Friend came gopher shooting with me one trip, with his .22-250 Sako. Of course, I had to spot his shots as he rarely saw anything, even with it's low powered 3x-9X scope. I let him shoot a few with my .17AH. We were working a hill line about 310yards away. He laughed out loud for the 1/2 hour it took to get my rifle back from him.

After heading home, he gave me his Sako, the barrel came off and we ordered him a Pac-Nor 3 groove, 9" twist. I had it threaded to his Sako action, then I chambered it with my .17AckBee reamer. That wonderful Sako extractor pulls out the .408" rimmed case perfectly after firing. At 4,100fps with 20gr. Vmax's and 3,750fps with 25 Vmax, they're a bit of a stretched string on ground squirrels.

When developing ammo, I made a .187", 5 shot group with his rifle while fireforming brass. He mounted a 6-24X M4200 mil dot scope on it. At 24X, the dots give him poi's to over 500yards. That makes it quite easy for fairly long range 1st round kills.

The new bullets improve the downrange ballistics of the .17's quite a bit.

With a BC of around .270 through .290, Tod Kindler's "Golds" of 25 through 30gr. weights make them the equivalence of .22/250's and .220 Swifts shooting similar BC bullets, ie: Vmaxs - except the big ones kick so much, you see nothing. The .17's have come a long way - the PPC's and BR's necked down, shortened .1", .150", other cases - the .17 family is still growing.

I should wrap this up by stating, once someone shoots a .17AH - they usually have to have one - or one similar, as Lennard did with the .17AckBee. Those people already own at least one .17 Hornet, figure everyone needs at least one as well. That now includes the new factory .17 Hornet by Hornady. Many of the old hands at the small bore shooting are ordering reamers or pestering Ruger and CZ to bring it out in a factory rifle under their banners.