CARTRIDGE OF THE WEEK
17HMR – Hornady V-Max

The 17HMR is one of the latest rim fire cartridges available, being made this century. It immediately took off as it provided an inexpensive, high energy, flat shooting cartridge for those shooters who go through a massive quantity of rounds.

The 17HMR is a great cartridge for both target shooting and hunting, though there are some limitations. There will be a million opinions on the matter, but generally speaking; there are a limited number of manufacturers making 17HMR; there is a small number of projectiles available in 17HMR and those projectiles are all under 25gr in weight. The 17HMR is no different from any other specialty cartridge – it won’t do everything, but what it does do, it does exceptionally well. It will be hard to find anything more efficient cartridge for hunting small game like rabbits or shooting targets 100 to 150 metres away.

17HMR is chambered by many European and USA firearm manufacturers, including Savage, Anschutz and Sako. Unfortunately, an Australian made rifle is not available (yet).

Projectiles for the 17HMR range from the 15.5gr NTX which is loaded in Winchester ammunition, to the 20gr Gamepoint loaded by CCI – both excellent cartridges in their own right, but by far the most popular cartridge is one made by the designers of the 17HMR – the Hornady .172” 17gr V-Max. This projectile has explosive terminal performance and shoots exceptionally well in a wide variety of firearms.