More food? In overall numbers probably, because the only thing you can kill with a silly 22 is rabbit sized game, and you would need to shoot a few of those for a decent meal for the family so yea, I agree lol.
Why do you like rimfire?
- Thread starter David Lott
- Start date
I see you are not from east Texas lol, plenty of deer have succumbed to the lowly .22
not exactly but some people are more worried about eating than following man-made rules.
When people are too poor to eat except by shooting deer with .22LR, it also explains hunting out of season.
Agreed, a 22lr can get it done on a lot more game than you would think…I see you are not from east Texas lol, plenty of deer have succumbed to the lowly .22
Actually if you check the regulations state by state, quite a few have no firearms restrictions on hunting even big game with the humble .22I see you are not from east Texas lol, plenty of deer have succumbed to the lowly .22
And before people start screaming ethics, of how screw-ups are in the woods blasting away with their .22 and wounding animals, first off- didn’t happen. The removal of cartridge restrictions in my state happened years ago and didn’t trigger this. Actually, if anything, it opened up hunting to people with more shooting skills. Don’t believe me?
Who shoots more? Who puts more carefully aimed rounds down range, seriously?
The guy with his uber-magnum that gets kicked so hard he has a terminal flinch and yanks the trigger with eyes squeezed tight, from his benched lead sled? How about the guy who shows up at the range the day before season opener with his gun that’s been in the closet since last year cause “ammo’s expensive” why waste it shooting paper? Or my favorite: I can’t target shoot, but it’s different in the woods…
How ‘bout the guy who gets out every chance he can to shoot his .22, maybe with friends seeing who can hit the smallest or most distant random target?
A hunter, a true sportsman if you will, has studied his game animal. Its bone structure and lethal target points are well known. He also knows his chosen cartridge, its capabilities and limitations. Every whitetail deer I’ve taken has been with the humble .22, legal in my state. One shot, “dead right there” kills that put very tasty meals on the table. Not animals dying in fear or so pumped up with adrenaline that the meat is “gamey”, but humanely harvested food, tender and filling. Do I take my limit every year? Heck no. Haven’t taken one in awhile. It’s called hunting, not shooting, and I’m not pulling a trigger on anything but a sure thing. Since small game and big game seasons coincide, when I’m in the woods hunting squirrels, other critters may just end up on the table.
Flame on
Around these environs a lot of deer fall to the .223/5.56. Good bullets well placed, kill some really big and nasty critters, and deer are not particularly big or nasty (in most cases). And a .223 in the hands of a young man or young woman, easily old enough to properly hunt and handle firearms, being able to place a shot where it needs to be, with a bullet properly constructed, to use on big game…well that’s a lot better than the fellow shooting something with a caliber that starts with a .3 or a .4 and can’t hit a paper plate at 50 yards. I’d rather have a mild recoiling .223 in the hands of a skilled 10 to 12 year old than even a 30-30 or an ill fitting .243. (Though I’ve seen very competent young men shooting .308’s better than I can. @RobertB You know who I’m talking about. )
Shooting .22lr for deer. Mostly (but not always) the tool of the poacher. However, given the conditions that were developing under the leadership of the current fellow in Washington and his understudy who tried to take his place through a democratic style process, the people in our community discussed gathering food at any cost, at any time. I have a good stash of high speed 22’s on hand.
However, maybe the electorate might have seen the light and decided to turn away from the far left leaning people in charge.
Shooting .22lr for deer. Mostly (but not always) the tool of the poacher. However, given the conditions that were developing under the leadership of the current fellow in Washington and his understudy who tried to take his place through a democratic style process, the people in our community discussed gathering food at any cost, at any time. I have a good stash of high speed 22’s on hand.
However, maybe the electorate might have seen the light and decided to turn away from the far left leaning people in charge.
I can agree with a lot of the why’s already posted.
With military service induced hearing loss, I stay away from centerfire for the most part, and even with 22 pistols wear both plugs and muffs. Need to preserve what little I have left, and really enjoy shooting suppressed also.
At my current skill level, I sort of self imposed a limit of $10 per box ( give or take) on 22 ammo, and can find SK in that price range ( availability continues to be a problem as we all know)
Centerfire rifle matches, certainly cost and the dedicated time and effort in reloading ( one chore I also hate is trimming rifle cases,!) is a turn off for sure.
Also when primers became scarce and expensive didn’t help either.
I got my start ( in the 1980’s ) shooting small bore at club level then on a college team, was pretty good back then. I have always enjoyed 22’s the most and have been involved in some form of 22 rimfire competition shooting for well over 40 years now, so my current 22 shooting ( silhouette,nrl22 etc) is just my current flavor.
With military service induced hearing loss, I stay away from centerfire for the most part, and even with 22 pistols wear both plugs and muffs. Need to preserve what little I have left, and really enjoy shooting suppressed also.
At my current skill level, I sort of self imposed a limit of $10 per box ( give or take) on 22 ammo, and can find SK in that price range ( availability continues to be a problem as we all know)
Centerfire rifle matches, certainly cost and the dedicated time and effort in reloading ( one chore I also hate is trimming rifle cases,!) is a turn off for sure.
Also when primers became scarce and expensive didn’t help either.
I got my start ( in the 1980’s ) shooting small bore at club level then on a college team, was pretty good back then. I have always enjoyed 22’s the most and have been involved in some form of 22 rimfire competition shooting for well over 40 years now, so my current 22 shooting ( silhouette,nrl22 etc) is just my current flavor.
I've been shooting for over 40 years. Long range, 200-300 yard rimfire is the hardest thing I've tried. Also, the most fun and most satisfying. If you said I could only shoot one style, it would be 200-300 yard rimfire.
When I was shooting both centerfire and rimfire matches (one or both every weekend), the rimfire was a bit more "fun" as far hanging out with friends in the same squad and being able to have normal conversations since most no one is wearing hearing protection at rimfire and shots aren't drowning out words and such.
It's also much less demanding than centerfire. Since you can completely free recoil every shot (which means you don't have to work as hard/fast building positions) as well as it's much easier to call wind when the furthest shot is 300yds. Sure, wind pushes .22 pretty far at 200yds, but the hold or dial isn't the hard part. It's correctly making the right wind call. Which is exponentially easier at closer distances.
So, it was a way to have fun with friends while at the same time not being as demanding.
And if you wanted to try something new, like a bag, or position.....it didn't essentially cost you $2500 or more via dropping a few points that drop you out of the top running at a more expensive centerfire match that required travel.
However, many started taking things too seriously (myself included for a brief time) as well as a lot of people who couldn't hack centerfire started shooting rimfire as a way to place higher than they normally would when you have to build good positions and call wind further away. That brought with it a lot of too much competitive nature to it. If I'm going to work that hard and deal with all that, I'll just shoot centerfire. There were no prize tables for people to complain about. No one cared if there was a no bag stage or something like that. People just enjoyed shooting.
I still enjoy rimfire. But I think rimfire prs type matches were much more fun a few years back than the current environment of rimfire prs type matches.
It's also much less demanding than centerfire. Since you can completely free recoil every shot (which means you don't have to work as hard/fast building positions) as well as it's much easier to call wind when the furthest shot is 300yds. Sure, wind pushes .22 pretty far at 200yds, but the hold or dial isn't the hard part. It's correctly making the right wind call. Which is exponentially easier at closer distances.
So, it was a way to have fun with friends while at the same time not being as demanding.
And if you wanted to try something new, like a bag, or position.....it didn't essentially cost you $2500 or more via dropping a few points that drop you out of the top running at a more expensive centerfire match that required travel.
However, many started taking things too seriously (myself included for a brief time) as well as a lot of people who couldn't hack centerfire started shooting rimfire as a way to place higher than they normally would when you have to build good positions and call wind further away. That brought with it a lot of too much competitive nature to it. If I'm going to work that hard and deal with all that, I'll just shoot centerfire. There were no prize tables for people to complain about. No one cared if there was a no bag stage or something like that. People just enjoyed shooting.
I still enjoy rimfire. But I think rimfire prs type matches were much more fun a few years back than the current environment of rimfire prs type matches.
What matches were you shooting? I’ve found if you suck at centerfire you suck at rimfire….. and vice versa.
Frankly, I'm rather neutral when it comes to rimfire. I neither like nor dislike it. As long as the cartridge goes "bang" when it should, I'm good.
(Or, not when it shouldn't!)
Full disclosure, my only experience with rimfire is .22LR. So I have no idea about any other rimfire ammo types. I don't see any difference in re: recoil that affects my accuracy. Are people saying that? That said, I do note that my niece (17yo 5'3" and a buck '05 at the time) was far more accurate with a full sized 1911 with .45acp than with 9mm or .22LR.
(Or, not when it shouldn't!)
Full disclosure, my only experience with rimfire is .22LR. So I have no idea about any other rimfire ammo types. I don't see any difference in re: recoil that affects my accuracy. Are people saying that? That said, I do note that my niece (17yo 5'3" and a buck '05 at the time) was far more accurate with a full sized 1911 with .45acp than with 9mm or .22LR.
For reasons I have yet to understand, my scores per shot taken are considerably higher with rimfire then centerfire. Plus, my rimfire is a lightweight (12 pounds, 1 ounce vs my centerfires which go right at 19 pounds)
All three are chassis rifles, shoot the same bipod, same mini plate/Shemedium bag, same scope and same trigger. The only difference, the Rimfire has an MPA ultra lite chassis and the centerfire’s have a BA and ESR chassis respectively. And only the pint sized bag will fit/work with the short Ultra Lite chassis as opposed to using a full sized Game Changer, half full for the Centerfire when using bag alone.
As my uncle use to say about deer on his 300+ acre dairy farm in North Central Pa. If it's on my fields eating my crops it's mine to harvest as needed and he used the only rifle he owned a .22, the same rifle he used to butcher hogs.
The rimfire game started in winter of 2021 as a good past time for my son and to make some memories at the range and learn something new. We’ve both become better shooters and made some of the best friends a guy could have all across the states and even some across the pond. The competitors at the rimfire matches enjoy the game and want to see you excel in the same sport they are passionate about. I do enjoy the challenges that rimfire brings and try to either help someone learn or learn something new myself at each match. I too am passionate about rimfire and will continue in the sport and help it grow as long as the good Lord allows me to.
Because I can shoot it from my kitchen window without much fuss from the wife. The winmag, not so much. I can stretch 250 from here. A cup of coffee and rimfire from the kitchen, and a wife that tolerates it, what more can a guy ask for ?
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You can look at anyone who shoots a lot of centerfire and rimfire matches. There's going to be plenty of people who finish high at rimfire but are mid pack at centerfire. You can literally make almost any position work with rimfire and completely free recoil the rifle. Even with 22lb 6mm rifles, if you tried shooting them in terrible positions and completely free recoil, you're going to accumulate a lot of misses that you won't with rimfire where you never lose sight picture.
You'll almost never find anyone who's top pack at centerfire who doesn't do well at rimfire unless they rarely shoot and/or don't have a top end rimfire.
I'm not going to go around pointing out names or locations as that kind of thing doesn't do anything productive.
You still have to apply fundamentals regardless of the recoil. If you suck you suck…
Reason I was asking is because our 22 group in the corpus/victoria/goliad group is pretty laid back. You should come shoot a match.
There’s Riggs Ranch, Chicken Creek, and JG Precision Rimfire in that area. Once a month. They are posted on PractiScore. They also have their own FB pages and there’s a new group with all the info called SoTex Micro Knitting. PM me if you have trouble finding it.
I can shoot in my yard and you don’t need a huge area for even a challenging range of steel targets. The targets are substantially less expensive.
It is easy to get the kids involved. Some of the 50 yard benchrest targets are a great challenge. No reloading and saving brass!
Suppress it and the bullet impact is louder than the rifle itself
I never would have dreamed a bolt action 22lr would be the rifle I have had the most fun with
It is easy to get the kids involved. Some of the 50 yard benchrest targets are a great challenge. No reloading and saving brass!
Suppress it and the bullet impact is louder than the rifle itself
I never would have dreamed a bolt action 22lr would be the rifle I have had the most fun with
I like it all. Mostly, I like all the different types of shooting I can do with 22lr and 17HMR.
Bullseye, Steel Challenge, Benchrest, Long Range, shooting ground squirrels, silhouette matches, causal plinking,
introducing new shooters to handgun and rifle shooting ... With a well thought out collection of rimfire firearms,
You will never get bored and you can cover most of your shooting needs.
Bullseye, Steel Challenge, Benchrest, Long Range, shooting ground squirrels, silhouette matches, causal plinking,
introducing new shooters to handgun and rifle shooting ... With a well thought out collection of rimfire firearms,
You will never get bored and you can cover most of your shooting needs.
