I know we've belabored this topic over and over again, but I had some free time this afternoon and thought I'd add a little visual fodder for everyone to mull over.

I ran some numbers through a ballistic calculator based on Hornady V-max ammo for both the .17HMR and .22WMR. Using published data from Hornady's website for bc's and MV's, the following picture describes the ballistic performance comparison between the two.



Obviously, the .17HMR is faster, but what's that really worth? The faster .17HMR might not give the wind as much time to drift it off course, but the lighter weight bullets will be more apt to drift (lower inertia) than heavier bullets. Faster bullets generally give greater hydrostatic shock, but as you'll see below, the 17HMR sacrified more with its smaller diameter and lighter bullet weights than it gained in velocity when it comes to hydrostatic shock. In my book, the difference in velocity is mostly conjecture.

With a 100yrd zero, the trajectory difference is never outside of 2" apart clear out to 150yrds. The .22WMR is point blank (assuming +/-2" for point blank on a coyote) out to 125yrds, the .17HMR is point blank out to 135yrds. Not much difference in my book. Just because a round drops less, it doesn't mean it's more accurate, just that the shooter has to compensate slightly less. Again, if we're talking about 100yrd coyote hunting, there's not enough rise or drop to compensate for with either round.

Compared for Energy, the .22WMR starts out considerably stronger but the .17HMR to catches up at about 100yrds, then they hang out together at about the same energy out to 250 (only as far as I thought was relevant to run the sim). Under 100yrds, the .22WMR has the advantage for energy, beyond 100, there's really no appreciable difference.

The only interesting variance I see is the Taylor Factor. Taylor KO Factors are a combination of a bullets diameter and it's momentum (TKO = velocity * bullet weight in lbs * diameter). TKO gives you an idea 1) how well a round will buck the wind, and 2) how hard the round will hit, aka, stopping power. Frankly, the 22WMR has almost twice the TKO factor of the 17HMR. TKO factors tell us a lot about wound characteristics and hydrostatic shock. The higher a round's TKO, the larger the temporary cavity will be (as well as the permanent cavity usually). Even though these two have the same energy past 100yrds, I would still actually expect better wound cavity and hydrostatic shock from the .22WMR, even though it's moving slower.

Granted, that's comparing ONE pair of factory loads, and bullet choice is obviously a very imortant aspect of any hunting application, but frankly, there just isn't enough proof, either on paper, or in the field, to convince me one is SIGNIFICANTLY better than the other for coyotes.