Longer range .22LR shooting?

[Dekers]

Lads let's get one thing straight you can field test all you want and have as much experience as you like but there will only ever be one person on this thread who is right no matter what you have done

 

Colin

 

:lol:

 

:good:

[39TDS]

Followed advice and got on the range today for a solid 2 hours. It paid off. I'm much more comfortable with my rifle and scope. Zeroed at 50 metres, perfect! For a 25 metre shot, the end of the thick part of the upper reticle corresponds to the point of impact. The same could be said the lower reticle at 75 metres. A convenient, practical solution unless I've missed something!?

Good stuff and quite an enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours.

I use my .22 for pest control and find most rabbits I shoot are around the 30-40 yards mark. I set my sights for 45 yards and it suits me fine, I can still hit them at over 100 yds if I want to. A big part of it is the practice and the fact I have had the same 6x42 scope for about 35 years now. I expect if I tried a new scope I would be rubbish.

I use the thick and thin parts of the reticule as a reference for distance just as you say.

 

Was playing with mine the other day for the first time in ages and using CCI subs. First time I have used them but they seem pretty good and will buy them again.

[kent]

Good stuff and quite an enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours.

I use my .22 for pest control and find most rabbits I shoot are around the 30-40 yards mark. I set my sights for 45 yards and it suits me fine, I can still hit them at over 100 yds if I want to. A big part of it is the practice and the fact I have had the same 6x42 scope for about 35 years now. I expect if I tried a new scope I would be rubbish.

I use the thick and thin parts of the reticule as a reference for distance just as you say.

 

Was playing with mine the other day for the first time in ages and using CCI subs. First time I have used them but they seem pretty good and will buy them again.

 

Yes it does and is far less confusing than a load of hashes, dots and circles when you need to act quick.

 

I seriously doubt it possible to realy tell your gun wasn't zeroed at 50 if you zeroed it at 45 without being one heck of a good shot it's going to appear pretty much flat through that range window

[colin lad]

Yes it does and is far less confusing than a load of hashes, dots and circles when you need to act quick.

 

I seriously doubt it possible to realy tell your gun wasn't zeroed at 50 if you zeroed it at 45 without being one heck of a good shot it's going to appear pretty much flat through that range window

using hashes dots and circle's is just as quick as using thick and thin parts of a cross hair the only difference is that using a mill dot you can be more sure of hitting your target unlike using guess work even if it is a educated guess as that is all it is a guess and when shooting live quarry then i find i would rather know i am going to hit the spot rather than guess i am going to hit the spot

 

colin

[la bala]

using hashes dots and circle's is just as quick as using thick and thin parts of a cross hair the only difference is that using a mill dot you can be more sure of hitting your target unlike using guess work even if it is a educated guess as that is all it is a guess and when shooting live quarry then i find i would rather know i am going to hit the spot rather than guess i am going to hit the spot

 

colin

+1 on that.

[bazzab]

using hashes dots and circle's is just as quick as using thick and thin parts of a cross hair the only difference is that using a mill dot you can be more sure of hitting your target unlike using guess work even if it is a educated guess as that is all it is a guess and when shooting live quarry then i find i would rather know i am going to hit the spot rather than guess i am going to hit the spot

 

colin

 

I was there the day Colin carried out the zero.he described earlier.

 

He taught me the system and assisted me in calculating it for my LR.

 

I'm sorry but he is bang on, I don't care how long you've shot for bla bla there is no guess work etc that will come even close. The system is faultless. It's amazing. I can't recommend it highly enough.

[kent]

Guys

move you mag slightly and it changes. I get fiddled up with anything but dialing and I have seen people with little diagrams in thier back Butler Creek get mixed up also

Once you get to 80 yards things are changing fast and I personally find looking and ranging through the same picture all the time helps me

If others remember better with dots n dashes fine but without reference sheets and range finders I find simple works best

 

I have shot with some who could shoot very well with opens but had lots of practice in

[la bala]

When i first started with a .22 i used a 30/30 reticule, and with lots of practise i could drop a rabbit at a 100yds. At present i use one of those hash dotty circle things with a rangefinder, at the end of the day it is down to individual choice, if you havnt tried it dont knock it.

[39TDS]

Each to their own, and either way you still have to know the distance. I guess the distance, I suppose some have ranging laser thingies.

 

As for the 45 or 50 yard difference of zeroing I doubt there is much at all and nothing that I would ever be able to show with my shooting. I was really saying in my opinion the 70+ yard zero was too far. Again, each to their own.

[drut]

When i first started with a .22 i used a 30/30 reticule, and with lots of practise i could drop a rabbit at a 100yds. At present i use one of those hash dotty circle things with a rangefinder, at the end of the day it is down to individual choice, if you havnt tried it dont knock it.

Ditto: time moves on & although I am old I try to move with the times.These days laser rangefinders,multi-aimpoint reticle scopes & even wind meters are easily available + affordable.I will use anything that gives me an advantage.That said,nothing replaces skill,common sense and practise.

[kent]

Each to their own, and either way you still have to know the distance. I guess the distance, I suppose some have ranging laser thingies.

 

As for the 45 or 50 yard difference of zeroing I doubt there is much at all and nothing that I would ever be able to show with my shooting. I was really saying in my opinion the 70+ yard zero was too far. Again, each to their own.

Like most I have played about with zeros in the past but it's hard to better 50 ish

It can depend on what size a thing your looking to hit though

 

More mistakes are made shooting over the top at mid range if you push things out too far ( reason is trajectory over line of sight is a small window)

[Bewsher500]

I zero at 55

that extra 5 yds makes a big difference out at 80, 90, 100

 

zeroing at 60 made me too high at 30-40 and I can't compute hold under and hold over in the cold, at night with rain drizzling down my neck.

nor do I have either the built in Night Vision to see dials in the dark or have the time to be ******* around with them when blatting bunnies on a golf course

 

Mildots were too fussy and I couldn't get my head around range vs dot

much prefer Minute of bunny

 

I have recently moved to turrets on both my .222 and .300WM for the purposes of extended ranges on quarry and targets.

But using turrets doesn't fit in with how I use the ,22lr with subs

 

I use targets at 5yd intervals from 60 to 120

spread them out so you can see all of them from one firing position and shoot three shots into all of them, five or more if you really give a toss

average your drops and work a true chart for your rifle and your ammo

 

lot to lot changes will affect it long term so worth checking

 

next question is if you don't range every shot how good is your distance measurement!?

[kent]

Good question

Only time I have Experianced using a laser one time bunny bashing I was killing long ones just fine till my mate started layering a few then I started missing he constantly read out more than my guess and I missed high

Now either the laser was wrong ( which I doubt) or I think 100 yards is eighty through my fixed six.

Does it matter? Only if I bring a laser. Then I have to re learn

 

Funny though because when I pace something I am very close to what lasers day

 

It's practice and familiarity don't change nothing and get on with it imo. If your gun knowledge of trajectory and drift scope are all constants

Edited March 4, 2016 by kent

[Houseplant]

More practice today. It certainly does improve things. Was hitting a 2 inch metal disc 4 or 5 times out of 5 at a measured 75 metres. The yellow target is a piece of A4 card.

 

 

It all went to custard when I tried to push it to 100 metres. Drop was probably 6 - 8 inches on a 50 metre zero, but the groupings were horrible. Not sure what to blame for that. Probably my marksmanship, but it was all good at 25, 50 and 75 metres. Maybe the ammo? CCI Subsonics.

 

Anyway, quite happy with the progress. I know it if I get everything right, I should be able to take bunnies at 75 metres consistently which is what I set out to do with the .22LR.

[Grandalf]

Well done that man.

I envy you your nice little meadows. In East Anglia 200 acres is a meadow. Fields can be 5-600.

Flat as a pancake in most areas and very little cover.

[kent]

Ammo and barrel conditioning is critical

Just clean the barrel really well and rin dome groups at range watching for an improvement from squeaky clean then a drop off as muck builds

[Houseplant]

Well done that man.

I envy you your nice little meadows. In East Anglia 200 acres is a meadow. Fields can be 5-600.

Flat as a pancake in most areas and very little cover.

 

cheers. hilly pretty much everywhere here. the meadow in the picture is on a friend's small holding which is 5 minutes from me which is convenient. unfortunately, no game to speak of apart from possums.

Edited March 9, 2016 by Houseplant

[Houseplant]

Ammo and barrel conditioning is critical

Just clean the barrel really well and rin dome groups at range watching for an improvement from squeaky clean then a drop off as muck builds

 

you may be on to something there! what i didn't say in my post was that when i started off a 100 metres i was hitting a 3 inch metal disc about half the time, as the day went on, it got worse just as you say.

[Grandalf]

On the other hand...Some of us never, EVER, clean a .22 barrel. That way the gun always shoots the same as the muck can't keep building up when you use it often.

Clean mine once a year and then it shoots like a shammy leather until it gets back to normal.

If it gets wet then I squirt WD40 down the tube and then wang off about five shots into the ground to get the oil out before I get down to real shooting.

It's a tool not a family heirloom.

[39TDS]

Biggest mistake I ever made regards my guns was to clean the 22. It will never happen again.

[fortune]

cleaning a barrel is one of the mysteries of 22 barrels. I remember a bloke that used to come to the rifle club and he was one of these sort of people that are good at everything. he would work all day then rush off and have a game of squash and then rush over to the range chuck his gear out and then shoot a straight 100. Sickening. He had a BSA Mk II rifle bought from new ( nothing special). I asked him about how often he cleaned the barrel out. He replied that he had never cleaned it from new and that he had, had the gun 17 years. some people clean every time after shooting. I found that if I cleaned the barrel out that it took about fifty shots to come back to a steady zero and during that time it just shot all over the place on the black therefore you couldn't alter the sight to gain a positive zero. I had to chase the dot and sort of guesstimate the time to go a click over and down to get it on.

[Houseplant]

interesting post fortune. i do clean the gun and barrel after every use. can't say i've noticed that it puts the zero out.

[bruno22rf]

Ammo is a major contributing factor to longer range shooting with the lr.....only rounds I trust over 60 yards are RWS HV HP , hard to get hold of but, by God, accurate little lumps.