The 17 Hornady Hornet is a fun little cartridge to shoot. I have two CZ 527 Varmint 17 Hornets. Had so much fun shooting sage rats with the first one and we were fighting over it I bought another one the following spring. Back when CZ still made the 527's I think they were appropriately priced at around 600 bucks but since CZ stopped making the 527's they've gone absolutely crazy in price. This is coming from a fan and I've had a handful of 527's but IMO they are not even close to being worth the price people are getting for them. I've seen LNIB 527 17 Hornets go for over 2K and I think the average is around 1500 which is completely bonkers and no way are they worth that much, but, there just aren't a lot of options for rifles in 17 Hornet so I suppose that has a lot to do with it. The Ruger 77/17 Hornet is a nice looking rifle but they don't always shoot as well as they look. I'm familiar with what the Savage 25 is but that's about the extent of what I know about them. I think Savage is about the only manufacture that still makes a 17 Hornet. Maybe Contender does too but I don't really pay much attention to anything they have and wasn't the one they made a single shot
The factory 17 Hornet ammo regardless of if it comes in a Federal/American Eagle or Hornady box is all the exact same ammo and made by Hornady. I've talked to Federal numerous times over the years and they are who told me that.
Reloading for the 17 Hornet is pretty straight forward but isn't without its quirks. The brass and factory ammo tends to be fairly undersized in comparison to the generous chambers these factory 17 Hornets have so be mindful not to over size/work your brass because it'll lead to premature case head separation. The brass for these things with regard to neck thickness can be allllll over the place from lot to lot. I use a Redding bushing die and keep my brass sorta by its neck thickness and use a few different bushings to maintain some amount of consistent neck tension.
My "go to" load for both of mine is 12.2gr 1680, w/20gr Vmax, and Rem 7 1/2 primer. I've used as much as 12.4gr 1680 and it was a little faster and still shot those 20gr Vmax well but it wasn't quite as tight as the 12.2 and was harder on the brass. I generally don't use Rem primers but I got a great deal on a couple cases of 7.5's so I'm using those instead of using up Fed. or CCI's. A friend of mine has the identical CZ to mine and he started out using 1680 w/20gr Vmax but then switched to CFE BLK a few years ago and he's been using it ever since with good success. If I didn't use 1680 I'd use CFE BLK.
They'll certainly kill coyotes but I don't think that is the best use for them. I mostly use mine for sage rats and ground squirrels at longer ranges but if one presents itself closer I don't feel guilty shooting it with a 17 Hornet.