of a lot of water, of which can not be compressed it comes as no surprise that under freak conditions a high speed bullet may as well be hitting a brick wall!

A good friend thought he was getting the ultimate in a 22-250 until we started NOT retrieving shot fox's or having to search for wounded fox's, then he lost a roe also!

Then one day he shot a crow. Nearly 300yd. The bullet did not go through. Burst on contact. Now he understood what I meant! Ironically he then conducted an experiment. He developed a load for his 250 but at 223 levels. It worked. With his components to hand and his rifle all of a sudden there was no issues with fox.

He went on to test old style bullets like hp match bullets and complete penetration was restored but occasionally one would run a short distance. He could never get why that occasionally happened. He believed that all that energy should make it instant And as much as I tried I could never get him to see that ft/lbs is a simple mathematical equation and has very little bearing in the real world. If it did my rimfires should take about a week to kill a fox!

[Sausagedog 7,381]

12 minutes ago, ianm said:

Here's my ten penneth for what its worth. Some years ago i took a bloke out on one of my permissions foxing with a lamp ( a lamp how quaint ). He was a decent shot and still is. It wasn't long before the first opportunity came in the way of a half grown cub. Now matey boy had with him an HMR because he was having some work done on his "proper" rifle. The cub was approx one hundred and ten yards from us and he shot it straight in the bib and down it went. I kept the lamp on it and a couple of seconds later it was up and staggering about. He put another three into it to kill it. We moved position to a flood bank as a vantage point to wait for more fox traffic and within half an hour one turned up. I held the lamp on it and squeaked it in to seventy yards. He took his shot and down that one went but i had heard a sound like a richochet. Again after a couple of seconds it was pushing itself along by its back legs with the front ones tucked up underneath it. I told him to wait for it to stop and give it another. It eventually stopped about one hundred and thirty yards away as it rolled over in to some long grass. Within a couple of seconds it bounced up tail out straight and ran off apparently  no worse for wear. I have never used HMR on a fox because of that night nor will i allow anyone i take with me to use one.

In answer to the question of 204 i have used them exclusively for fox for the last eight years, i own two of them. I will have shot in excess of twelve hundred foxes with them and never had a "splash" issue yet but i suppose there is time to do so. I know at least a dozen or more men who have tried the calibre and afterwards ditched their 222s and 223s. Its a great situation for me because several shoot hornady 32grn ammo and i have an endless supply of once fired brass to reload. I don't know about them not taking off in other parts of the country but they certainly have round here, in fact they are the most popular round amongst the foxing and varmint shooters in these parts.

 

Good points.

My wmr penetrates deep if not right through (most times) but every fox gets a second bullet all the same as fast as I can deliver it!

With a hmr I would empty the magazine!

[Baldcoot 2,352]

just my tuppence on .22l/r ,CCI seg in the engine room fox drops and as the round splits into 3 less chance of rick "o"shay and more internal damage and like Stavross i prefer .243 for jack of all trades .Too many issues whith hmr split cases and cost per round round .But if im after rabbits and mr Reynard appears a quick mag swap to segs from cci hp sees to the fox atb 

[FOXHUNTER 5,020]

3 hours ago, Sausagedog said:

Seen the same thing D with 22-250. It does happen.

What most forget is that these superfast rounds were developed by Americans for shooting prairie dogs at distance and at a time when everything in America was cheap!

A dog town may cover hundreds of yards and a day could be spent with non stop shooting them.

They are tiny critters and a bullet need not penetrate deeply on them.

We get the same bullets but shoot them at fox's, heck some use them on deer!

A lot of British shooters only see feet per second, ft/lbs and trajectory gains but completely disregard bullet performance. Many believe rapid expansion is perfect and often it works. Sometimes though it doesn't! Some can not comprehend Newton's findings of force! When a bullet hits a target there is in fact as much force acting on the bullet as it  is imposing on the target. Couple that with flesh constituting of a lot of water, of which can not be compressed it comes as no surprise that under freak conditions a high speed bullet may as well be hitting a brick wall!

A good friend thought he was getting the ultimate in a 22-250 until we started NOT retrieving shot fox's or having to search for wounded fox's, then he lost a roe also!

Then one day he shot a crow. Nearly 300yd. The bullet did not go through. Burst on contact. Now he understood what I meant! Ironically he then conducted an experiment. He developed a load for his 250 but at 223 levels. It worked. With his components to hand and his rifle all of a sudden there was no issues with fox.

He went on to test old style bullets like hp match bullets and complete penetration was restored but occasionally one would run a short distance. He could never get why that occasionally happened. He believed that all that energy should make it instant And as much as I tried I could never get him to see that ft/lbs is a simple mathematical equation and has very little bearing in the real world. If it did my rimfires should take about a week to kill a fox!

That's interesting reading about the .22/250 as I always found it devastating on fox and roe , never lost anything and indeed never even had a runner. Shot a lot of roe in Scotland with it and they all dropped on the spot not like the .243 where you got runners.

[Sausagedog 7,381]

1 hour ago, FOXHUNTER said:

That's interesting reading about the .22/250 as I always found it devastating on fox and roe , never lost anything and indeed never even had a runner. Shot a lot of roe in Scotland with it and they all dropped on the spot not like the .243 where you got runners.

Sure, it is not a trait of the calibre but was particular to his rifle and bullet choice. His rifle turned 60grn game kings into a varmint bullet! For instance, I had a 243 that the rifling was so deep it would compromise any bullet jacket shot through it. It turned 100gn bullets into explosive varmint bullets. I got fed up with it and swapped it. The second rifle with exactly the same loads the same bullets behaved as they should of, controlled expansion.

You can have to exactly the same rifle from the same make, any brand and for no apparent reason behave completely differently. The faster you go, if there is an issue the worse it usually gets.

[philpot 4,927]

I find this subject most interesting as I am toying with getting a suitable gun for the job however after reading all this, I think I will stick to the .22lr for the time being. I had the thought of going for a .223 and hoping to go and have a look at Si Brown's Sako next weekend. I did have an interest in a .22wmr rather than an .17hmr.

Like everyone else, when you venture into an area that you have not done before, there are always the question of gun suitability for the job in hand and I have never shot foxes before but we now have so much land with foxes on that it is something we need to address.

I will make a decision one day soon. 

Phil

[Sausagedog 7,381]

1 hour ago, philpot said:

I find this subject most interesting as I am toying with getting a suitable gun for the job however after reading all this, I think I will stick to the .22lr for the time being. I had the thought of going for a .223 and hoping to go and have a look at Si Brown's Sako next weekend. I did have an interest in a .22wmr rather than an .17hmr.

Like everyone else, when you venture into an area that you have not done before, there are always the question of gun suitability for the job in hand and I have never shot foxes before but we now have so much land with foxes on that it is something we need to address.

I will make a decision one day soon. 

Phil

What kind of land is it? Flat, hilly and woodlands?

[Baldcoot 2,352]

If your quick before they ban everything Phil you could still get a single shot Barrat lite .50 i think that will cover all your needs from Fox to Tasmanian devil but not so good on Wabbits imho 

[Sausagedog 7,381]

25 minutes ago, Baldcoot said:

If your quick before they ban everything Phil you could still get a single shot Barrat lite .50 i think that will cover all your needs from Fox to Tasmanian devil but not so good on Wabbits imho 

How much is a shot from one of them BC?

[Baldcoot 2,352]

forgot to add only £23 a round Bargin ,compared to 20 PPU .243 for £15

[Sausagedog 7,381]

15 minutes ago, Baldcoot said:

forgot to add only £23 a round Bargin ,compared to 20 PPU .243 for £15

Well there you go, the voice of reason.