i don't have one but we think the same...
i have 204 and its a great calling rig (i get 4030 fps out of cz american with 32 gr v-max, 21" barrel approx.) but around acreages etc. i use .17 hmr and its been good to me, i'm starting to lose count but i'm at least 17 on them but i think i might be near 20 now and factor in quite a few more with Dad who lives on 26 acres and the ones he's been killing lately with the .17 hmr also....single body shoots to the boiler room with tnt's or v-max in the 100-ish yrd range always produces short recoveries (60 yrds or less) if they don't spin/go down on the spot, did a brief experiement with xtp (slow expanding) bullets and tracking them up to 4x further so went back to the frangible bullets...
i actually want the same cartridge for Dad on his acreage because there are a couple spots at the 250 yrd mark that he has to just let them be....but the fireball would then allow him to shoot anything he sees and not worry much about noise/ricochet etc. and its just hold dead on shooting....
so in my eyes get a .17 hmr or .17 fireball....the nice thing i like about the .17 hmr is it can be found in an auto-loader and the recoil is literally so light that if you practice you can send 2 or 3 at the same time and move to the next target....practice on gophers works great here....dump 5 into the same gopher as fast as you can pull the trigger...but your probably gonna run out of point blank aim and lethality at 150 yrds give or take a few either way....i haven't shot one past say 110 yrds but i'm sure i'd still get good results to 150 with same hits...but the fireball should give you another 100 yrds just like you figure....
more on the hmr, i think the thing that makes the .17 hmr more lethal than it should seem is that it puts centerfire type spin velocities on the bullets (1 in 9 twist) vs the slow spin of the .22 rimfires (1 in 16) and when those centerfire like bullets in the hmr with the centerfire like spin hits the target those frangible bullets really do a good job of coming apart in a nice explosion inside the critter.....vs what the .22's do which is basically poke holes...even with the light v-max bullets they still over penetrate compared to the hmr....
fireball is same energy as hornet but smaller bullet means more speed and extended range probably about the same noise....basically the smallest centerfire....plus is you can reload here, 700 ft/lbs muzzle energy vs 275 ft/lbs (approx.) for the hmr?
so after all that?.....i think you should have both
