I don't have one - and probably never shall as the original 22 Hornet meets my needs perfectly - but I think the 17 Hornet makes more sense than any of the centerfire 17's. At least for a shooter who reloads. The Hornet case is about as big as you can practically use with such a tiny bullet in my opinion. The 17 Fireball is a "Maybe". I have a 221 Fireball rifle and love it but not sure I'd want it if it had a 17 caliber bore.
Maybe I'm sour on 17's because when I jumped on the 17 bandwagon years ago, I jumped too far. :) See, the only 17 caliber I do own is a 17 Remington and it's one of those rare guns that I wish I'd never bought. Love the rifle (Rem 700 Varmint w/kevlar stock) but not the cartridge. Too danged finicky. Way too much powder to shove down a bug hole. Will make you create new cuss words trying to get powder in the tiny little neck too. Then those rice grain bullets are another frustration I didn't see coming. I love the 22 centerfires so am perfectly happy handling 50 or 55 grain bullets but when you step down to trying to align a 20 grain rice grain with a case neck while you slowly push it up into the Seater Die, that's about more fun than I want. :) To my thinking, the 17 Remington's main purpose is generating high chronograph numbers. My long range plan for this rifle is to someday rebarrel it to maybe the 223 Ackley Improved.
