.17 Remington vs .17 HMR: Same Caliber, Completely Different Rifles

Quick Answer: The .17 Remington and the .17 HMR both fire a tiny .172 inch bullet, but they are not competing options. The .17 HMR is a rimfire. It is cheap, simple, and deadly on small game and varmints inside about 150 yards, and you cannot reload it. The .17 Remington is a centerfire screamer that pushes a light bullet past 4,000 fps, shoots flat well past 300 yards, and rewards a handloader who is willing to work. One is a grab-and-go plinker and pest gun. The other is a precision varmint rifle you build a load for. Same caliber, opposite tools.

Who this is for: Shooters who see ".17" on both cartridges and want to understand how two rounds that share a bullet can be so far apart in cost, range, and what they ask of the owner.

Walk into any conversation about .17 caliber rifles and you will hear the .17 HMR and the .17 Remington mentioned in the same breath, as if they were two flavors of the same thing. They are not. They share a bullet diameter and almost nothing else. Confusing them is how people end up with the wrong rifle for what they actually want to do.

At Redleg Company we have built and worked on both ends of this. We have a customer running a .17 Remington we built on an older Remington action, and we have covered the .17 HMR in a Ruger Precision Rimfire. So this is not a spec-sheet comparison pulled off the internet. It is what these two cartridges are actually like to own and shoot, from the bench of a working gunsmith in Chandler, MN.

Redleg is a precision rifle gunsmith and custom builder. Not a gun store. We build the fast centerfire .17s and we set up the rimfire .17s, and we will tell you honestly which one fits what you are trying to do.

The Short Version: Rimfire vs Centerfire

The whole .17 Remington vs .17 HMR debate comes down to one fact, and everything else flows from it. The .17 HMR is a rimfire and the .17 Remington is a centerfire.

A rimfire has the priming compound spun into the rim of the case. The firing pin crushes the rim to fire it. Rimfire cases cannot be reloaded, because you cannot replace the primer. That keeps rimfire ammo cheap and simple, but it caps how much pressure and velocity the cartridge can safely run.

A centerfire has a replaceable primer seated in the center of the case head. You can reload it again and again, and it can run far higher pressure. That is why a centerfire .17 can more than double the velocity of a rimfire .17. It is also why the centerfire asks more of you.

Once you understand that split, the rest of the comparison makes sense.

The .17 HMR: The Rimfire Everyone Should Try

The .17 Hornady Magnum Rimfire arrived in 2002. Hornady took the .22 Magnum rimfire case and necked it down to hold a .172 inch bullet. The result is the flattest-shooting, fastest common rimfire on the market.

A typical .17 HMR load drives a 17 grain bullet at about 2,550 fps, with 20 grain loads running closer to 2,375 fps and a few hot 17 grain loads touching 2,650 fps. That does not sound like much next to a centerfire, but for a rimfire it is flat and fast. Zeroed properly, it stays useful on small targets out to about 150 yards before it runs low on steam. Past 250 yards it is done.

What makes the .17 HMR worth owning is everything around the ballistics:

• Factory ammo is inexpensive and available in bulk. No reloading required or possible.

• Recoil is almost nonexistent, which makes it a superb rifle for teaching accurate shooting.

• It is deadly precise on squirrels, rabbits, ground squirrels, and similar small game and pests at rimfire distances.

• The polymer-tipped bullets are explosive on small varmints.

The tradeoffs are simple. The light bullet gets pushed around by wind, it loses energy fast, and it is not a reloader's cartridge, so you shoot what the factory sells. For most owners that is not a drawback at all. It is the whole point. You buy a box, you shoot, you have fun, and you fill the freezer or clear the fence line without thinking about load development.

We covered a great example of a precision-oriented .17 HMR setup in our writeup on the Ruger Precision Rimfire in .17 HMR. That is the rifle that shows what the cartridge can do when it is set up right.

The .17 Remington: The Centerfire Speed Demon

The .17 Remington is a different animal entirely. Remington introduced it in 1971, built on the .223 Remington case with the shoulder pushed back and the neck lengthened, so it is not just a .223 necked down. It holds more powder behind that tiny bullet than any rimfire could dream of, and it puts up numbers that put it in .220 Swift territory.

Factory .17 Remington drives a 25 grain bullet around 4,040 fps and a 20 grain bullet around 4,250 fps. Those are real numbers, and they are more than double the velocity of the .17 HMR. Flat, fast, and with almost no recoil, it is a genuine long-range varmint cartridge. Prairie dogs at ranges the HMR could never reach are in play.

That performance comes with a cost, and this is the honest part. The .17 Remington is a handloader's cartridge and a demanding one:

• It burns a lot of powder behind a light bullet, which is hard on barrels. High-volume shooters see throat wear and fouling faster than they would with a larger, milder cartridge.

• The small bore fouls quickly and needs disciplined cleaning to keep shooting well.

• Brass can be harder to find, and many owners form or reload their own.

• The light bullets, while fast, are still wind-sensitive at distance.

This is not a grab-and-go rifle. It is a rifle you build a load for, clean carefully, and learn intimately. For the shooter who enjoys that process, it is enormously rewarding. For the shooter who just wants to grab a box and go, it is the wrong tool.

A Real .17 Remington, Built and Dialed In

Here is what that process actually looks like, because we have a customer living it right now on a .17 Remington we built for him on an older Remington action.

He started with factory ammo to get rounds on the rifle and check zero. The 25 grain factory load ran about 3,600 fps for him. Then he started handloading, which is where a centerfire .17 earns its keep. He tried 20 grain Nosler bullets over H322 and clocked around 4,300 fps, and figured he could have pushed a little further.

From there it turned into real load development. He ran a powder ladder with Varget behind a 25 grain Hornady hollow point, working through charge weights and grouping them side by side to read where the rifle liked to shoot. On one of the middle charges the rifle showed an extreme spread around 56 fps with a standard deviation near 20 fps. That is a working starting point, not a finished match load, and he did exactly what a good handloader does next. He shortened his seating depth a few thousandths to chase the groups tighter, and he looked at picking up fresh Nosler brass rather than his previously fired Remington brass, because consistent, unfired brass is one of the levers that pulls a velocity spread down.

That is the .17 Remington in a nutshell. Factory ammo to get started, then a real handloading project to unlock what it can do. The rifle has been, in the owner's words, a lot of fun, and it prints tight groups when the load comes together.

Notice what that story is. It is a shooter running ladders, reading targets, adjusting seating depth, and swapping brass to shave single digits off his SD. Now compare that to the .17 HMR owner, who buys a box off the shelf and goes shooting. Same caliber. Completely different relationship with the rifle.

The load information above describes what one specific rifle did during the owner's own load development. It is not a recommended load for any other firearm. Reloading data is not transferable between rifles. Always begin at published starting charges from a reputable manual and work up carefully in your own rifle.

👉 Want a clean way to log your own load development? Grab our free reloading data sheet.

.17 Remington vs .17 HMR: Head to Head

Velocity figures are published industry reference data. The .17 Remington velocities in the story above are what one specific Redleg-built rifle produced, not a guarantee for any other rifle.

Which One Should You Buy?

This is the wrong question if you are picking between them as substitutes, because they do not do the same job. Ask instead what you actually want.

Buy the .17 HMR if you want a low-cost, low-fuss rifle for squirrels, rabbits, and pests inside 150 yards, or a superb trainer that teaches accurate shooting with no recoil and no reloading. Most shooters who buy one love it, and they should. It is one of the most fun rimfires ever made.

Buy or build the .17 Remington if you are a handloader, or want to become one, and you want a flat-shooting long-range varmint rifle that reaches way past what any rimfire can do. Go in understanding that it wants careful cleaning, burns barrels faster than a milder cartridge, and rewards real load development. If that sounds like a chore, buy the HMR. If it sounds like fun, the .17 Remington will give you a lot of it.

The honest truth is that a lot of serious .17 shooters end up owning both. The HMR lives by the back door for quick pest work, and the .17 Remington comes out for prairie dog trips and load-development afternoons at the bench.

The Gunsmith Behind the Bench

Redleg Company was founded by Brandon Lolkus, a U.S. Army National Guard combat veteran, retired. Brandon holds a gunsmithing and machining degree from Pine Technical College, trained under Gordy Gritters at the Extreme Accuracy Institute, and has spent over a decade running the shop in Chandler, Minnesota. Redleg is a Type 7 FFL precision rifle gunsmith with a Class 2 SOT, and every barrel that leaves the shop is chambered to under .0005 inch runout. This is precision gunsmithing, not parts assembly.

Build or Set Up Your .17 the Right Way

Whether you want a .17 Remington built and chambered to shoot the load you intend to run, or a .17 HMR set up and dialed for the field, the work matters as much as the cartridge. A .17 caliber bore is small and unforgiving, and a properly cut chamber, a good crown, and a barrel matched to your bullet are what separate a rifle that prints tight groups from one that sprays.

Redleg ships completed custom builds to customers across the country. We regularly complete rifles for hunters and shooters in Texas, Nebraska, South Dakota, and well beyond southwest Minnesota. Current build slots are running 8 to 10 weeks out. If you want a rifle ready before varmint season, the conversation needs to start now.

👉 Ready to talk through a .17 build? Call 507-677-6007 or email info@redlegguns.com.

Full service list and current pricing at redlegguns.com/services-offered.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the .17 Remington the same as a .17 HMR? No. They share a .172 inch bullet diameter and nothing else. The .17 HMR is a rimfire that runs about 2,550 fps and cannot be reloaded. The .17 Remington is a centerfire that runs over 4,000 fps and is reloadable. They are built for completely different jobs.

Can you reload the .17 HMR? No. It is a rimfire cartridge, so the primer is in the rim and cannot be replaced. You shoot factory ammo. The .17 Remington is a centerfire and is fully reloadable, which is a big part of its appeal.

How far can a .17 HMR shoot? It stays useful on small targets to about 150 yards and runs out of steam by roughly 250. It is a close to medium range rimfire, not a long-range cartridge.

How fast is the .17 Remington? Factory loads run about 4,040 fps with a 25 grain bullet and around 4,250 fps with a 20 grain bullet, which puts it near .220 Swift territory. Handloaders can tune those numbers to their rifle.

Does the .17 Remington wear out barrels fast? It burns a lot of powder behind a small, light bullet, so it is harder on barrels than a mild cartridge and the throat wears faster, especially for high-volume shooters. It also fouls quickly and needs disciplined cleaning. That is the tradeoff for the velocity.

Which .17 is better for a beginner? The .17 HMR. It is inexpensive, has almost no recoil, requires no reloading, and is deadly accurate at rimfire distances. The .17 Remington is a better fit once you are into handloading and want long-range varmint performance.

What to Read Next

If small, fast cartridges are your thing, read our deep dive on the .218 Bee and the .22 Hornet.

They are two more small-caliber rounds that most shooters have written off, and like the .17 Remington they reward a handloader who is willing to work for the accuracy.

The Bottom Line

The .17 Remington and the .17 HMR are not two versions of the same idea. They are a rimfire and a centerfire that happen to share a bullet. The HMR is cheap, simple, and a blast to shoot inside 150 yards. The .17 Remington is a fast, flat, barrel-hungry centerfire that reaches way out there and rewards the handloader who puts in the work. Pick the one that matches how you want to shoot, not the one with the bigger number on the box.

And whichever you choose, a .17 lives or dies on how well the barrel is chambered and set up. That small bore does not forgive sloppy work.

If you want help building or setting up a .17 the right way, reach out.

507-677-6007 info@redlegguns.com Which article brought you here? Let us know when you call.

Last updated: July 2026 | Based on rifles built, chambered, and diagnosed by Redleg Company, Chandler, MN.