I brought her home last Tuesday and was more than excited to get out and shoot the new gun. I don’t have the money as of now to buy a new scope/rings/base to make it functional to shoot. Thankfully my dad lent me his 60 dollar Simmons scope and a one piece ring system off of his 10/22 to use until I could afford a scope of my own. The gun came with a two piece picatinny base and although this setup didn’t quite line up right and wasn’t the most stable, it got me through the day. After bore sighting at the house we set out to go to the range. Considering that at the range we have to abide by their time schedule we decided to instead go and setup out in the desert. We were running out of sunlight so I skipped measuring out 25, 50, and 100 yard target setups and instead just paced out a quick ~85 yard target and re-bore sighted.
About a year ago I got the urge to have a shooting tri-pod but looking at the prices of one I said “there has to be a cheaper way” and thus set out on my research. I noticed in a few pics I came across on the internet that there are some military snipers who shoot with long thick wooden dowels and simply tie them together and twist the legs outward and bingo! Easy, cheap, disposable, and effective tripod! Sweet, so I didn’t get a chance to use those that whole year. Today, I brought them along for a test run. They worked beautifully to say the least.
Okay now onto the actual range report:
After setting up my target and bore sighting I sat down (position: criss-cross shooting off of tripod), loaded up the 5-round magazine, closed the bolt on the first round, and found my NPA. Once I had confirmed that I was relaxed and had a good cheek weld and sight picture, I started concentrating on breathing. I slowly started pulling back the trigger as slowly and as most controlled as I could. And I am not proud to say that I flinched shooting a 22lr not only the first shot, but also the second. It goes to show that shooting a heavy caliber rifle (300WSM) in a sporter rifle almost exclusively for the last year has been very destructive and has caused a lot of flinch in me where I used to never flinch. All 33 shots following those two there wasn’t even the slightest amount of twitch felt by myself, or visually noticed by my dad who was watching me like a hawk (not really, he was just making sure I knew when/if I ever flinch). It took 5 shots to get it close enough to the dot that I was happy with for today so with that, I taped up a fresh target with three dots to shoot groups with.
While setting up I encountered an annoyance that I was prepared for but had never had to deal with before. Being out in the desert there are a lot of off-roaders and barrel stuffers alike. I’ve come to realize that there are very few people out here that shoot for accuracy or to find data in the desert. So as I was setting the newest target up I heard a lot of engines behind me and just assumed it was a large group of quad riders passing by. Sadly, this was not the case. They had driven into our shooting spot (1 truck and 3 quads; 6 people total) and were doing donuts and making an awful ruckus in our spot. This scared me a little as I had no idea what they were here for and we were defenseless besides the heavy 22lr and a target 22 pistol my dad brought with. Well after making themselves at home and unloading several pistols and taking no care to practice proper gun safety the truck driver asked us if they could shoot on the half of the mountain we were not using. We agreed and they started rapid firing their guns at apparently nothing and I just couldn’t help but notice that they all closed their eyes while doing this. Not to mention that while they were loading up the next barrage of bullets that they all spoke in Spanish and thanks to the years of life in Arizona (North Mexico) and three years of Spanish classes I could clearly and easily tell that they were talking crap about me using a 22lr and thinking that nobody here can speak/understand fluent Spanish. In addition to that, one of them started shooting at my target without me knowing and through three magazines of 9mm ammo, I laugh at the fact that he only hit it one time. This really made me angry though, literally adding insult to injury. But I said nothing and just finished up my groups I was working on and finally left stressed, a bit angry, and much sooner than I would have liked but oh well. There’s always next week, or maybe even tomorrow…
Okay, now on to the actual data I got. I shot five groups of five at approximately 85 yards. All I had on hand was 36 grain bulk ammo from Federal and Winchester. Neither is sub-sonic and both are low quality meant for volume plinking. Today all I had time to test was the Federal. There was absolutely no wind. The rifle functioned as well as I could have hoped for it to. The groups were all 5 shot and measured as follows:
1) 1.35 inches
2) 1.38 inches
3) 1.56 inches
4) 1.32 inches
5) 1.29 inches
I am pretty sure I pulled one of group #3’s shots way left but was not absolutely positive so I just counted all of them into the group. Group #5 really almost made me cry. The first two shots were in the same hole and the third was just outside of that ragged hole. Then I went and shot the fourth shot and it hit on the opposite side making the group twice as big. So I figured screw it, might as well finish the group. So I did and it widened the group up to 1.29 inches where at shot four it was 0.78 inches and shot three was a whopping 0.37 inches. But I guess I knew in my heart that 3 shot groups don’t mean crap.
I’m already in love with my new gun, and am looking foreword to finding its perfect load and bettering myself as a marksman. Once I find its baseline I can find out what I am capable of shooting and starting down the road to learning.
This will be an ongoing thread where I will post my results as I get them.
Thanks for reading!
Dylan
About a year ago I got the urge to have a shooting tri-pod but looking at the prices of one I said “there has to be a cheaper way” and thus set out on my research. I noticed in a few pics I came across on the internet that there are some military snipers who shoot with long thick wooden dowels and simply tie them together and twist the legs outward and bingo! Easy, cheap, disposable, and effective tripod! Sweet, so I didn’t get a chance to use those that whole year. Today, I brought them along for a test run. They worked beautifully to say the least.
Okay now onto the actual range report:
After setting up my target and bore sighting I sat down (position: criss-cross shooting off of tripod), loaded up the 5-round magazine, closed the bolt on the first round, and found my NPA. Once I had confirmed that I was relaxed and had a good cheek weld and sight picture, I started concentrating on breathing. I slowly started pulling back the trigger as slowly and as most controlled as I could. And I am not proud to say that I flinched shooting a 22lr not only the first shot, but also the second. It goes to show that shooting a heavy caliber rifle (300WSM) in a sporter rifle almost exclusively for the last year has been very destructive and has caused a lot of flinch in me where I used to never flinch. All 33 shots following those two there wasn’t even the slightest amount of twitch felt by myself, or visually noticed by my dad who was watching me like a hawk (not really, he was just making sure I knew when/if I ever flinch). It took 5 shots to get it close enough to the dot that I was happy with for today so with that, I taped up a fresh target with three dots to shoot groups with.
While setting up I encountered an annoyance that I was prepared for but had never had to deal with before. Being out in the desert there are a lot of off-roaders and barrel stuffers alike. I’ve come to realize that there are very few people out here that shoot for accuracy or to find data in the desert. So as I was setting the newest target up I heard a lot of engines behind me and just assumed it was a large group of quad riders passing by. Sadly, this was not the case. They had driven into our shooting spot (1 truck and 3 quads; 6 people total) and were doing donuts and making an awful ruckus in our spot. This scared me a little as I had no idea what they were here for and we were defenseless besides the heavy 22lr and a target 22 pistol my dad brought with. Well after making themselves at home and unloading several pistols and taking no care to practice proper gun safety the truck driver asked us if they could shoot on the half of the mountain we were not using. We agreed and they started rapid firing their guns at apparently nothing and I just couldn’t help but notice that they all closed their eyes while doing this. Not to mention that while they were loading up the next barrage of bullets that they all spoke in Spanish and thanks to the years of life in Arizona (North Mexico) and three years of Spanish classes I could clearly and easily tell that they were talking crap about me using a 22lr and thinking that nobody here can speak/understand fluent Spanish. In addition to that, one of them started shooting at my target without me knowing and through three magazines of 9mm ammo, I laugh at the fact that he only hit it one time. This really made me angry though, literally adding insult to injury. But I said nothing and just finished up my groups I was working on and finally left stressed, a bit angry, and much sooner than I would have liked but oh well. There’s always next week, or maybe even tomorrow…
Okay, now on to the actual data I got. I shot five groups of five at approximately 85 yards. All I had on hand was 36 grain bulk ammo from Federal and Winchester. Neither is sub-sonic and both are low quality meant for volume plinking. Today all I had time to test was the Federal. There was absolutely no wind. The rifle functioned as well as I could have hoped for it to. The groups were all 5 shot and measured as follows:
1) 1.35 inches
2) 1.38 inches
3) 1.56 inches
4) 1.32 inches
5) 1.29 inches
I am pretty sure I pulled one of group #3’s shots way left but was not absolutely positive so I just counted all of them into the group. Group #5 really almost made me cry. The first two shots were in the same hole and the third was just outside of that ragged hole. Then I went and shot the fourth shot and it hit on the opposite side making the group twice as big. So I figured screw it, might as well finish the group. So I did and it widened the group up to 1.29 inches where at shot four it was 0.78 inches and shot three was a whopping 0.37 inches. But I guess I knew in my heart that 3 shot groups don’t mean crap.
I’m already in love with my new gun, and am looking foreword to finding its perfect load and bettering myself as a marksman. Once I find its baseline I can find out what I am capable of shooting and starting down the road to learning.
This will be an ongoing thread where I will post my results as I get them.
Thanks for reading!
Dylan
