According to the guys on Rimfirecentral.com the rugers don't seem to be as accurate out of the box as the savage and marlins do, and cost almost twice as much. Not that they all shoot like crap or anything. It just seems the marlin and savages all seem to shoot great, but some of the rugers are not quite as good and others are. It's sort of hit and miss. None of them shoot bad though. The general opinion seems to be if you are on budget go with the savage or marlin, both are great. Even if you are not on a budget they are great rifles. The ruger does feel more like a centerfire rifle though.

H&R also makes a nice one if you don't mind a single shot break action. Or the henry lever guns. And then there is the CZ and others.

$200 dollars seems a bit high for a used savage. It would depend on what model and what kind of glass it comes with. I own a savage heavy barrel with the standard stock and it cost me $200 brand new. Of course it has a $400 scope on it, so $200 for mine would be a great deal. Now if you are talking about the stainless heavy barrel with the laminated stock that is not bad either.

My personal advice would be unless you are a Ruger die hard, get a savage heavy barrel and the rifle basix trigger and then some nice glass for it. Or a marlin, which ever looks and feels best to you. Pretty much any of the .17HMR rifles are accurate. It is an inherently accurate round, they designed it with that in mind.

I did a test with mine a few weeks ago and fired three round at 50 yards, another three at 75 and then three more at 100. Eight rounds went into a hole a dime could cover and I had one flyer that was a quarter of an inch off to the right. A VERY small wind gust could have caused that. Or it could have been me.

The only thing I can see bad about the round in general is the price, the stuff is about 10 bucks a box where I live. And it doesn't fair very well in the wind at all. It is so small and light it doesn't take much to blow it off course. If I still lived in the victorville CA area I wouldn't even waste the money. Two things you could count on there. The sun and the wind.

I used to think this was an expensive round for what it was until I bought a slug gun a few days ago. 15 bucks for five shells!!! That is crazy in my opinion.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say if you get one though you will love it. I have not met very many people that did not like them after shooting them a little bit. We were talking about what the hottest caliber was lately on the gun forum so I asked my local guns store. They said with out a doubt the .17HMR. They sell the crap out of them. And next would be the trusty 30-06 even though you can't hunt deer with a rifle in lower michigan.

That is my opinion any way.

Paul