have you looked into a 243 it's a nice middle of the road gun? as far as the .17 it will work i have shot plenty with mine the question is if you want to recover them or not if so you need to shoot them in the head however i was just trying to get rid of them so i would just shoot them in the body but with no blood trail and no knockdown power they were tough to recover but we would see them here and there through out the woods it is plenty powerfull enough to kill them just not recover them