Since Vic and I put this page up, we've been bombarded with e-mail concerning the .17 Remington. Some people love it, some hate it, and some just dismiss it outright as a "mouse gun," or "pest rifle."

I built a .17 Remington on a Sako L461 short action back in 1992 as the latest installment in my quest for a "perfect" calling rifle, one that would kill coyotes dead with a minimum of fuss and muss without tearing gaping holes in their furry hides. Because I had a particular idea about what a calling rifle ought to be, the lovely little pencil-barreled .222 Remington Magnum that I started with suffered severe indignities by the time that the operation ended, but after the first calling season with that rifle I looked no further. Vic finally got tired of me singing the praises of the caliber, and had some first-hand experience with the results, so he broke down and re-barreled a Ruger 77, although he contented himself with a less radical departure. To date 300 or so coyotes have met their maker via the little 25 gr. bullets, in addition to a few bobcats and whatnot, so we've been able to come to some informed conclusions with regard to the .17 Rem and it's effectiveness as a calling rifle.

This is our take on the caliber, and some of the misconceptions that surround it.

First, the .17 Remington is the subject of more misinformation, slander, and outright distortion than any other caliber that I can think of offhand. The only caliber that comes close is the .220 Swift, with the clinging "truth" that it "burns out the throat" in no time.

Like the urban myth concerning the morning-after message written in lipstick on the bathroom mirror that said "Welcome to the wonderful world of AIDS," the myths surrounding the .17 Rem are perpetuated again and again in articles in the shooting press, posts to newsgroups and bulletin boards, and word by of mouth from shooter to shooter. There is a vocal minority of shooters who have actually owned, fired, and hunted with the .17 Rem, and they have a decidedly different opinion; but as is so often the case their voices are submerged in the general clamor of the ignorant and unwashed.

Some of the most intransigent myths are:

"The .17 Remington fouls bores so badly that you have to clean your rifle after every 3 (or 5, or 10) shots."

"The .17 Remington is horribly "wind sensitive" due to the li'l teeny bullet."

"The .17 Remington is a poor choice for a reloader due to the limited availability of bullets."

"The .17 Remington is O.K. for jackrabbits and such, but it's certainly not enough rifle to reliably kill a coyote."

There is lots more (mis)information out there along the same lines, but here is the real deal, as Vic and I know it.

Being in some ways a hard-headed and intransigent person (I know that it's a surprise to ya'll, but there it is) I could never understand what was up with the "fouling" issue and the .17 Rem. Were the bullet jackets somehow different than the ones on the .22 cals? Maybe the barrel was finished with a rasp after rifling? Was there enough difference in velocity to somehow melt copper onto the steel? Why on earth would a .17 caliber bullet going down a .17 caliber bore be any different from any other matched bullet and barrel?

These questions, among others, found an unfortunate target in Poor Victor (one of the only people that would talk to me) and he'd shrug and profess ignorance as well, and when my Sako was finished I decided to take a direct course to the heart of the matter.

I took it to the range, sighted it in, and began to shoot it. Although my oath to the Red Gods elicited a worried frown from Vic, I swore that I would not touch that bore until the rifle's accuracy began to deteriorate. One hundred rounds became two hundred rounds became three hundred rounds, and the rifle still piled five rounds into .5 or so from the bench when we found ourselves at the range. Somewhere around three hundred and fifty rounds Vic grabbed it and cleaned it, just 'cause he couldn't stand it any more, and three patches and some Hoppes resulted in a mirror bore, just like it was when I picked it up from the 'smith a couple of years previously.

This, my children, is what is known in some circles as "empirical evidence." You can take your pick; either the Douglas Premium Air-gauged barrel that I screwed on there is the only barrel in the history of the world that doesn't shrink to .14 caliber after 10 shots, or some folks out there are either hallucinating badly or simply full of shit. I ought to mention that I've got a barrel from Bullberry on a T/C that acts the same way. I clean it when I think about it, and it shoots just fine with five rounds through it, or fifty.

Victor will never know if his barrel is prone to the dreaded "fouling," because he cleans bores like a good cook does dishes, but I think that he's reached the fifty round mark a time or two, and he hasn't seen any change either.

It's common to hear that the .17 Rem. is useless when there is anything more than a slight breeze blowing, because the bullet drift is horrific and the little bullet sheds velocity so fast that the trajectory is roughly analogous to a falling rock. With all of the hot air coming out of guys regarding the .17 Rem., the wind is bound to be blowing most of the time, no matter where you are, so that is a matter of some concern for varminters who are contemplating the purchase of a rifle in this caliber.

Now, I'll tell you up front that I'm not a heavy-duty ballistics guy. I have a retarded grasp on distance that allows me to determine whether a coyote is close enough for me to kill or not, and I pretty much let it go at that. I do, however, have enough savvy to use a ballistics calculator, and the chart and statistics pictured below ought to give you a pretty good idea that the .17 Rem is not a ballistic twin to the .22 rimfire.

If you elect to do this, though, run some #'s for the various .22 caliber loads that you might have used, or heard of others using, and you'll be surprised how close they really are, 'specially if you look at ranges inside of 300 yards (and if you can't call a coyote any closer than that to begin with, you need to read the rest of this page carefully).

Fellas will tell you that you might as well stick with a .22 centerfire, because in addition to all of the other problems with the .17 Rem, you can't get bullets for the thing. I don't know where anyone ever got that idea, unless they've been playing Rip Van Winkle in a cave somewhere for the last 10 or so years, but Walt Berger at Berger Bullets makes a slew of different .17 caliber bullets, from the l'il itty bitty 15 gr. outfits to the great big lumbering 37 gr. VLD bullets. Vic and I have been shooting Berger Bullets for years now, and we have no complaints, either regarding quality or availability.

One note on bullets: One of the deep philosophical questions that will rear it's head in the lives of .17 Rem shooters sooner or later is the bullet weight/speed conundrum. It goes something like this.

"If a .17 kills by speed, and a 25 gr. bullet will go 4,000 fps, and they make bullets all the way down to 15 gr...."

Vic and I have been down that trail, and we found out that the 22 gr. and the 25 gr. were pretty much indistinguishable when they hit a coyote; the 20 gr. and the 18 gr. began to shoot all over the place, and the 15 gr. was too small to see, much less try to stuff into the front of a case.

The heavier bullets don't even bear mention, as far as we are concerned. If you are doing some sort of exclusive long-range work, like prairie dogs, they might have a place, but for coyotes the 25 gr. seems to strike a perfect balance between accuracy, velocity and terminal effect.

Factory ammo is somewhat limited, but as long as you are content to shoot Remington ammo loaded with 25 gr. bullets you won't have a problem, and it kills coyotes about as well as anything else if you don't reload.

A friend of mine up North is a die-hard .17 Rem guy, and he wrote me this excerpt the other day:

"I'm no ballistics whiz and don't profess to understand why that little pill is so deadly but my experience has shown me a great many things about that bullet that most folks wouldn't believe. I guess the easiest way to put in perspective is to look at how many deer have died from being shot with an 80 or 100 gr bullet out of a .243 or some such caliber. Well, a deer is three or four times as large as a coyote and the 80 or 100 gr bullet is three or four times as large as a 25 gr from the .17. All things considered, it's equal. Why shouldn't we get great results? When I put it to non-believers like that it seems to make a difference to them."

Randy has part of the answer, I think, but he's right; that tiny little bullet is more lethal than one can possibly believe, unless you have had some field experience with it. It is simply perfectly matched to a coyote-sized animal, provided you understand it's limitations when it comes to big bones.

The .17 Rem does what it does based on a combination of speed and bullet construction, and that's bad news when you pile one onto the big ball joint in the front shoulder or in the pelvis. It will take a rib in stride, and even punch through the thin bone of a shoulder blade before turning the lungs to jello, but those ball joints will stop the bullet in it's tracks if you center one, and even though that coyote will usually go down like a pile of rocks, he'll often be back up and in the thick stuff once the initial shock wears off.

Some people think that this is an indictment of the cartridge, and sufficent reason not to try it, but I'm here to tell you that the .22 centerfires, up to and including the .22-250 and the Swift, will do the same thing with the same hit.

Varmint bullets are simply not constructed to defeat heavy bone and continue their penetration into the vitals of an animal, and that's about all there is to that.

The answer is pretty simple, though; just don't shoot them in the ball joints. The overwhelming majority of the coyotes that I kill are standing still and looking at the call, and I carefully shoot them on a vertical center, just behind the shoulder. A little low and the heart is in the bullet path, a little high and the spine takes the hit, a few inches back and the liver and spleen take the damage, and a centered shot is dead in the middle of the lungs.

From the front a shot into the center of the chest, where the neck joins the body, gives the same result; shredded lungs, a dead coyote, and no exit.

Gather up a rifle chambered in .17 Rem and give it a try. I can promise you that you'll never blow up another furbearer with a bigger rifle again, once you see what is possible with the little .17.