Originally Posted By: FurhunterI dont think you will see the masses of 17HMR shooters beating down the doors of the sporting good stores for another rimfire thats even more expensive to shoot than what they already have even if it does go just a little bit faster. Performance gain is minimal for the money its going to cost you to do it.
While I generally agree, I'll pose this question:
What did the .17HMR really do that the .22WMR wasn't already doing?
I bought a .17HMR just for kicks and grins, frankly, haven't seen anything out of it that I really think makes it superior in any way to the .22WMR, and in my experience, it's severely lacking in downrange killing performance compared to it's "old man". I like the round, absolutely LOVE it in my 6" Taurus Tracker (have it in a Savage 93 and a Marlin 17 as well), but is it really better than the .22WMR? Not in my book.
So, you're asking the question, "why would guys jump on a new round that doesn't really do anything different than an old round except fly a little faster?"... My answer is, "because they have done so in the past"...
Beyond that, I don't think it's fair to assume that they're only targeting the .17HMR shooters. For what it's worth, if it's a 17 pushing 500fps faster with a 17 or 20grn bullet, you're looking at 20% more energy. What that means to someone that doesn't use a rimfire AT ALL is that here's something significantly more powerful than any of the other rimfires out there, so if I'm a guy that was hesitating to "stoop down to a rimfire", now I don't have to bend quite so low. So now I'm comparing my ammo cost (considering these guys probably AREN'T reloading anyway) to my current centerfire costs, I'd be saving money on ammo, the price point of the .17HMR being totally irrelevant, since I'm not buying HMR ammo.
I'm not saying I care at all about this new round, and I'll say this, I won't be jumping on it. But, that's my 2cents on the matter. Speed and power will always be king with consumers, and rimfires are favored by a lot of guys right now for various reasons.
We can all agree, it'll very likely become popular in rimfire only zones, regardless of how substantial the difference is, or isn't.
Consumers are exceedingly predictable. It doesn't have to REALLY be better, it just has to sound better. "New and Improved" doesn't have to necessarily be true to get sales. The .17HMR didn't change anything, but I'd personally say it's more popular than the .22WMR, and undeservingly so. All the new round needs is enough traction to get into the market, and it'll earn a spot. Frankly, there's a lot of room in the rimfire market. How many 30caliber rounds are there out there that honestly aren't any different than one another? From .308, .30-06, .300WM, .300WSM, RSAUM, RUM, 30-378, .308ME, etc etc etc... Any perceived difference in effective range is unsubstantial, yet they're all there, and they all have their own followings. With only 4 different rimfires in the game, there's a lot of room for new players, even if they don't do anything different than the same old same.
