Re: rimfire trainer-17hmr or 22lr
pickpick,
If you've already got your platform (or both!) congratulations. FWIW, let me echo Carter and Monkey above in saying that if this is a training rifle, do yourself a huge favor and pick the 22LR (or if you've bought a 17, save up and get a 22LR). Getting a good 22LR trainer and shooting 100-200 yards has easily been the thing that has made the biggest difference in my skills (or lack thereof
) other than consistent dryfire practice. Without question, it helped me exactly because of it's ballistic inferiority. It would get pushed around by the wind and if I wasn't paying good attention each and every shot to wind changes, rifle cant, etc it would make me pay for it. So it actually magnified my mistakes and forced me to work on them instead of get away with them. Even though the area here is pretty shooter friendly, the furthest I'd usually get to take my 308's out on a regular basis was 500 meters, which had kind of let me stagnate in skill development.
I was lucky and I had met Carter out at a range that he and I shoot at, and I knew he was pretty big into 22LR. I have a slew of centerfire rifles, and had always had a decent rimfire...but I wasn't using it effectively for quality practice (i.e. setting it up with decent glass, anti-cant, and shooting it out to 200). I asked him for some help and instruction in getting to know the rimfire game and he was very gracious with his time and ammo (and has a sweet-ass 40x rig
) . Spending a few bucks more on good 22LR ammo is definitely worth it, as once you've got a good ammo/rifle combo, anything you're off on is something that you failed to do and can get better at. Best of luck with whichever you've picked, and good shooting.
-A