cat skinner

Just brought home a cheap little Savage 93R17 with a Simmons 3-9 on it. Sighted it in to be dead on at 25yds, just to get going. I'll refine it as I see how it drops. First two shots on ground squirrels resulted in two dead pests. Seems like it will be a fun little gun, and a lot cheaper to shoot than my old Remington 725 .222. Quieter, too.

viking78

My dad just bought a savage 17 a few months ago. Out of the box it was a great rifle, but they don't even start to show their accuracy till you put 2-300 hundred rounds down the tube, that thing is literally a tack driver. Pending the wind on any day, that little rifle will put 10 rounds through a 1/2 inch hole at 50 yards with no problem. (from a rest of course) And after you find the ammo your gun likes best, it just gets better. He sighted his in at 150 yards with hornady ammo and it consistantly makes 5 shot, 1 inch groups with a flyer once in a while that opens the group up to maby 1 1/4".
congrats on your new varment sniper rifle! Greasy grimy gopher guts!!!

RockDoctor

All of the good things said about the .17hmr, the Hummer is true. I had a Savage with the fancy laminate stock that I bought for small critters. In any case I took it with me to the Hill Country in Central Texas to see what kind of effect it would have on feral hogs. One shot, one kill. A shot to the neck just in front of the shoulder blade dropped a 125lb hog. I was a bit surprised. Several other hogs got away as I worked the bolt, causing me to wish I had a semi-auto in .17hmr.

SW Gun Guy

I have that gun and love it too. A great combo of super accurate, not much recoil, great trigger (Accutrigger), and not TOO expensive to shoot and not very expensive to acquire either. Enjoy your new gun.

cat skinner

So far so good. Missed a couple, but killed six ground squirrels. One nice thing is that no squirrel got down his hole wounded, as happened with my 22LR. I found a trajectory table for the .17, and if I am reading it right, dead on at 25 yards should be dead on at 150yds, and not more than 1.75 inches high, at approx 100yds.
I think I'll lower that to dead on at 125yds, so that I'll be less than an inch high throughout the flight path. That should put it 1/4" low at 25yds, and about 1.5" low at 150yds.
Sure a fun little gun. I'm still getting used to the 'scope. Seems eye relief is a bit fussy, but for about $50, it's adequate.
Any ammo I should avoid? I'm not fussy; usually anything that goes bang is fine with me.