I got my first 17 rem in 77 or 78 A Remington BDL, I fell in love at The first shot of that cartridge, while I loved the cartridge I did not care much for the 700, so I upgraded to a custom sako, in the time since that first i've owned 11 and rebarreling twice along the way, I always felt I needed two, although I ended up with three when the day was done, the problem I encountered was a family member or hunting buddy felt they needed one more than I needed two, so I have fielded a few rifles along the way, all rifles except one were sporters, the one heavy barrel intended as a prairie dog rifle built on a XP 100 I never got into the field, A member of our local rod and gun club made me a offer i couldn't refuse on it before the prairie dogs awoke in the spring, 7 of the remaining 10 rifles were built on the cute little sako action, and the 3 that weren't 1 was a ruger number1A, another was on a mini MK X mauser, and the final a kimber 84 super America, This rifle is my favorite rifle and will be the last gun I ever give up, I could kill a elk with it If I had to, but I refuse to shoot prairie dogs with a 338, most the rifles wore a 22 in barrel the heavy barrel and the 700 wore 24 in, and a sako mannlicher wears a 20, 4320 was a favorite in 3 rifles, 3 prefer IMR or H4895, 2 liked VN140, the others liked Win760, varget and benchmark, Rem71/2 primers seem to work the best, all but one rifle shot best with maximum loads, the old Remington bullet almost always shot better than the hornady, I spent a year using the 30 gr Berger on coyotes and rock chucks but didn't find any advantage to them so went back to the hornady, these days I stick to the hornaday v-max both 20 and 25 gr but prefer the 25 for coyotes, I average somewhere between 2 and 3 dozen coyotes most years, I quit counting at 200 back in the 90's most of these shot with a 17, A inch and a half high at 100 yards and a inch and a half low at 300 with a maximum load is deadly although most shots are under 50 but I have used it out to 400.