The hot little .17 runs out of steam fairly quickly, but both the .222 and .223 are certainly capable of longer shooting than my narrow definition of medium range. The thing is, I think there are better tools for reaching out farther. What I like about these cartridges is their mild-mannered efficiency.

Heavy varmint rifles will usually have a flat surface on the bottom of the fore-end, intended to snuggle securely into sandbags or a rifle rest.

You can watch your hits through the scope and call your shots with them. Even a heavy-barreled .22-250 jumps just a bit too much to allow this. For this reason a lot of serious varminters stick with the .222 and .223 even for long-range work, even though wind drift and holdover are greater issues than would be the case with faster cartridges.

The long-range varmint cartridges start with the .204 Ruger, go on up to the .22-250, .223 WSSM and .220 Swift, then go on up as far as you wish to go. Some serious varminters like the fast .25s and even 6.5s, especially under windy conditions.

For most of us, this requires burning too much powder and, in high-volume shooting like a prairie dog town, withstanding too much recoil. For me, the .243 Winchester and perhaps the .243 WSSM are the most powerful cartridges I would consider viable as varmint cartridges. If you want to talk varmint/big-game combo rounds, that's different. If you want to talk about simple ability to hit varmints a long way off, that's different, too. But for the pure purpose of varmint hunting, there's no reason to go above 6mm in recoil, noise and power level.

The author's .17 HMR is a plain-Jane Marlin bolt action, straight out of the box. He has come to love this little cartridge. He doesn't think it's effective on varmints quite as far as the .22 WMR, but it tends to be a bit more accurate.

You may note with surprise that I include the .204 Ruger in the long-range group. I wouldn't have when it first came out. In fact, when it first appeared I wondered what in the world it was for and why its designers wasted our time with it. But this was before I used it. The little 32-grain bullet is very fast, but at longer range it starts to lose steam.

The 40-grain .20-caliber bullet is different. I've used it in both the .204 Ruger and the wildcat .20 Tactical in prairie dog towns, and I've had no problems figuring out the wind and making hits at a quarter mile and more. Well, OK, I've had problems--but no more than I've had with anything else at that range. The .20 also has the advantage of less recoil than the fastest .22s, which means that, with rifles of less weight, you can easily call your shots through the scope. I like this.

The fastest .22s, however, are the most popular of the long-range varminters, with the .22-250 leading the pack. It is a fast, wonderfully accurate cartridge that, because of its popularity, is available in dozens of flavors and decades of load recipes. It's pretty hard to beat, but both the .220 Swift and .223 WSSM are slightly faster.

Many years ago the .220 Swift got the reputation as a barrel burner, and the WSSMs acquired this bad rep right out of the starting gate. Is it justified? Yes and no. Yes, any cartridge that approaches or exceeds 4,000 fps is going to erode throats and burn out barrels much faster than, say, a .223 Remington loaded to the low or mid-3,000s. But, no, more recent testing suggests that the WSSMs aren't inherently worse barrel burners than other cartridges at similar velocities. If you want barrel life, load 'em down a bit, and don't let 'em overheat. If you want the benefits of maximum speed, you will pay a price in reduced barrel life, and this applies to a .22-250 loaded to the max as well as a .220 Swift or WSSM.