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Savage Mako .17HMR

11K views 24 replies 14 participants last post by  CalvinMD 
#1 ·
I was wondering if anyone here owns or has shot a Savage Mako in .17HMR? I have a chance to buy one and wondered if they shoot as good as it looks? It has a nice bull barrel and a very nice adjustable Accu-Trigger. Can anyone give me some input on this gun.

 
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#3 ·
I had one. I am very sorry I sold it and would like another. Great gun, very accurate. Stock needs a different butt pad and was too short for me so I changed that. Tron does a great job. The trigger sucks even though it is an Accra trigger and supposed to be all that and a bag of chips. Buy the gun, change the butt pad and buy a Rifle basix Trigger and you will have an amazing 17 HMR.
 
#4 ·
cubancigar2000--What was wrong with the trigger. I dry fired the one i'm looking at by accident. It had a very light and hairy trigger. My Marlin 39A had a trigger job done to it but i thought the Savage Mako felt alot better. Of course i have never shot a rifle with whats considered a real good trigger.

Thanks for the info so far......
 
#7 ·
It's a dandy 100 yard varmint cartridge.

My son Sean has switched almost completely from his .223 bolt action and AR15 to his Savage 93 for gray diggers (California ground squirrels). It took him a bit to get used to the trajectory, as the 17 HMR is definitely not as flat shooting as the .223 Rem. But once he figured out the 50 and 100 yard hold points, he was just nailing the diggers right and left. Terminal ballistics are very good. The .223 is overkill at 100 yards or less. While the 17 HMR won't usually blow a digger in two, it still gazorps them well. Very few crawl-offs, as compared to other rimfires. For varmints, the 17 HMR's accuracy and killing power is all out of proportion to its size.

I have a .17 HMR rifle as well. It's a Winchester 9417. Probably the most accurate lever gun I have. But the cheekweld is poor. I need to find someone who can make a buttstock to my specs. Or maybe I should go back to iron sights and put a tang sight on it.

Been contemplating a 17 HMR for myself. I set aside an old Winchester 1885 Single Shot High Wall action many years ago when the 17 HMR was not even around. In those days the wildcat was the .17 Vixen, which came from Australia. The dies were available, but I was having a heck of a time trying to obtain primed .22 Mag brass. Never got around to barreling it. Green Mountain now offers .17 HMR barrels for the 1885, but they need to be threaded and chambered. Looking for a gunsmith who knows what he's doing for this project. Another intriguing idea is a 17 HMR AR15 upper that Alexander Arms is due to release in May. They've overcome the problems that have plagued the other .17 HMR semi-auto makers.



Here are a couple of pics of Sean the first season he had his .17 Savage. This would have been when he was 18, and he's 21 now.



Sean has the synthetic stocked Savage. He disliked the poor cheekweld. For Christmas I put a Karsten adjustable cheekpiece in his stocking. It was easy to install. Took only about 20 minutes. Much better. Savage does not have a decent synthetic stock for scope use. Their wood stocks are generally set up OK, though. Something to keep in mind when buying.
 
#8 ·
Thanks Brian. I normally shoot my .22LR's for short range varmits.

That AR upper in .17HMR sounds real interesting. But for less than $400 i can have Savage .17HMR like the one i pictured above.

It took (2)shots to nail this sucker from 55 yards using Remington lead round nose .22LR's. I need something with a tad more fire in its ass but i don't want a large caliber. Guess i'm gonna have to send a request through to the review board(my wife) for funding. I'm saying this because i have already bought two guns recently. Damn budget constraints. :)



 
#11 ·
Go to this website and read the review on 3 of the 17 HMR rifles.


http://www.chuckhawks.com/compared_17HMR_varmint_rifles.htm


I have the Savage with the thumb hole stock In Stainless Steel, and I have the Ruger 17HMR and my wife shoots a CZ in 17 HMR. I had a Marlin 17 and I sold it after shooting it one time.


I shoot nothing but the Ruger now and the Savage is my loaner gun when we go shooting. The Savage shoots good but I have had nothing but problems with it. I wanted 4 extra magazines for it so I pick up some and none of them worked. I sent them back to Savage and they sent me 4 more that did not work. I sent those back and guess what I got 4 more that didn't work. They finally hooked me up with a guy in Canada. Savage knew about the bad Magazines but continued to sell them. I was then sent 4 more magazine and 4 guide rails was told to keep trying guide rails until I found one that would work with the new Magazines.


I now have 9 magazines and 3 of them will work in the gun, the one that came with the gun and 2 of the last 8 they sent me. The customer service at Savage is very poor. I now cannot get the expert up in Canada to call me. When I call the main Savage service line all they will tell me is "send us the bad magazines and we will replace them".


With the exception of the Marlin all three of the 17's are tack drivers. I use nothing but CCI 16 grain TNT Green Hollow Points. I have tried a number of other brands and loadings and this one far superior to everything else, it costs about a dollar per 50 more but is well worth the extra money.


Jim R
 
#17 ·
Anybody have the Marlin 917 VS? Mine had a crappy trigger but a local (now deceased) 'smith did a 10 oz trigger job on it. Have shot many sub-moa groups at 100 yds with 3 different brands of ammo. Hard to believe a Savage can beat it.

Pretty flat too as the enclosed target shows. Ten shots in 1 1/8 inches with the flyer...

 
#18 ·
Jim R....My Ruger .17/77 likes the CCI's best also.

Cuban, I have the Basix trigger in the Ruger also. I ;have it set about as heavy as it will go and it still is a light trigger. Well worth the money in my opinion.

The difference in point of impact between 50 and 100 yrds or even out to 125 yrds is so small I don't even make adjustments for it.
 
#19 ·
Ok how effect is the little .17 grain pill against anything larger than a squirrel? I know that the s.o.b. that shot my border collie, did a miserable job and the poor animal suffered immensely before dying after being shot several times in the chest and abdomen. It was New years eve, I was at work and the wife thought it was firecrackers, next day I found Buddy shot to death outside our chicken house. He had spun around in a ten foot circle until the ground was bare and he was peeing out blood.I have researched it since then and although there are wild claims out there about the effectiveness of the caliber, it is only a small varmint caliber.(squirrel sized) On a critter with a lot of bone and body mass, ground hogs, I would question it's effectiveness.
 
#20 ·
I absolutly love my mako. I have never done any hunting with it but i love to plink with it in the back yard. at 100yards it throws a 3/4" group and at 200 yards it groups at 1 1/4" with 8 inches of drop. the ammo was hornady ballistic tips in 17grs. i have also tried CCI "TNT" and "Dynamite" hollow point shells in 20gr. my target is usually a paper plate with a sticker dot in the middle held up by a 2x4 piece of wood. the ballistic tips punch a perfect 17cal hole right through the plate and wood. the "TNT" shells look like a 17cal goin in and a .410 coming out. I cant imagine what these shells would do to a squirrel or groundhog. Im actually looking forward to getting out this summer and trying a little varmint hunting. I would highly recommend this gun to you. BYG
 
#21 ·
Twinbirds, sorry to hear about your dog.

The 17 HMR is NOT a coyote cartridge, despite what many claim. Would I take a shot at a coyote with it? Sure, if the opportunity presented itself. I've opportunistically shot coyotes with a .22 LR, because that's what I had with me. But when I go to deliberately hunt coyotes, I take a .223 at a minimum.

Fox hunters, though, are using them with success. They like the lack of fur damage. Very few reports of wounded fox getting away.

I let that be my boundary for the 17 HMR capabilities.

Also, the 17 HMR is NOT a meat cartridge, unless you are able to make use of the accuracy to take head shots. It ruins meat, either by outright destruction, or the rest of the meat is bloodshot. Stick to the .22 LR, shotgun, or oldie but goodie cartridges like the 25-20 or 32-30 for small game.
 
#23 ·
Although I dearly love guns, I need one of these like a hole in the head, their report is louder than a .22 and my sako finnfire performs well out to 100 yds. yes it has a jewel trigger, it has been bedded and a Lilja barrel and I have shot groups @ 100 yds that would rival world group records with a .22.(less than .2 ctr to ctr) the original Sako heavy barrel shoots better on a different action than it ever shot on the Finnfire, but then it got rechambered and a new crown, perhaps I was a little hasty in switching it out. Savage makes awesome rifles right now across the spectrum. I'll give the Mako this it is a looker and it is reasonably priced!
 
#25 ·
I have the blued bull barrel with the grey/black laminated and checkered monte carlo stock..I put on a 6x-24x BSA target scope and the Harris clip on bipods..its shoots one hole at 50yds and a hair bigger at 100yds..all I've shot with it is paper though.
NOTE: The paper never moved an inch after being hit
 
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