Newbie question - Does shooting PRS Rimfire help your PRS Centerfire shooting ??

[JP Harley Rider]

Hello,

Newbie question. I want your opinion on whether or not shooting PRS Rimfire will help my PRS Centerfire shooting or not.
I am planning to start shooting PRS Centerfire matches this coming season as an (old) rookie.

I am close to getting a 22LR setup ... BUT ... I am assuming that it will allow me to get more practice with affordable ammo and that it will help my Centerfire shooting. What are your thoughts ?

 

[Matt_3479]

Hello,

Newbie question. I want your opinion on whether or not shooting PRS Rimfire will help my PRS Centerfire shooting or not.
I am planning to start shooting PRS Centerfire matches this coming season as an (old) rookie.

I am close to getting a 22LR setup ... BUT ... I am assuming that it will allow me to get more practice with affordable ammo and that it will help my Centerfire shooting. What are your thoughts ?

I got my first precision 22 set up this year (vudoo v22). I’ve noticed a big change in my shooting in only a few months. To start, in the first 2 months I shot 4000 rounds and that’s with struggling to find time due to brand new and first child. It gets more use then any other firearm I own.

What I’ve been working on is bolt manipulation, trigger control, breathing, sight picture, follow through, shooting positions (standing, kneeling, prone, sitting, off unstable items). Allows me to shoot in area’s I can’t normally discharge centerfire due to noise (no suppressors in Canada). All this moves over with centerfire and has improved my shooting! Another great thing is wind reading practice since wind can move it within 100 yards and 200-300 can make or break with a bad wind call on a windy day! I don’t feel it is 100% perfect training rifle caliber as there is no recoil or muzzle blast which comes in affect when shooting center fire and can make for poor shooting (flinch or over anticipating a shot). I also built a 223 trainer this year as well for those purposes (not much help with recoil but noise atleast) and cost effective enough and have felt it’s majorly helped my shooting as well!

 

[JP Harley Rider]

I got my first precision 22 set up this year (vudoo v22). I’ve noticed a big change in my shooting in only a few months. To start, in the first 2 months I shot 4000 rounds and that’s with struggling to find time due to brand new and first child. It gets more use then any other firearm I own.

What I’ve been working on is bolt manipulation, trigger control, breathing, sight picture, follow through, shooting positions (standing, kneeling, prone, sitting, off unstable items). Allows me to shoot in area’s I can’t normally discharge centerfire due to noise (no suppressors in Canada). All this moves over with centerfire and has improved my shooting! Another great thing is wind reading practice since wind can move it within 100 yards and 200-300 can make or break with a bad wind call on a windy day! I don’t feel it is 100% perfect training rifle caliber as there is no recoil or muzzle blast which comes in affect when shooting center fire and can make for poor shooting (flinch or over anticipating a shot). I also built a 223 trainer this year as well for those purposes (not much help with recoil but noise atleast) and cost effective enough and have felt it’s majorly helped my shooting as well!

Thank you very much for the insight. It sounds like shooting 22LR can be very beneficial

 

[littlepod]

+1 to what @Matt_3479 said.

You can do a ton just dry fire practicing as well.

 

[JP Harley Rider]

+1 to what @Matt_3479 said.

You can do a ton just dry fire practicing as well.

Hmmm ... Does dry firing have any negative impact on the trigger mechanism ?

Also does anyone know if there is a laser round setup that can be used for Rifle practicing purposes. I know that some laser based products are out there for Pistols .....

 

[PJC]

Rimfire (and air rifle) practice will most assuredly aid in improving centerfire skills.

I shot a ton of both. Now mostly air rifle since 22LR has gotten more difficult to source. It has helped maintain fundamentals considerably.

edited to add a bit...

 

[Matt_3479]

Thank you very much for the insight. It sounds like shooting 22LR can be very beneficial

I say jump in, you won’t regret it for a minute. It’s also good for product testing. Optics, stocks, bags, bipods etc. What I mean by this is, because centerfire is more expensive to shoot, and I have to drive 45 mins for my 300 yard range and 4 hours for my 1100 yard range that I only get access too a handful of times a year it makes it difficult to test new items. Throwing on a 22 allows you to use the full range of motion in an optics turrets within generally 350 and closer, plus a vudoo/deuce/rimx fits 700 platform triggers and stocks so you can try different options. Almost everything new I get (4 optics now, 4 chassis, 2 bipods, rings/mounts, 6 different bags) all get tested first on the vudoo for convince and ease.

Currently in the middle of testing these browning shooting bags and 2 element optics on the vudoo before moving on to anything else. I’ve used the entire range of elevation on the optics which I will not be able to do with a centerfire and tracking has been flawless.

 

[TurboTrout]

Helps for sure.

One reason I only got a PST 15x vs the 25x on my 308 was due to the main reason for the 22 was not only to have fun with NRL22 events, but also simulate longer range shots on the 308.

Play with a ballistics calculator and see where the drops are about the same, you can simulate a much longer range shot with a smaller shooting range with the 22, plus 22 is still cheap, I get 500rds of Eley match or SK for like $80, still high, but not enough to effect my morning Starbucks

Trigger pull, follow through, staying on the rifle, breathing cycle, positional shooting, using hold overs, slings, barricades, it’s all the same

quick example

22LR @ 200yrds

.308 @ 700yrds

 

[hlee]

So long as you’re not burning ammo into a berm at warp speed, pretty much any “meaningful” trigger time is good trigger time. If that trigger time mimics the position building you will be doing in a centerfire prs event, all the better.

But, I don’t totally buy into the “22 trainer.” You can free-recoil the blow-back action of a 10/22 and watch impacts on the closest of targets (he’ll, you can see the bullet heading down range when the sun is right). “Managing the recoil” is even easier with a bolt action gun. Without meaningful recoil, you can slip into some really sloppy lack of fundamentals and still make solid hits.

Calling the wind at close range (22 distances) is substantially easier than calling equivalent wind at centerfire distances. I think that the wind calling practice with a 22lr is way overblown.

 

[ToddM]

I think 50% of it is simply another excuse to drop another $6k on a toy, and $20 a box for top end .22 ammo. It's really a sliding scale of how many more reps does it allow you to get, and how close can you get your trainer to your centerfire gun to decide how much it will help your shooting.

I do think there are some valuable things about a 22 trainer, but I think the advantages are often overstated or at least not well enacted. First unless the gun is the same weight, same scope, same LOP, exact same bolt throw, same mag size, release etc. etc. you are forcing your subconscious to learn two sets of muscle memory skills. If there's one thing they beat into us at the olympic training center it's that the less change you have across your training the better off you are. Most shooters change their setup and technique far far too often to ever really evaluate if something is working or not. Building a 22 trainer to be a perfect clone of your centerfire is not going to be easy or cheap but it maximises the benefit.

Now good trigger time and reps are always valuable, but you can get those dry firing. Building positions training is helpful but again only if your 22 trainer is a 100% clone of your centerfire, and you can build positions all day without firing a shot. One of the best things dry fire does is allow the mind to decouple the shot sequence from recoil and noise of life fire, and allow the shooter to focus very intently on each step of their shot sequence without being distracted by the result of the shot. There are some things that dry fire is better than live fire even compared to rimfire. The best rimfire shooters in the world still dry fire way more than they live fire.

Now that said, if you live somewhere where you absolutely can't train with a centerfire much, but you can train all the time with a rimfire, then of course that's going to be more valuable than you not shooting. The same is true for NRL if you can shoot lots of local NRL 22 matches but only a couple centerfire matches a year, then of course shooting all those extra matches is going to be beneficial. So you really have to look at your situation and what having a .22 trainer brings to your training. There's also the benefits that simply come from more exposure to more shooters, the more matches you shoot the more likely you are to learn new techniques.

Wind calling I think helps, but they are different. I think what most gain is a 22 forces shooters to be more precise about their wind calls and that will pay off at longer ranges as well.

 

[grapo]

As long as you are training the right way trigger time is always helpful IMO.

 

[chanrobi]

Long range 22LR trainer - how to get best out of it?

22LR rifles have always been very popular. Most of us have one sitting in safety. Some of us have also spent quite a bit hard-earned money to make their small rimfire feel and look similar to favorite big center-fire. All in sake of realistic low-budget training. It is also not too uncommon to...

finnaccuracy.com

 

[JaoeyP]

It can certainly help. I couldn't shoot from any kind of barricade when I started. Skills barricade, cattle gate, saw house, whatever, if I had to rest the rifle on something and shoot from it, I couldn't do it. Learned how to shooting NRL22. Was a lot cheaper than sucking at centerfire for a year and a half. Start with rimfire. Learn some fundamentals. Work on smooth transitions. Then try to start limiting yourself to 90 seconds instead of the given 120. Will go a long way in your centerfire game.

 

[Dthomas3523]

Short answer is yes it will help immensely. Just don’t let your recoil management take a hit.

It’s very easy to find yourself just wanting to take the easy route for stability and free recoil. You can also use bags “improperly” for Rimfire that would make a pivot/fulcrum point with centerfire that recoil would exploit.

So, either keep a watchful eye, or take a .308 with you and sprinkle in some recoil.

 

[Dthomas3523]

So long as you’re not burning ammo into a berm at warp speed, pretty much any “meaningful” trigger time is good trigger time. If that trigger time mimics the position building you will be doing in a centerfire prs event, all the better.

But, I don’t totally buy into the “22 trainer.” You can free-recoil the blow-back action of a 10/22 and watch impacts on the closest of targets (he’ll, you can see the bullet heading down range when the sun is right). “Managing the recoil” is even easier with a bolt action gun. Without meaningful recoil, you can slip into some really sloppy lack of fundamentals and still make solid hits.

Calling the wind at close range (22 distances) is substantially easier than calling equivalent wind at centerfire distances. I think that the wind calling practice with a 22lr is way overblown.

Wind calling “practice” with any rifle is overblown for prs purposes. 90% of the time, once you get the wind call, you’re done.

Wind calling should be practiced away from the range if you want to get good at it.