Rifles are individual, not all will shoot the same load the same. Just because your buddies gun likes a certain grain bullet from a particular manufacturer doesn't mean yours will shoot it well. You need to experiment to see what YOUR gun prefers.

I have had good luck with winchester ammo in the past, so I usually start there, but if I can't get good results with that I try a different brand.

I will say that hornady makes good ammo as far as quality control and testing goes, but if your rifle doesn't like that load it doesn't matter.

And not all ammo is made by who you think it's made by either. Take the 17HMR, I believe it is all manufactured by CCI, there might be a few others now, I'm not sure. However Hornady, remington and CCI of course are all made at the CCI plant to the manufacturers specs. Pretty much if it comes in one of those plastic boxes CCI uses it was made by them. But since they are made to slightly different specs they will shoot different out of different guns. Mine prefers the Hornady v-max rounds.

Paul