.22lr MEGATHREAD

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rugers are kinda crappy right out of the box so i had to pour money into the pistol.

Hmm... I've seen bone stock Rugers that shot like Olympic competition pistols. I guess they weren't the run of the mill but my Buck Mark Std. shoots very well and it's bone stock. And I've always thought Rugers shot better. I just got through shooting mine in fact. I was shooting at little pieces of stuff floating down a creek (right against the far bank so no ricochets were getting away) from about 20 yards and it was fairly easy to hit stuff no bigger than an inch (leaves etc). The only times I missed were when I didn't take my time and pull the trigger right. I need to do some work on that but not a lot. I was pushing it a little but I can get around that in no time. Just takes a little practice. I felt like I got fairly good practice in and I only shot about 15 rounds.

There are things a person can do to improve their shooting skills even without ammo. I saw some lasers that were for "practice" in Cabelas yesterday. Someone stole my idea. It's a matter of attaching a laser to a pistol and practicing pulling the trigger until the dot doesn't move. Some guns require snap caps but not all of them. I use empty cases in a .22 to prevent damage. It helps you learn to control your trigger pull and that's probably the one thing that makes people get off target more than anything. Trigger pull is at least 75% of shooting and it doesn't require any ammo at all to practice. Just tape a laser on the side of your pistol. It doesn't have to line up with where the pistol will hit. It just has to show you if you're moving the pistol when you pull the trigger.
 
Just yesterday I received a text and e-mail alert from MidwayUSA for a "notify me" I had for Federal .22LR ammo. I managed to get in under the wire and order the two 525-rd box limit. A short time later, it was sold out. But I got the notification my order has shipped. Life is good.......
The ammo IS out there, IF you set up the notifies and use them quickly. Price was good to, $22.49 per box. Lowest price I have seen in some time!
 
yeah, big. i got the same notice but it was gone before i ordered.
cz, i couldn't work with the 22/45 the way it was. heavy trigger, poor sights, mag safety.
i put in a new sear, hammer bushing n burris ff.
the trigger pull is close to 2 lbs. some folk can deal with a heavy trigger but i can't. now i can sometimes hit a 4'' target at 50 yards. that's amazing for my skill level.
 
i can sometimes hit a 4'' target at 50 yards. that's amazing for my skill level.

That's great shooting. Sounds like you have it going pretty good. Those Rugers will shoot great. I've seen them stock with triggers that weren't heavy at all. Strange. I'm not an expert on them by any means but I have shot a few.
 
oh, my trigger was crisp but over 4 lbs. i could actually see the dot dance around while i pulled the heavy thing. now, i pull n the pistol stays steady.
i am simply more accurate with a 2 lb trigger than a 4.
i didn't wanna change the sear. i am not a tinkerer. it was a nightmare getting it back together. i was forced to do this to get the gun to do what i want.
i practice at 25 n 50 yards. i gotta have a great trigger.
i could have got the smith 41 but i didn't have $1000.
the new sear cost $27.
 
i am simply more accurate with a 2 lb trigger than a 4.

Hey whatever works for you. I just don't remember a trigger pull that heavy on a Ruger. But I certainly don't doubt your word on it and the results speak for themselves. I have trouble shooting guns with overly heavy triggers too.

BTW I like Smith's really well but I think you did just fine getting the Ruger. I have a S&W 629 that came from the factory with a trigger that feels like it's 12 oz's. I could be wrong but it is light whatever it is. I love it too. I'm talking SA mode of course. It's very heavy in DA. And I can't hit anything with it in DA mode either.
 
I'd be happy to pop a 4 inch target at 50 with some regularity offhand. How often out of 10 shots do you hit it? Sounds like you are a pretty good shooter to me.

I've been sitting on a couple thousand rounds of wolf target and mini mags, cause I got tired of looking and have been shooting air guns instead. I haven't looked at this thread since third page. Now I'm feeling hope! This is my first time learning to stock up for lean times too.
 
i can hit a 4'' target from a rest 9 out of 10. off hand, i'm lucky to do half as well. i have to use 2 hands to do that. getting pretty good at hitting 3'' gongs at 20 yards one handed.
these distances are far for me. when i got out the tape measure i had to move all the targets back.

cz, if you ever wanna sell a gun with a 12 0z trigger just message me . DA doesn't matter, i don't even try.
 
That's very decent shooting susie. You'd be amazed at how many people can't match that. Of course the pistol has a lot to do with it. And those Rugers are fine shooters. In fact maybe the best shooting pistol I've ever shot was a Ruger MkII with a 10" bull barrel. That's one of the Rugers I was talking about that had a light trigger pull. I'm not familiar enough with the line to know if they made some special editions or whatever. The owner swears the trigger is stock. I have no reason to doubt him.

My handgun with a 12 oz. trigger is a .44 magnum. I didn't know if you realized what a 629 is. Of course you don't have to shoot magnum rounds through it. There's a lot of them around and they shoot very well. I can bounce a gallon jug around all day at 175 yards resting my hand against the side of a tree or whatever. I'd have a hard time letting go of mine. It's my anti-bear gun which is getting more important all the time where my house is. I'm not exactly expecting an attack. I'm not. I just want to be prepared just in case. The older 629's are considered better because they don't have the lock on them. People feel the lock can cause problems. I found this quote about the trigger on the 629's.

"There are flea species that are heavier than the 629’s trigger pull in single action mode. It’s so light that lusting teens need not apply, lest heavy breathing occur near the go-pedal."

You can read the whole review here:

http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/20...view-smith-and-wesson-629-44-magnum-revolver/

They go on to say the DA pull is in the neighborhood of 15 lbs.. So DA mode is generally a just in case thing for me. Of course I would never hit anything that way. But Dirty Harry did. He used a 29 which is the blued version of the 629.
 
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cool review. thanks for clarifying how much gun that is way to big for me. so is the ammo.
that kinda trigger pull is what i'd like on any gun. that part would be perfect for me.
as far as i can tell, the lighter the trigger, the better shot i am.
you are lucky to own n be big enow to shoot that gun.
of course it will be years before i can shoot at the ranges you do.
heck, i can barely see 175 yards.
that ruger you mentioned must have been a special edition. i am not aware of any mark with a 10'' barrel, past or present, tho i haven't asked the guys at the ruger forum yet.
pretty much all serious shooters i know change out a lot of the stock ruger parts to get a nice gun. most go further than i, installing a whole new trigger group, hammer, sear etc.
these guys crow about how great ruger is but they all get better parts. i have little respect for ruger. out of the box it's ok for plinking but worthless for serious shooting.
i love mine now. i just resent all the gunsmith work i had to do. not to mention it's easy to double the purchase price by the time you're done customizing.
 
that ruger you mentioned must have been a special edition. i am not aware of any mark with a 10'' barrel, past or present,

Actually they made quite a few of them. I know people on this board that have several of them. My best friend has one that I've been trying to talk him into selling to me for at least a decade now. He even had the thing get stolen but he got it back. And he still won't sell to me darn it. ;)

I just found this one on Buds web site. It sold for $289. I'm sick.

http://www.budsgunshop.com/catalog/product_info.php/products_id/411548300

411548300.jpg
 
I owned a 10" bbl Mk II for awhile. Neat pistol but I prefer the ones with barrel lengths in the 7" range.
 
nipprdog said:
It sold for $289.

Yeah don't it make you sick. I know some people swear they aren't any more accurate than the shorter barrel versions but they seemed to be to me. Maybe it was just in my head. My shorter Buck Mark shoots pretty well. Still those pistols generally sell for double what Buds got and it was a stainless model there too.
 
i'd love to try that pistol.
that long sight radius must make for great accuracy, even if a shorter barrel was just as inherently accurate.
 
that long sight radius must make for great accuracy

I was able to shoot it accurately. Again it was one of the most accurate pistols I've ever shot and I've been shooting for over 50 years. I've shot quite a few pistols believed to be accurate by most. The Ruger was right in there will all of them. And there are those that agree that the 10" bull barrel Ruger MkII is a very accurate pistol. They don't have the range of other pistols with more powerful rounds of course but there are those that say they shoot like rifles. I just know I was hitting a lot of 1" targets at 50 yards shooting from a rest.
 
cz, is 50 yards the farthest range a22lr can group well at? 50 is my current goal but i'll push the pistol asfar as it will go.
the 22 is what i'm most comfy with. for me it's the most fun.
people tell me that barrel lenght doesn't effect accuracy, but it sure seems to me that a longer barrel would be more accurate at longer ranges.
 
is 50 yards the farthest range a22lr can group well at

The gun being used makes a difference of course. I've shot pretty good groups at 75 yards with that bull barrel Ruger. But a rifle can shoot even further. I've shots lots of 1" groups at 100 yards and hitting small targets at 200 yards isn't all that hard. Something the size of a water bottle is doable at 175 yards. I've seen much longer shots than that. I took at a shot at a target at 250 yards. The target was about the size of a gallon jug. I missed it about a foot. It was in a plowed field so it was easy to see where the dust kicked up. And that was the only shot I tried at that distance. I figure I could have worked it out if I had shot more. I've seen video of people on this board shooting 400-500 yards and hitting a steel target (about a 2" circle) consistently.

Most rounds will fly try unless the wind starts blowing them off course. Flat nose rounds tend to lost accuracy over distance quicker. But I've seen some impressive shooting using things like a snub nose .38 hitting targets at 250 yards (balloons). Bullets generally fly straight until something changes their course. The thing about .22LR is that the sub-sonic stuff flies more true because it doesn't have that trans-sonic problem where it drops down from super-sonic speed to sub-sonic. It makes for major instability just like it makes for instability to fly a plane past the sound barrier. It took a good while to develop a plane that would withstand the forces trying to tear a plane apart when they first flew faster than sound. They called it the sound barrier for a reason. So .22LR bullets that start out flying faster than the speed of sound lose accuracy as they dorp to sub-sonic speeds.
 
well, is the ability to group 22lrs further by a rifle due to the longer barrel doing something or the longer sight radius you ge?
yeah my marlin is easier to shoot but i think that's sight radius.
the reason i ask is that a red dot makes sight radius irrelevent.

if barrel length really makes no difference my gun i promised myself for xmas should be a very short barrel. but if i can play farther out with a longer barrel i should get that.
 
The conventional wisdom on this is that a barrel will increase accuracy all the way up to a 16" barrel. Lots of people say that longer barrels are more accurate though. Still a 16" barrel seems to the point when big changes cease but add more length and maybe you get slight increases in accuracy. You won't see .22 rifles with 16" barrels shooting bench rest competitions for example. They generally use 20"-22" barrels. They also use barrel tuners to stabilize different rounds in their rifles. Apparently every type of ammo requires a different location for the tuner. Things like temperature, humidity, etc. also affect where a tuner should be placed. I'm certainly no expert in such things but the barrel length figures into that stuff too so I thought I would mention it. We're talking squeezing the last tiny bit of accuracy from a gun here. Most of us don't shoot well enough to even notice the difference most likely.
 
thanks, cz. i can't easilly find a handgun with a 12'' barrel, but there are plenty of 8'' barrels.
i'm happy with my 5 1/2'' bull barrel for what i'm doing now, but i like the idea of being able to use a handgun at rifle ranges.

actually, i think of 50 yards as rifle range but pushing past that would be fun.
 
actually, i think of 50 yards as rifle range but pushing past that would be fun.

That's what the bench rest shooters use for .22 competition. It's pretty much a standard really. It takes the right ammo to shoot 100 yards accurately. Most people like to buy super-sonic ammo and it often drops through the trans-sonic stage before it reaches 100 yards which means a big loss in accuracy. If they used sub-sonic ammo they would do much better. FWIW the speed of sound is around 1060-1080 fps depending on weather conditions and altitude and other factors. Most target ammo tries to get right up to that point without going over the speed of sound.
 
i actually have some of that standard velocity stuff, rws. i can't use it all the time because it cost 14 cents/round.
i'm saving that for evil bunnies. they cost me over $200 last year so i shoot them on sight. that's why i got the pistol. i was tired of going in the house to get the rifle when i saw one.
i got a tanker holster that holds the gun out of the way no matter what chores i'm doing so i'm set for them.
they are very much more accurate at close range but i haven't tried them long distance.
oddly, they make smaller groups but hit at the same place. i would have thot they would hit low but they don't.
 
I have a tanker holster for the 629 I told you about. Very nice way to carry IMO. It draws like a cross draw only better IMO and I can carry that big heavy Smith and feel like it's out of the way.

A popular brand of ammo around here is CCI SV. It's sub-sonic and it's accurate in almost every gun. That's unusual for a .22. Most of them are picky about ammo. But for some reason a lot more guns shoot SV very well. The SV stands for standard velocity BTW. It's a little hard to come by these days though. I have only bought about a brick and a half of it in the last 2.5 years. But that's the ammo I stocked up on right before Sandy Hook so I've been in good shape with it. It's not the greatest ammo around but it does very well.

BTW there are types of .22 ammo that cost way more than 14 cents a round. The bench rest guys almost all use Tenex (some use other brands but Tenex is about the best for them it seems). It costs $225 a brick.

http://www.midwayusa.com/product/13...unition-22-long-rifle-40-grain-lead-flat-nose

The thing is it cost over $200 a brick before the panic. It has only gone up a slight amount while other Eley ammo, like their Match EPS, has almost doubled in price. It's also very good ammo and it's among my favorites these days. But it was a lot cheaper before the panic. But even back then it was like $110 a brick. I actually saw it selling for over $200 a brick not long ago but mostly it runs about $175-$180.

http://www.midwayusa.com/product/13...unition-22-long-rifle-40-grain-lead-flat-nose

Top grade ammo costs money. My favorite these days is actually Federal Gold Medal Ultra Match. Another run of ammo with the same name was used to win the US a gold medal in the Olympics a while back. The stuff they sell now is not the same but it is very good. I actually have some of the original still. I don't shoot a lot of it obviously. The new stuff is running $186 a brick. I've seen it higher than that.

http://www.midwayusa.com/product/55...ain-lead-ultramatch-box-of-500-10-boxes-of-50

CCI SV generally runs about $40 a brick if you can find it these days. I used to buy it for $20 a brick and I thought it was high considering the price of bulk ammo at the time. Times have changed though as you well know. It's hard to even get enough ammo to do proper testing of a .22. Almost all of them will do better with certain brands of ammo and every gun is different. The bench rest guys even pay attention to the lot number because different production runs can be very different. That's true of all ammo. I've seen .223 with the same name on two boxes be as different as night and day.

This shooting stuff ain't for wimps I guess. Or people with a conscience when it comes to spending money on ammo either. ;) I haven't even talked about Wolf ammo. There are many different ways to go with .22 ammo. You can get bulk ammo for plinking, hot rounds for hunting and varmints or target ammo and stuff that's basically a hybrid of one or more types. I'm guessing if you had access to ammo you could find some that makes your Ruger shoot much better.
 
i can't find a brick of anything for $40. the cheapest i can get is federal bulk n that's a dime/round with shipping. there is no 22lr available locally at any price.
if i hadn't purchase that 22/45 i wouldn't buy now.
but i decided i would shoot 10,000 rounds thru it to really master it. i'm shooting 1000 rounds/month. all i can afford.


this seems to be working. i can't see improvement day to day but the month to month improvement is very noticable.

this is important because a gun that doesn't do what i want is worthless.
 
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