The damage caused by .17HMR

[deaquire]

I've been shooting the 17 HMR for a short while now and have a couple of questions.

 

If you shoot a rabbit at ten yards, is the damage caused greater than if you had shot it at 100 yards? Or does the bullet not have time to fragment?

 

Occasionally part of the rabbits shoulder is missing, but sometimes there is barely any noticeable damage at all. It's only now I'm thinking of it and not sure at what distance you will cause maximum damage.

 

Thanks and hope I've not confused you with not knowing how to word it.

 

David

[l1ukeRS]

the ones i have shot at 20 odd yards have just as little head left as the ones at 100

[Salop Matt]

I found it depends on what it hits on the way through. All my bunnies are head shot so anything grom a grizzley ragged hole through to near complete decapitation.

 

ATB

 

Matt

[Frenchieboy]

I think much of it is down to the point of impact and the angle that you shoot it on more than the range you shoot it at! When I was shooting with a 17HMR there wasn't usually all that much head left but if the rabbit was something like 45 degrees on to me when I shot I would often find damage to the neck and sometimes even the shoulder.

[deaquire]

Which rounds were you using? I often head shot, but not always, and there's always plenty of head left, occasionally a nice big hole. I use vmax hornady 17gr

[malkiserow]

It does vary. I've found whole bullet heads or nothing much. On the rare occasions, the bullet has gone through whole.

 

Most of the time I head shoot and that reliably makes a bit of a mess. with fragments of hornady blue tips

[Gimlet]

Unpredictable damage isn't down to the HMR cartridge particularly but ballistic tips in general. You can never be sure what the effect will be at any range. I shoot a lot of rabbits with a .222 using Nosler ballistic tips and the damage is as unpredictable as it is with the HMR. More so, if anything. Occasionally a shoulder shot rabbit will be as edible as it would be if shot with a .22 lr; usually they're pretty much in two pieces, sometimes they more or less explode and sometimes results are just plain odd. In one case a shot presented itself at very last light just as I was ready to pack it in and go home. I had a final sweep with the bins and detected some movement near a clump of nettles about 120 yards away. Through the scope I could see a vague shadow and some hopping motion but it was just too dark to place a shot. Then it stood up on its hind legs and I clearly saw the white belly so I fired right into the centre of the white patch. There was a terrific pop on impact, like someone bursting a crisp packet and I was expecting a head and some legs and little else in between. But when I got to it was lying on its back without a mark on it. No blood when I ran my hand over it, no obvious entry or exit wound. It felt odd. It was blown up like a balloon and every bone was grating. I started paunching it out of curiosity and inside it was just brown/green soup. It was a bag of liquid and broken bones and near the surface of this mess was the orange bullet tip, good as new, and some bits of copper jacket. The bullet had hit only soft tissue but fragmented violently without exiting, virtually exploding inside the rabbit. I skinned it - or started to - and as the pelt came off the tissue underneath disintegrated. It pretty much was just head and feet with the rest liquidized but this had taken place inside the pelt which was itself almost unmarked.

They're odd things, ballistic tips.

[deaquire]

Unpredictable damage isn't down to the HMR cartridge particularly but ballistic tips in general. You can never be sure what the effect will be at any range. I shoot a lot of rabbits with a .222 using Nosler ballistic tips and the damage is as unpredictable as it is with the HMR. More so, if anything. Occasionally a shoulder shot rabbit will be as edible as it would be if shot with a .22 lr; usually they're pretty much in two pieces, sometimes they more or less explode and sometimes results are just plain odd. In one case a shot presented itself at very last light just as I was ready to pack it in and go home. I had a final sweep with the bins and detected some movement near a clump of nettles about 120 yards away. Through the scope I could see a vague shadow and some hopping motion but it was just too dark to place a shot. Then it stood up on its hind legs and I clearly saw the white belly so I fired right into the centre of the white patch. There was a terrific pop on impact, like someone bursting a crisp packet and I was expecting a head and some legs and little else in between. But when I got to it was lying on its back without a mark on it. No blood when I ran my hand over it, no obvious entry or exit wound. It felt odd. It was blown up like a balloon and every bone was grating. I started paunching it out of curiosity and inside it was just brown/green soup. It was a bag of liquid and broken bones and near the surface of this mess was the orange bullet tip, good as new, and some bits of copper jacket. The bullet had hit only soft tissue but fragmented violently without exiting, virtually exploding inside the rabbit. I skinned it - or started to - and as the pelt came off the tissue underneath disintegrated. It pretty much was just head and feet with the rest liquidized but this had taken place inside the pelt which was itself almost unmarked.

They're odd things, ballistic tips.

 

That sounds quite fascinating. Could the age of the animal play a part in the resulting damage? E.g. an old rabbit is much more difficult to skin and gut than a rabbit less than a year old. You'd think an older rabbit would display less damage than a young one.

 

On a similar, yet completely different note, I once shot at a rabbit and missed. It was dark. I thought nothing of it and continued onward. I found the rabbit, dead, about 15 feet from where I'd originally aimed for it. There wasn't a mark on it, nor when I gutted it could I find any mark to suggest it had been shot. Had it not been warm I'd have assumed it was a different creature. Some occurrences are very strange.

[filzee]

I have once shot at a rabbit with the HMR using ballistic tips and shot short. The bullet obviously fragmented as th rabbit was going wild. I can only assume that a bit of the bullet had fragmented and entered the rabbit.

I managed to get there quick enough to put it out of its misery.

[team tractor]

I've shot a few at 10 yards and found nothing on them but from 40 yards onwards it totally blows holes . I normally head shoot at 100-140 yards and find it blows the head in two .

Just to add I never ever body shoot as I did it once and after walking to the rabbit to see it still screaming in pain I was gutted.:( its complete back end was blown apart :(

[kent]

I've been shooting the 17 HMR for a short while now and have a couple of questions.

 

If you shoot a rabbit at ten yards, is the damage caused greater than if you had shot it at 100 yards? Or does the bullet not have time to fragment?

 

Occasionally part of the rabbits shoulder is missing, but sometimes there is barely any noticeable damage at all. It's only now I'm thinking of it and not sure at what distance you will cause maximum damage.

 

Thanks and hope I've not confused you with not knowing how to word it.

 

David

The amount of fragmentation, expansion or kinetic energy even is governed by impact speed. Basically the further you are away the less the speed and hence the less the damage.

That said I found the HMR very funny in use sometimes it did, sometimes it did not. A very unpredictable little round in my experience. Maximum damage is always going to be at the end of the muzzle in general firearms terms yet the HMR has been known to do freaky things

[deaquire]

The amount of fragmentation, expansion or kinetic energy even is governed by impact speed. Basically the further you are away the less the speed and hence the less the damage.

That said I found the HMR very funny in use sometimes it did, sometimes it did not. A very unpredictable little round in my experience. Maximum damage is always going to be at the end of the muzzle in general firearms terms yet the HMR has been known to do freaky things

 

Well I figured that was what made most sense, but like tractor says, at 10 yards it seems to pass right through? Whereas further down the line it causes more damage.

[kent]

 

Well I figured that was what made most sense, but like tractor says, at 10 yards it seems to pass right through? Whereas further down the line it causes more damage.

 

 

And sometimes it will just explode at short range! I shot two close range once both in the head side by side one lost its head and ruined the whole front end the other was a wounder running round in circles as the shot stuck low through rushing and just put a hole in the lower head / jaw area. Most rabbits chest shot at around 160 yds look like they have died of a coronary, yet again every now and then POP! Its one reason me and the HMR parted company, never could predict that cartridge

[deaquire]

Sums it pretty well I reckon Cheers every one