I was talking to a buddy of mine that owns a gunshop yesterday and he told me that Aguila will be coming out with a new round. It'll be similiar to the 17 HMR, except it will use the 22lr casing. According to him, Aguila claims that the new load will work well in any current 17HMR barrel. This guy is a close friend and I don't think that he'd BS me. I was just wondering if any of you that possess a FFL has heard anything about this?

I've been hearing about the .17 Aquila on and off for about 18 months to 2 years. Haven't seen any ammo or barrels yet. If the Aquila is based on the .22LR case necked down, I can't see it functioning safely in the .17 HMR, being as it is based on the .22 magnum case. Case diameter and length are way different.

Charley, obviously the 22mag has a longer casing than the 22lr, but how much difference is there in the diameter of the two?

Enough to make it very unsafe to shoot 22LR in a 22WMR chamber. You can actually see the 22 Mag is quite a bit larger in case diameter when you compare the two.

There is enough difference between the two for a .22LR to split about 60% of the time when fired (unwisely!) in .22WMR.