17 Hmr
Sam -
That's great news about Barbara. Our prayers for her have been answered.
Savage 93R17 in 17HMR has Accutrigger and 3-9 Swift scope. Very light, well balanced rig. BUT, have had trouble getting it to shoot. It will NOT NOT shoot any 17gr V-Max load. Have tried Hornady, Federal, Remington, CCI, Winchester - you name it and it gets 3" inch (or more) groups from the bench at 100 yards. Even tried Hornady 20gr SPX and no go. It will however shoot the Federal 17gr Speer TNT HP load fairly decently. Tried it yesterday at 100 yards shooting from my Predator Styx and it will put 20 rounds consistently in a woodchuck paper target. That was in calm wind. When the wind began to pick up (3 mph from 4 o'clock), it threw 5 out of 25 shots outside the woodchcuk target - and that's only at 100 yards. Scuttlebut around the range is that the 17HMR ain't all that accurate and it IS wind sensitive. I would love to have a good shootin' 17HMR for close-in groundhog work because it has virtually no recoil and it doesn't "raise the dead" when you fire it. Am ordering a new heavy barrel Savage with Leupold VX-II 4-12 40mm AO and will keep the better of the two. Like I said, jury is still out. I also have concerns about how much energy it has to put down our tenacious groundhogs. We'll see.