Has anyone used the Federal 22 mag 50 grain Jacketed HP's ?

Yeah, out of a Ruger Single Six 6.5" blued. Wasn't getting the performance, accuracy down range or the tragectory I wanted. I bet they would do better in my Marlin 925 though. I think the 40 grainers work well in the rifle, and the 30 or 32 grainers in my Single Six.

If you try out a box, let us know how it does in your particular gun.

BTW.. You know of a good shooting place other than the Nike/Hercules base out at the end of KGB? I don't go to organized shooting ranges, as they don't fit my schedule or like my quick draw practice and my Salvation Army targets.

The Federal 50 grain is my favorite .22 Mag cartridge. When shooting dense critters such as racoon, big feral cats and porcupine this is the load that gives me the quickest kills. A shot to the front shoulder will "allmost always" anchor the critter. On these well developed varmints the lighter bullets are sometimes defeated by the shoulders and or winter coats.
While I am fan of the new cartridge, there is no comparison between the .17HRM with any available bullet and the 50 grain .22 Magnum for heavy bodied varmints.

The Federal 50 grain is my favorite .22 Mag cartridge. When shooting dense critters such as racoon, big feral cats and porcupine this is the load that gives me the quickest kills. A shot to the front shoulder will "allmost always" anchor the critter. On these well developed varmints the lighter bullets are sometimes defeated by the shoulders and or winter coats.
While I am fan of the new cartridge, there is no comparison between the .17HRM with any available bullet and the 50 grain .22 Magnum for heavy bodied varmints.


I have an NEF that is chambered in .17HMR and I have heard people say that it just doesn't have the penetration to kill animals larger than say squirrels. I did a little penetration test of my own and I have to disagree. The range was 118 yds.(laser ranged) I was shooting the CCi rounds with the 17 grain TNT bullets. My target was a telephone book (about 5 inches thick) backed up by a 1/2" sheet of plywood. Those rounds went straight through both the phonebook and the plywood. If that's not good enough penetration, I don't know what is.

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I didn’t mean to give the impression the .17HRM lacked penetration. The 20-grain bullet will penetrate. What the .17HRM seems to lack is “Punch” for the heavier bodied varmints. For skunks and smaller critters the .17HRM will generally do the job with body shots. Although on skunks a shoulder shot will not anchor the animal if it has heavy fur.
ENGLANDER and I discuss the .17’s quite a bit. ENGLANDER is an accomplished rifleman and a head shooter. The .17’s kill well on larger animals with headshots.
Under circumstances where you keep a critter rifle for catch as catch can shots and the animal is in motion by the time you grab up a rifle and try to get a shot the .17 HRM is not enough for well muscled animals.
I can make the same comparison for some of the lighter weight bullets loaded in the .22 Magnum. The exception here is the Remington 33 grain plastic tip bullet. The Remington load is a pretty good killer on skunks.

Ya'll must have a different kind of skunk out in Texas. They are pretty scarce around here but the occasional one I see road killed looks smaller than the average house cat.

I just looked up the ballistics on those Federal 50 grain cartridges. I have been well pleased with the CCI 40 grain hollow points but it looks like the Federals really start to shine out past 100 yards. I believe I will pick up a box to try next week.

Have been a .22mag. fan for a long while, and even though I prefer that round to the .17HRM for my hunting, I still haven't found a real good use for the .22mag. 50gr. Federal load.

Really isn't any balistic magic to the .17HRM, it is basically the .22mag. case necked down to .17....what that does is give 25% higher speeds in exchange for 50% less bullet weight. That's a very good trade for small-critter shooting, but not such a great trade for large-critter shooting.
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Meat substitutes like balilstic gel (or even bags of water) ae a better predictor of bullet perfomcne on game than tests against harder substances (like paper, plywood, sheet steel, wood, etc.).

We have the striped (most common), Spotted (unusual) and hooded (not common). The striped and hooded have long hair and even in the hard times of summer, rather full coats of hair. A very frangible bullet at close range and high velocity, or at longer ranges when they have slowed down a bit, will open up on the hair and not penetrate deep enough to stop them immediately.
Using the heavier Federal 50 grain bullet a hit on the point of the shoulder or angling in from the rear I feel assured the bullet will break a shoulder and penetrate through the lungs and stop them quickly. All of the skunks I have examined closely have been heavily muscled and “dense.” As you point out, our skunks are rather similar to heavy bodied feral house cats. Most adult skunks weigh in the eight pound range but we have weighed several in the ten pound range. We have weighed a few feral cats that were above ten pounds also.
My biggest problem with this type critter is wounding and having them duck under an out-building or into a brush pile and dying. Sure stinks up the yard for a few days. When killed in the pen the buzzards will be on them quickly.
The 35 grain Remington .22 Magnum bullet seems to be an exception to our light bullet experience. The light Remington bullet seems to penetrate well and is as accurate as any other ammunition we have tried. If you are ordering ammunition from Midsouth or others you might try a box for comparison.
I find the .17 Hornady a very accurate cartridge and great fun for shooting at paper and at ground squirrels. The .17 HRM is a good killer on small critters. Varmint hunters such as ENGLANDER who head shoot almost exclusively will receive far more utility than I do from the cartridge. We seem to have a constant and plentiful supply of critters, with skunks being a large percentage. We also have numerous rabies incidents so a “kitchen gun” is a necessity.

I agree with the .22 magnum being a fine house gun. It is the only rifle I own that I can always count on to be put together, sighted in, and have ammo available. :D

William, that was a good post..illustrated the .22mag.'s strong points well.

Most of the recent .22mag.ammuntion seems to have been geared to light weight/higher pseed/more rapid expansion....although they seem to slip up now and again. That's not a useless goal, but the .22mag. will never be as good a small-critter load as the .17HRM.

And he .17HRM will never be as good a larger-critter load. Higher speeds and lighter bullet weight is great for fast energy transfer and rapid expansion....but weight seems the better choice for meat-penetration.

The Fed. 50gr. load was an is a pretty good load, but perhaps they went just a bit too far in that direction....soemthing in the 42-45gr. range with a well constructed bullet might have served better.

But i suspect that won't happen...it's a small number of shooters who seriously want game performance. More and more, it seems new shooters are looking for the "splatter factor".

Splatter factor is a good description. My wife does not care to explode critters in the back yard. She prefers to drop them and “instruct me in their proper disposal” - carry them away with a fork!
There certainly is a fine balance between enough and too much gun for critters in the farm yard.If it were not for ricochettes the .32 Magnum rifle would be magic on the medium size critters
Have you tried the .17HRM on nutria yet?

Got to really wring out a .17HRM about two years ago. Does shoot targets well, and does make hits on smaller critters a bit easier. Was nice...got to shoot somone elses well tuned gun, and at least most of the shooting was with his ammo as well.

On small critters (like cowbirds, black birds, dump rats) it does very well...inside of 100yards, get that "splatter", which is impressive as birds just dn't have a whole lot of body mass. The light weight .30-ish gr. .22mag. loads do about the same. Rather unimpessed with the performance whn hits were made past 150yards.

Reguradless of being able to hit them farther out, will limit the .17 to about the same range as the .22mag. (for me, that's going to be 130-140yards). It's not that either of them can't hit things out at 250yards, it's that the bullets just seem to punch a puckered hole adn way too many small critters crawl off to die at some later date.

The only medium sized animals shot in any number have been 'possums. that's why he bought the .17...and it'd done well for him. But (1) they aren't usually hunted at any real distance and (2) they really don't take a whole lot of "oomph" to kill.

I used the Federal 50 grain loads for hunting coyotes and bobcat in florida and they work great. There are places in florida where they won't let you hunt with anything more than a rimfire during certain seasons, so the 22 mag works perfectly. I shoot two different loadings in my Ruger 10/22 mag. The Federal 50 grain, the Federal premium 30 grain. They are the most accurate in my gun and I never have trouble with them cycling or firing. There are some loads that just won't cycle in a semi auto rifle.
I looked at a 17 when they came out and talked to everyone that had an opinion about them, IMHO the 17 doesn't offer anything the 22 doesn't offer. The 17 might be a good round, but it isn't better than the 22 mag.