Thread: 22LR or 17HMR, your thoughts?

You may as well have started a thread asking which is the best all round caliber!
In my experience (which is far less than many in here) the .22 is great for varmint/pest control. I've a Rossi 10/22 and what follows is my experience with it
I paid $400 for my rossi, brand new in the box, a 10 shot SA 17HMR starts at $1099
Cheap as chips to buy and shoot, CCI subs are 35 bucks per 100, thats 35 cents a shot, whereas 17HMR $90 per 100.....that's 90 cents, nearly 3x the cost of a 22
With a suppressor and subs it's uber quiet, quieter than my .22 Gammo
It will happily reach out to a possum/rabbit at +100m distance with HV rounds and same rounds will take out a wallaby at 50m (shot placement is a tad more critical though)
Today it dropped a Magpie at 90m with subs
A .22 will MAKE you improve your shooting to remain ethical at distance
You don't guess your holdover for range, you learn it as you use and get to know your rifle.
So depending on ammo, my .22 is good for bush shooting or stretching out to 180+ metres and with a clip of subs and a clip of high velocity, I can switch up depending on what presents itself as a target, mostly with the .22 I'm after possums and the like, IF a roo presents then I can take it, although I prefer my .243 for roo's and bigger, makes a hell of a mess of a possum and it's bloody expensive possum control!

One of the things I was taught very early on in my shooting career is that a larger caliber allows people to develop bad habits because "if you hit it, it's dead" whereas a smaller caliber, ya gotta be on your best game and every shot, even if it's varmint/pest control is an opportunity to improve our shooting