.17 calibers for coyote hunting

[polaris man]

has anyone any experince with the 17 center fire calibers. fireball ,remington, or hornet . wondering if they would kill coyotes at 200 yds

 

[BUCKrub91]

IDK about the centerfire ones but my .17hmr dropped one in its tracks at about 150... shot it between the eyes though

 

[SimplyChad]

BB's being lethal amazing what we can do

 

[sm]

.17 Hornet back in the day took care of bidness for me and a buddy of mine.

Currently I do use a .17 HMR for property duty and yes some 'yotes will never do what they do again.

 

[rcmodel]

My coyote hunting pard went through the .17 Remington thing several years ago.

Seemed to us about half the time they dropped like lightening hit them.

And the other half, they ran off and died somewhere else besides where we could find them.

He gave up and went back to his 22-250 & 6mm.
Either one of which drops them DRT most every time.

rc

 

[husker]

A lil small for coyotes IMO. But if its all I had, it wouldn't stop me from hunting them with a 17

 

[TexasPatriot.308]

small for coyotes? my little .17hmr kills big pigs all the time. I know this is about 17 centerfire but it all amounts to how good a shot you are. kinda like Karamojo Bell and his lil rifle in Africa.

 

[BigN]

In my opinion, a 17 is too small for most anything, except for woodchucks. Headshots are great but it's not too often you can get one. 223 is my minimum for coyotes but I shoot them with pretty much anything, as long as it's bigger than a 204.

 

[Kachok]

I would leave the 17 for small fuzzys.
yots/bobcats .223 40gr min
deer/pronghorn .243 85gr min
elk/moose .264 140gr min
bear/bison .308 180gr min
Big bad and highly dangerous 338 cal 250gr min
Feel free to disagree with any of those, but I think those are decent minimums for quick ethical kills.

 

[TexasPatriot.308]

I have shot big pigs, lung/heart shots with 20 grain hunting tips out of my model 93 .17hmr, the internal damage proved to me it will do the job, like I said shot placement. if you aint a good shot get a larger caliber, even then they been known to run. if you check around, the caliber of choice for deer poachers is probably a .22 long rifle.

 

[Airborne Falcon]

Yes, we've dropped quite a few over the course of the past couple of years with a Marlin 917V - I've downed a few personally but my Son, at 13, has made it his pastime hobby and he's become quite adept at doing it ... and that 17 HMR puts'em down on the spot.

 

[TexasPatriot.308]

is that pigs or coyotes Airborne Falcon? I have cut open some hogs and their hearts and lungs were jello. there is a guy on the .17hmr forum that is notorious about killing big pigs with his. when it comes to hogs and ethics, I am too overrun with them to worry about what I shoot em with, I also use .308s (imagine that) or whatever rifle is in my truck. too many hogs, so little time.

 

[C-grunt]

My friends father in law hunts coyotes witha 17HMR and according to my friend it does a pretty good amount of damage.

 

[Airborne Falcon]

I'm talking about yotes ... and not talking past 150 meters, at least not in our experience. I dunno if either of us have ever even - well, yes I do. Neither one of us have tried taking one out that far, 200 yds. I have serious doubts about what they'll do at that range, not just expansion wise, but ballistically as well because those little pills move in the wind quite a bit.

 

[sgtstryker]

I bought a .17 HMR to shoot crows, it does a pretty good job on them. When I get to shoot coyotes I use an AR with 69 gr. ammo. I think it was in GON magazine that a fellow claims he killed a coyote at 317 yards with his .17 HMR. But. like rcmodel mentioned, there are better cartridges for this only they do make more noise.. The OP was asking about .17 centerfires, so, yeah, I know folks that swear by them, and a 200 yd shot is doable, IMO.

 

[MachIVshooter]

Rem. 700 LVSF .17 Rem. This ~30 lb. bitch was a bang-flop after the 20 gr. HP entered just below her chin at 130 yards. No exit, but the damage inside was incredible. MV is 4,245 FPS from the 22" barrel.

In my opinion, a 17 is too small for most anything, except for woodchucks.

Try playing with one. The .17 Rem has astounding lethality on predators with minimal pelt damage. Not to mention a laser-beam trajectory and virtually no recoil.

I also have a .17 HM2, which is great on rabbits and praire rats to about 150 yards.

 

[gamestalker]

I've shot quite a few coyotes with the .17 Rem, and they do a nice job with very little damage to the pelt. Tried the same thing with a .270 win. and 90 gr. HP's not so good. 90 gr. hollow points litterally explode the entire dog, even from over 200 yds. away with a MV of 3700 fps. I'm talking red spary and very little left to identify.

 

[tundraotto]

little on the small side IMHO, 223 or 22-250 is about perfect...

 

[baylorattorney]

I bought that small 17 when it came out and was impressed with how fast and straight it shot. Hit every target including hog which all seemed absolutely unaware I'd just shot them. I sold it. Non lethal. IMO.

 

[ritepath]

Shoot yotes with whatever you have on hand, hopefully they'll die somewhere.

That being said my coyote gun is an 223 AR topped off with a 12x scope.

 

[fallout mike]

Baylor attorney, 2 of my uncles killed a combined 13 hogs this past squirrel season with a .17 hmr. 11 were DRT. However, they shot several more that were not found. Then again, one of them also shot one during deer season with a .444 that ran off and wasn't found.

 

[baylorattorney]

17hmr? That's the small one right? 17 rem being the big one? I'm not saying anybody else couldn't kill hogs with the hmr, the hog I shot at 150 yards, being a 170 lb plus boar didn't even wince on a shoulder to neck shot tho. Hit right about where I was aiming on a moving target, but 17hmr is no hog killer of choice. I mean a.22 lr is a bigger round.

 

[MachIVshooter]

17hmr? That's the small one right? 17 rem being the big one?

Basically. Of the commercial .17's, they are, from smallest to largest:

.17 Mach II (.22 LR "Stinger" parent case)
.17 HMR (.22 WMR parent case)
.17 Hornet (.22 Hornet parent case)
.17 Fireball (.221 Fireball parent case)
.17 Remington (.223 Rem. parent case)

17hmr is no hog killer of choice. I mean a.22 lr is a bigger round.

.22 LR is a bigger bullet, but a smaller case; The .17 HMR is based on the .22 Magnum. The Mach II is a LR case (acutally, the slightly longer "Stinger" LR case) necked down.