I sight my rifles in at 80 yard zero. From 20 yards to 80 it is only off by 1/2 in trajectory. The round is susceptible to wind because of the light cartridge weight. But this is my go to squirrel hunting rifle. I can attest to shooting quail at 67 yards with this and all kills were head shots. That is extremely accurate in anybodies book. That rifle was the Savage Mark II FV with a Boyds thumbhole stock.

Ehhhhh…. No. If all we’re comparing is the 17s? Maybe. Depends 100% on the range you want to shoot, from what I see here.

-17HM2 for about $0.12/rnd (story says $0.13)
-17HMR for about 0.14|0.15 (story says .20cents/rnd)
-17WSM (which I have NOT tried) can be had for about $0.18-$0.19/rnd.
-22WMR is about 0.12 too.

So I’m only seeing 15% cost differential ON THE BOTTOM END. And how many of us use bottom end ammo? As I have zero experience with HM2 I can’t speak for what ammo I would want.

Considering that 22LR stats at 0.02 now, and a GOOD hunting rounds runs about $0.06/$0.08 a round I fail to see the “bang for the buck” here. At 2 to 3 cents different I would get an HMR over most of the rest.

Now if I had my druthers I’d just use a 5mm RRM. But those are running about $0.47/rnd! And the 22lr Aguila SuperMax I’ve been using on Squirrels seems plenty accurate and deadly enough for me.(but warning! has the extra-long Stinger-style cases so will not work in all chambers.)