gopher slayer

I plan on using a 17hmr for yote hunting i know its not a great gun for it but that what im going to use. I will only be going for skull shotsat 100yards give or take, i was wondering what bullet to use? the hollow points or the ballistic tips. the hollow point will give more penitration but they tend not to fragment on small game like gophers, but will the balistic tips be able the fully penitrait the skull of a yote? The 20 gr seem like a waist because at 20 yards they only have 2ftlbs more energy over the 17gr.

Josh Sorensen

THe penetration will be better with th 20gr XTP than either of the two 17gr loads but all three should be able to penetrate a coyotes skull. I would worry about a bullet bouncing off the skull at odd angles though. I think your best shots is to shoot them behind the shoulder with wichever bullet your rifles shoots best.

Paul L Mohr

The polymer tipped bullets are actually more frangible than the hollow points, but they are both pretty explosive and not really designed for penitration. This round was designed for light duty varmint hunting for squirells and rabbits. I have heard reports of them not being very effective on larger woodchucks at longer distances.

I would say go with the 20 grn XTP, it has better penitration and carries a bit more energy. It's sort of inbetween the 17 grn and a .22 mag. That is what they made this round for after we complained we wanted something with a bit more penitration for larger game.

The XTP is a controlled expansion bullet, where the V-max type bullets are very explosive and don't penitrate that well. I think you would have better luck with XTP's on larger animals like dogs providing they shoot well in your rifle. I shot a wild cat a few weeks ago with the hornady 17grns and it ran 50 yards before keeling over. However when I found it it had no internals that were distiguishable. It darn near blew it in half. I shot it at like 30 yards. There was pretty much no exit wound, but lots of damage.

Paul

gopher slayer

Ive been thinkin, maybe ill just pop the yotes in the neck. the 17 balistic tips are supose to make a softball size hole of jello

Paul L Mohr

I did a test the other day in my back yard after posting that. I took a piece of of cherry trim about the size of pop can and placed it in front of a pop can filled with water. If you haven't seen what a 17 will do to a pop can full of water try it, it is pretty impressive. Blows the thing to peices. Well the peice of trim was 3/4 of an inch thick. I did this to simulate the bullet going thru bone first then entering the body. I wasn't even sure if it would go thru the wood to be honest, let alone how much energy it would have left after wards.

I shot this combo at around 50 yards with one of the Hornady 17 grn Vmax bullets. It whizzed right thru the wood and blew the can apart like normal. It threw the can one way and the wood the other. They were about 3 feet away from each other. I don't know if the can hit the stump I had for a back stop or not. It happens to fast to really see, especially with the scope I have. The stump was covered with water though, it was about a foot or so behind the can. The can was sort of flattened out by the board, so it must have absorbed some energy when the bullet hit it.

I also noticed that the can didn't have any of fragmenting I normally see. Usually when you shoot just the can full of water it blows it apart, and leaves a bunch of little tiny holes in the back from the bullet fragments. This can did not have that?

I was sort of impressed by this, I didn't think these little bullets had that much punch after going thru something like that. This tells me that it has what it takes to punch thru the skull of a dog sized animal and sitll scramble the brains inside. Most likely not leaving an exit wound. And since the entrance wound is the size of a pencil lead it would be cool if you wanted to mount it.

I would still suggest the XTP type bullets though since that's what they were designed for.

And the plastic tip bullets are more explosive than the hollow point ones by CCI. There is a page that shows different ones being shot into different mediums. Cool page for varmint type stuff and the 17 hmr. Here is a link.

http://www.varmintal.net/17hmr.htm

Good luck,
Paul

gopher slayer

thanks for posting your results i want to do somthing like that at 100yard because i think thats about what ill be shooting. i think th 20gr XTP would be good for body shots but i think it might just pass through the skull or the neck. im not going for the pelts, the yotes are in such abondance there just a pain, they kull off all my sister farm cats. between the owls and the yotes the cats dont stand a chance. i want to stop the yotes