Ode to the Humble .22LRF - range report
I slipped out for a couple of hours today to shoot my beloved Anschutz. This rifle is nothing flash, I paid $1000 for this rifle second hand. I probably got ripped off, but if you offered me $2000 I would not part with it. It has two specialties. Hitting what you are aiming at, and killing scopes. It killed whatever it came with, then it killed a Leopold rimfire I bought and it just killed my early model 4x32 Nikon, and I am pretty careful with scopes. I never rest them on hard surfaces and if I am on my bike, they go on a sling, not on a rack.
I broke the elevation cross hair. There is an abandoned house on the property. My great Uncle would not let anyone maintain it, because everyone who lived there went mad or got sick. Its a big old weatherboard villa. Haunted as all hell. I avoid the place as it has an uncanny ability to ruin your day. On this occasion I was after cat food and there was a fat hare sitting next to it. I got it with three shots but it was messy. The rifle was shooting very low. Looked at the crosshairs and there was a wee curly hair hanging off the right hand side and a visible break.
As of today it wears a late model Nikon 4x32 Rimfire, with the new lift and zero turrets, which is good, because I have lost the windage and elevation covers for this scope, so it has exposed, zeroed turrets. Very tempted to dial it, but I am running out of scopes. It has very positive solid clicks and tracks flawlessly.
Scrounging through my tupperware container of mangy, miscellaneous gun parts I found a set of dubious looking rings. On closer inspection they were good rings that had something horrible on them. They were also lower than my old rings.
Scope mounted it was off to my new range. I will be back tomorrow and I will take some photos. It is a long V shaped gully with a fork in it and many places to shoot, right out to 700m. Not all off one shooting position, but I exclusively shoot prone, so it is a non issue. Once I have all my positions sorted out I will attack it with an excavator and make it pretty.
I found a nice mound to shoot from on a flood bank I built and started at 25m. I was bang on, or a hint low and left, but I seemed to be stuck between adjustments, so I moved out to 50m. I was under the 50m mark by about an inch. I should have been shaving the top of the 25m dot, not the bottom, but one forgets these things. Wherever the old Nikon was, it was perfect for me for years without losing zero till the crosshair snapped.
I moved out to 75m and did a wee exercise. On a plain, non marked reticle, shoot for the dot on the target (I use sticky dots from the stationary shop). You should be able to see the group. I could see the .22 holes through the 4x Nikon. Now measure the the gap between the point of aim (the dot) and the point of impact (the group). Fix in your mind the amount of reticle between the two. Now use this to hold over like you would with a MIL dot, ignoring the fact you have no dots. At 75m I was bang on. At 100m I was miles off.
I shot slightly to the left all day. I needed 1 click right at 25m, but you don't know this till you shoot 50m and 75m, so I never corrected it till I was back at 25. Now my intention here, and the purpose of this thread, is to get her really shooting. Before the cross hair broke, I was very very familiar with a zero than never moved and had some success. The boss has put a $5 bounty on pigeons as he hates them with a passion. As half my pay goes to the tax man and the other half to wife and daughter, that is real money. I am surrounded by pigeons (the bosses hatred is not unjustified).
The Anschutz has a fantastic trigger, but after 60 rounds I was starting to feel the creep in it. A while ago I found the long lost 5 round magazine and today I got it working. 4 rounds instead of 5, but it goes. I shot 4 round groups. Now an Anschutz .22LRF is a fantastic little rifle, but it is a very little rifle. I am not little, and I had a hard time keeping a good cheek weld, and getting my right hand comfortable while squeezing the trigger was awkward. The first two changes will be a strip of grip tape along the cheek piece to keep my beard from slipping and adjusting that trigger. All my groups had (minor) horizontal stringing from my awkward face/palm grip. Look at an Anschutz .22 target rifle. All those adjustments at there for a reason, but we make do.
Now an hour of web research indicates this is a 1415/1416 model made in Ulm, West Germany in 1983. One year after I was born.
Now a little more web research indicates I get rid of this creep by an adjustment on the side of the trigger, with a hex screw. Tomorrows job.
Most interesting of all to me, the old 40gr PowerPoint that is my go to ammo and the only thing I use, shot pretty well. I am sure it shot better, or I did, in the past. I shot a box of it, then right at the end I switched to a couple of mags of 42gr PowerPoint to see how it went. This stuff seems virtually the same, but 2gr heavier and 40ft/sec faster (on the box). It shot to the same point of impact, but tightened the groups up big time. Something to play with tomorrow.
You can't beat 22LRF. 60 rounds fired while waiting for the girls (cows) to finish their first course of the day. Something delightful about that puddle of empty cases.
