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100m group size .17hmr


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Ok. I am fairly new to the rifle. It's a HW60j and was told it likes Winchesters. But can't buy them locally. So I tried Remingtons. Had some split cases and two wouldn't eject so carried on with the Hornady V max. No drama with them so far.

At 100yrds my groups are so so. I get two that are tight (touching) then the other two are about an inch or so off. There all with in one and a half inch but I'm sure it can do better. Only had limited time with it so unsure on what closer groups are like. I have been prone position with bipod and rear bag today and wind was light.

What should I be getting?? Or what do you get at 100 or so yards??

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Inch to inch and half at 100 yards on a calmish day that's about what I get with 20 inch HB CZ varmint.The touching ones,,,yes they are mysterious,,, almost giving some hope for a yet undiscovered perfect tune?,,,,,be happy most will take out the 100 yard bunny,,,,,don,t expect anymore,,,,,,O

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It's the ammo, not you or the rifle.

The quality of the ammo has declined dramatically since the calibre first appeared.

I, and one of my shooting buddies both have Weihrauch HW60s and they perform pretty much exactly as you describe.

Very frustrating because with a good batch of ammoytou can easily shoot bunnies out beyond 150 yards.

The problem is you simply don't know how any given box of ammunition will perform.

 

Cheers

 

Bruce

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.17HMR and the curse of poor quality ammo, its a well documented story that has seen many HMR's traded in for something more reliable.

 

A caliber I never found delivered on its promises.

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Seems like 1 inch at 100 yards is pretty much what current ammo delivers-there seems no way to sort batches either,but in low wind,that is sufficient...

If so,then the two shots touching isn't surprising-it's a consequence of the shots being randomly distributed within your inch circle...after all ,an inch is only about 4 calibers,so you will just get close touchers quite often....think four random and where will the fifth go...randomly...there isn't a lot of free space left in an inch....!!

 

I sometimes get two touchers,but the other 388 pellets are quite spread out at 40yards,so I don't think I have a possible tuneable super extra full choke potential 12 guage rifle... it's an exagerated example of the same thing-random dispersal within the parmeter (which seems about 1 inch/100y for the 17HR).

 

Could be worse-and some batches probably are....

 

gbal

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There was a time, back when the HMR was new and the air was still, that I shot sub MOA at 200 yards with that round from my custom barreled Ruger 77/17. Never a squib. Never a split neck. It shows how far off course CCI has strayed.~Andrew

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  • 1 month later...

I always found in tests in two rifles a marlin and anchutz federal always grouped tighter / black tips ...

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Just an update

I went to the range last week to get a spot on windless zero on the .17 and to test some ammo.

I put out my targets at 100 yards. The scope was struggling to focus in to a sharp picture on the 2" shoot and see targets. The range is an old railway tunnel. A few shots had been fired so there was a little haze in the tunnel. I blamed that on the poor clarity. The black shoot'n'see were blurred and I could not make out the shot placement. after half dozen shots I started to re focus in to try and get the clarity that wasn't there. I was struggling and when I could get it better I was having parallax error. With out parallax error it was miles out of focus. I decided to check my Airmax on the same target. The difference was massive. The Airmax was sharp and clear. There were 6 other guys in the range and all said the same after they tried to adjust it that there was something not right

I contacted Hawke and the picked up the scope without charge. I heard back after a few days to tell me there was a slight parra ax error and they would be sending out a brand new scope.

Great after care service.

So I will now be back at the range to carry on where I left off.

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My experience is virtually identical to the above - when I first bought it the rifle (CZ 452) would consistently shoot 1/2" groups (not just occasional lucky ones). I have always found problems with the ammo, though - my first batch of Winchesters had an occasional slight hang-fire in them, but were still accurate when they did not do this. My first Remington brands contained so many split cases before I fired them I contacted Remington who got their importer of the time to replace them (with Federals, from memory).

 

The last time I checked it, it was only shooting 1" groups, I thought it was me, but looked on line and saw the type of comments above. It is a shame, but it is still good enough for rabbit bashing, as GBal has pointed out.

 

I like the idea of the .17HMR, but it does seem to be flawed. I shall keep mine in the hope that they eventually get the ammo back up to snuff, as it used to be.

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Just an update

I went to the range last week to get a spot on windless zero on the .17 and to test some ammo.

I put out my targets at 100 yards. The scope was struggling to focus in to a sharp picture on the 2" shoot and see targets. The range is an old railway tunnel. A few shots had been fired so there was a little haze in the tunnel. I blamed that on the poor clarity. The black shoot'n'see were blurred and I could not make out the shot placement. after half dozen shots I started to re focus in to try and get the clarity that wasn't there. I was struggling and when I could get it better I was having parallax error. With out parallax error it was miles out of focus. I decided to check my Airmax on the same target. The difference was massive. The Airmax was sharp and clear. There were 6 other guys in the range and all said the same after they tried to adjust it that there was something not right

I contacted Hawke and the picked up the scope without charge. I heard back after a few days to tell me there was a slight parra ax error and they would be sending out a brand new scope.

Great after care service.

So I will now be back at the range to carry on where I left off.

Were you shooting at the range in Barry by any chance?
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It's definitely the ammunition that's the limitation.

 

I purchased a used Anschutz 1517 many years ago from an owner who was convinced it was shot out. Even the importers had inspected it and said it was clattered. Based on this info, he would only charge me the 2nd hand value of the stock and the magazine! I didn't mind because I quite fancied having a go a sleeving it. In the end it wasn't necessary. I gave it a thorough clean and it shot just as well as it's factory test target which was around 1 MOA or just over from memory.

 

Fast forward a bit and this week as a contrast, one batch of ammunition would group consistently under .5 MOA for 3 shots at 100 yards and indeed one group was .26 MOA! With another brand of ammunition the bullets weren't even hitting the paper at 100 yards with much stiffer bolt lift and far louder report.

 

Essentially the ammunition available from batch to batch ranges from excellent, through useable, down to faulty and dangerous.

 

Very frustrating.

 

 

Cheers

 

 

 

 

 

Clive

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm getting very good groups with my CZ with 5 shots they was all touching at 100 yards all I done to the gun is bed the barrel before it was shooting 3/4 at 100 yards in using hornady vmax and the gun loves them ,the CZ will out shoot my Howa at 100 yards with my home loads

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I have a crate with old CCI and I shoot consistent half MOA groups. It's my fav gun & calibre by far!

You say consistent half MOA groups - how many shots per group & how consistent do you mean? No bad groups?

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  • 2 months later...

I have had an Annie 1517 Thumbhole from new - never had a split neck or squib but have seen many from my mates Sako and CZ - we buy Hornady V Max in bulk.

From this I'm assuming my chamber throat is tighter than in their rifles - it's the conclusion we came to...

What all of us do is measure the ogive to base length then batch them accordingly and adjust zero to suit - we can all get 10 rounds inside a 20p coin size hole at 100m.

The HMR is a scalpel of a caliber and I won't be selling mine anytime soon.

I've tried many brands of ammo and all were pretty good but settled on the V Max due to availability - I still have 150 CCI FMJ'S but I'm saving these as they are ridiculous accurate and I can't find them very often.

Try measuring and batching the ammo - the results may well impress you enough to rekindle your love for the caliber.

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I have had an Annie 1517 Thumbhole from new - never had a split neck or squib but have seen many from my mates Sako and CZ - we buy Hornady V Max in bulk.

From this I'm assuming my chamber throat is tighter than in their rifles - it's the conclusion we came to...

What all of us do is measure the ogive to base length then batch them accordingly and adjust zero to suit - we can all get 10 rounds inside a 20p coin size hole at 100m.

The HMR is a scalpel of a caliber and I won't be selling mine anytime soon.

I've tried many brands of ammo and all were pretty good but settled on the V Max due to availability - I still have 150 CCI FMJ'S but I'm saving these as they are ridiculous accurate and I can't find them very often.

Try measuring and batching the ammo - the results may well impress you enough to rekindle your love for the caliber.

Thanks for the tip, I might give that a go.

 

I'm a little puzzled, perhaps you (or someone else) could explain: I thought rimfires headspace off the rim, hence batch-sorting by rim-thickness. Sorting a batch by ogive-to-base clearly works for you, though I don't know why?

 

I'm pretty happy with my .17HMR performance but it certainly won't put 10rnds under a 20p, even with no wind and a better shooter than me, so I'd be glad of any improvement that gets me toward that level of consistency.

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I sometimes wonder whether the claims of consistent sub moa in .17HMR are just wishful thinking. Most people I know that use the round a lot, are around 1 to 1.5moa on a good (still) day, and if you're shooting within 1.5moa consistently, then that seems to be about what to expect of the HMR. Of course, Stu47 has raised an interesting point about batching the ammo, something I never did, or even considered since in doing so, I'd imagine you'd have to adjust zero for each batch.

 

I also found that my HMR barrel fouled up quickly due to the tiny bore size and I used to find groups opening up well short of 50 rounds, more often half that, so learned to clean back to bare metal every box or two of ammo. They don't seem to take long to copper up either so my guess is that pressure variations due to bore fouling, combined with the well recognised ammo inconsistency simply preclude a reliable, consistent sub moa round. Bear that in mind, and keep shooting distances real, then it is a handy vermin control rifle out to 150 yds (at most). I shot mine for 5 years before the inconsistencies in ammo and constant need to re-zero just made me want to get rid of the thing, which I did. Looking back now, perhaps there were better rifles available in that calibre than the one I used and perhaps there's more consistent ammo about now, but it put me off ever wanting to go back to it.

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