V-Max bullet, and they vary in appearance only by the color of their plastic tips: red for Hornady, gold for Remington, blue for Eley, and black for both CCI and Federal (you can tell the CCI and Federal cartridges apart by their "C" and "F" headstamps). Hornady and Federal ammo is loaded by CCI, whereas Eley loads Remington ammo. The Federal and CCI loads are rated 90 fps slower than the others (2010 fps versus 2100 fps), but on my chronograph, both kept pace with their competition. Depending on the rifle from which they were fired, all loads exceeded their factory velocity billing by as much as 50 fps, with the Federal and Eley loads proving to be fastest.

How The .17 HM2 Stacks Up
My first field experience with the .17 HM2 took place during autumn of 2004 while hunting fox squirrels in Kansas with Hornady ammunition and a preproduction T/C R55 autoloader. I have also civilized a few prairie dogs with Federal ammo and a switch-barrel bolt-action Sako Quad. Added to the list are a few gray squirrels, cottontails, jack rabbits, flickertails, starlings, and one very unlucky lizard that a friend said I could not possibly hit at a laser-ranged 94 yards.

I mention all of this to emphasize the fact that I know a bit more about the performance of the .17 HM2 than how it performs on paper targets or how it looks in a company catalog. Some of my adventures were made even more educational by the fact that I shot the .22 LR Stinger and Yellow Jacket loads right alongside the .17 HM2.

My experiences in the field with those cartridges revealed a number of things about their differences, so the next logical step was to see how they stacked up on paper and in front of the chronograph. The test rifles I used were Kimber Pro Varmints, and both wore Bushnell Elite 4300 4-16X scopes. Using near-identical rifles from the same manufacturer reduced the number of variables that might have influenced the outcome of my comparison of the two cartridges.

Comparing how the .17 HM2 stacks up against the .22 LR, I first come to the noise factor. Ear protection should be worn when any firearm is fired, but I see more people shooting rifles in .22 Rimfire without ear protection than with it. Using ear protection when shooting a rifle in .17 HM2 is even more important because its report is both louder and sharper than regular high-velocity loadings of the .22 LR. Hypervelocity loads such as the CCI Stinger and Remington Yellow Jacket narrow the decibel gap a bit, but the newest .17 on the block is still louder.