Besides that, rimfire cases are thin. They're the old folded rim design that centerfire cartridge designers discarded before the turn of the 20th century because they were deemed too weak to handle the pressure of new cartridges. We've been using folded head cases for the small rimfire cartridges because the normal operating pressure is low enough that folded heads work fine for this application. Also, rimfire firearms were designed only for relatively low industry standard pressure. As you can see, the idea of exceeding industry standard pressure is a bad one. It is one thing for an individual to get high velocities in a custom-built firearm held to close tolerances for his own use, and it's another thing entirely for a company to do it with what could become millions of rounds of ammo to be fired in an untold number and type of firearms. Dave Emary, Hornady's chief ballistician and engineer, is one of those guys who thought the cartridge would be a really neat idea and started working with it. As it turned out, a powder is now available that really boosts the velocity performance with this small case. Aside from the powder, cutting the bullet weight to 17 grains gained another significant edge in velocity. But performance with this cartridge is not as simple as lowering bullet weight and increasing the velocity with a new powder.

The Hornady V-Max bullet, with its pointed red tip and boattail, offers a whole new shape with a significantly improved ballistic coefficient. It is much improved over traditional bullet shapes used in rounds like the .22 Magnum or even the now-defunct hot little 5mm Remington Magnum.

Besides all this performance, Hornady's new .17 has the recoil of a pellet gun and what sounds like way less report than a .22 Magnum. (I would say the report is more like a .22 rimfire, though I don't have a way to measure it.) It all adds up to a cartridge that is almost addicting to shoot.

The .17 HMR is also one of the most useful cartridges you can have, particularly if you live in a rural area, as I do. Here, ground squirrels play havoc with the grain bin, starlings make a mess on the hay, nutria cut off acres of crops. And in between, there are tin cans that need shooting. Neighbors don't like to hear a loud rifle. It makes them nervous. Hornady's new .17 is perfect for these conditions.

NEW GUNS FOR THE NEW .17 HMR
The test rifles for this new round were prototypes: a stainless Marlin (called the Model 17VS) in a gray laminated stock (Marlin officials say the production model will come with a black synthetic like the one shown on this month's cover) and topped with a Leupold 2.5-8X scope in Talley mounts; a blued Marlin (Model 17V) in a brown laminated stock carrying a Swarovski 3-10X Habicht scope, also in Talley mounts; and a Ruger, dubbed the 17 SRV (blued steel and walnut stock) and fitted with a Tasco 2-8X World Class scope in Ruger mounts. As I understand it, the Marlin rifles were fitted with custom barrels from Wiseman and Shilen.

In the animal glue expansion medium, the 17-grain V-Max penetrated two inches at 25 feet, three inches at 100 yards, and four inches at 200 yards.

All these rifles have bolt actions and detachable box magazines just like .22 Magnum counterpart rifle actions from the same companies. The Ruger has a rotary magazine, and the Marlin has a stackable box. Since you're no doubt familiar with .22 Magnum rifles from these companies, I won't go into detail on them.

The shooting with these rifles is outlined in accompanying charts. You will notice that the groups listed are for 10-shot strings. Tight 10-shot clusters are hard to print. For a big-game gun, I generally figure that if a rifle fires 1.5 inches for 10 shots it is excellent. If you have an off-the-shelf production hunting rifle that groups one inch for 10 shots, don't sell it because you could go years before you find another. As you can see in the charts, both of the Marlin rifles fired 1.0-inch 10-shot strings. In one 10-shot string, the blued-barrel Marlin fired eight shots into 0.8 inch. I have never gotten accuracy this good with any rimfire cartridge, and certainly not with the .22 Magnum.

For three-shot groups, each of the Marlin rifles fired 0.6-inch strings. For five shots, the stainless Marlin fired two strings that measured 1.0 inch and a third that went 0.7. The blued Marlin fired two five-shot strings that measured 1.0 inch.

I moved the target frame to 200 yards to see what the stainless-steel Marlin would do at that distance. Most of the groups were fired with a zero wind condition. Two of them were fired in a two-mph wind. By the time the target frame was set up for the 200-yard shooting, the wind had picked up. My digital display was indicating eight mph with the wind coming from nine o'clock at the beginning of the 10-shot string at 200 yards. There wasn't much time to complete the shooting, and I figured the conditions would provide an indication of what the lightweight .17 bullet would do in the wind.

I was firing from inside my shooting room, and I couldn't hear the wind in my muffs and couldn't feel it on my face. I had no wind flags. In other words, since I couldn't sense the wind, I couldn't dope it. The rifle was simply fired and then the target was examined. Competitive benchrest shooters would call this target a "weather report." The shots were aligned horizontally, 12.5 inches across. I never would have thought the mild breeze would affect the bullet that much. I first wondered if the bore was getting fouled, but there was only about three inches of vertical shot dispersion in the group. It all pointed to the wind. It was a nice little alibi for a 12.5-inch group, but I had to check it out.

I went back to my computer. Using Wayne Blackwell's Load From A Disk, I found that with the muzzle velocity and ballistic coefficient produced by the little bullet, an eight-mph crosswind was worth 12.3 inches of deflection at 200 yards. A five-mph wind would deflect the bullet 7.7 inches at 200 yards, and a 10-mph wind would shift it 15.4 inches. On a normal day here, midday breezes commonly go to 15 mph, which would deflect the bullet 23.1 inches at 200 yards, according to Load From A Disk. At 100 yards, a 15-mph wind would deflect the bullet five inches.