I am one of those guys that love the 17 HMR for many reasons, Mostly there inherent accuracy.
I also like the 22 mag but never got one that would shoot as well as I like
so when I shot my first 17 HMR, I was impressed.
I went the factory route, and was not impressed with the accuracy improvement over the 22 MAG even though it was twice as good.
I finally decided to test the little 17 with a custom barrel, Now we are talking !! the custom barrel turned the 3/4 to 1 MOA rifle into a less than 1/2 MOA rifle. I have since built 4 or 5 for family that will consistently shoot 10 rounds in less than a 1/2 inch group @ 100 yards and is sary accurate at 200 yards in good conditions.
I prefer the Anschutz action over all others (If you have the money, Weatherby makes their MK 22 bolt action using the Anschutz action in both 22 MAG and 17 HMR and they are Beautiful).
The biggest thing I have killed with the little 17, was a 200+pound hog
I have friends that take deer with them (I personally think it is to small). But hogs are a different story.
I use the 17 grain bullet for small game like squirrel's and the 20 grain bullet for the larger varmints like fox and coyotes.
J E CUSTOM