rimfire sniper

RIMFIRE SNIPER


Oh Lord Baby Jesus have a little friggin mercy! It’s one of those weekends mated with one of those Mondays to produce a hybrid foul creature. We go to drive into work on Friday ( the wife is volunteering on Fridays to help file paperwork in the office, and etcetera, and then we do all our errands/chores after work- I get one less day peddling but use no more gas ), and it seems that our permafrost had thawed six inches down. The ground seemed solid, but when I went to drive away the truck sank down to its axle. Great. I peddled into work, no big deal there except I was a half hour late for my Internet time, as one of the biggest news stories of the apocalypse happens. Which actually put me in a pretty good mood despite the truck. One giant step closer to the stew pot, which, granted, I have mixed feelings about. Should I root for chaos and violence? Or should I root for business as usual? It’s a conundrum. Business as usual allows lots of good books to be delivered to my door, but a collapse means I can finally go medieval on all the asshats that so desperately deserve it. Anyway, I couldn’t help myself and had a big sloppy grin on my face at the prospect of financial meltdown ( I don’t honestly want any bad to happen to the average Joe, Japanese or otherwise, but I AM rooting for much pain and suffering to all politicians, lawyers, bankers and the ex-wife ). I wasn’t even too pissed about having to come home and futz for a few hours with the truck. But then, after six hours of exhausting work trying to extract the truck Saturday I was in a thoroughly nasty mood. I got the truck towed out Sunday, no charge other than a few hours babysitting in trade, but the day was shot. Behind on the writing ( now would be a good time to send in a guest article so I’m covered next weekend going to visit my daughter ), damn daylight savings time, my continuity screwed. And today on Monday everyone is either in a bad mood or expecting me to work. Damn them all. But at least I got a good article idea.

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A loyal minion ( and, again, for the umpteenth time to placate the idiot comment writers, this is my term of endearment- if you don’t like it join the clueless at another site that won’t take the chance of offending anyone ) wrote about the rimfire. Basically, I was selling it “short” ( get it? Rimfire short or long rifle- sorry, I liked it ). As a wayward youth, said correspondent had used the shot placement on the water to learn how to get his hits out to five hundred yards. I honestly didn’t think a 22 could get out that far. Now, before you sputter and spew and act all butt hurt that I don’t advocate an AR-15 that costs a grand and is so overly complicated that it makes a modern motor vehicle with two hundred computer chips in it look as simple as a stone hammer and will act all contrite and behave itself at the shooting range but as soon as you take it out into the field and don’t clean it every hour it stops working, we are all about simple and cheap here at the Bison Compound. Since most other firearms are neither, the rimfire rifle deserves another look ( I’ve talked about rimfire sniping in heavy woods before, not about extreme range firing- yeh, I’m reaching for material here ). Now, I can’t give you any advice on scopes. I’ve never used them so much for shot placement as for just being able to see the target. On each firearm I learn how high to hold the crosshairs over the target for a hit ( remember, we are talking about pie plate accuracy here, not fractions of an inch ). Which I’m sure is a terrible way to do it. I’m sure others have great advice on MOA scopes or whatever. I’m a novice shooter and don’t pretend otherwise. So we’ll just talk in generalities here.

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Obviously, any shot that hits after medical care is available is an invitation to trouble. As the new audio tapes that was conveniently released last week shows, while appearing to be okay, had the Secret Service not taken Reagan to the hospital first thing the .22 in him could have killed him. Don’t sell the small hunk of lead short. Granted, at five hundred yards the energy left in one might not be much. But since you are so far away you should be pretty safe from most of the idiots firing back at you with their AR’s. Even a slight wound that doesn’t immediately incapacitate the enemy might eventually kill him. I’m not saying knock down power isn’t important. But if you can’t do much more than arm yourself with a rimfire rifle ( IF you can get a powerful pistol to guard against close threats where knock down is critical ) than not all is lost. If you got an old propane tank ( yes, jerk-off, an empty one ) and put it out at a hundred yards and practiced hitting that bad boy, then kept moving it out farther and practicing, I can’t imagine it would take that many dollars worth of ammo to get a feel for hitting at extreme ranges. You have a man torso size target, so the realism is there. And you can hear the hit, so there is no going to look at the target or buying special colored targets. You do need a way to gauge your hits. Out here in the desert I could go by the dust eruptions, and as mentioned before you could use a body of water ( such as trying to hit rocks sticking out of the water ). The great thing about the rimfire is the ability to keep the target acquired during the shot.

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I know that you are all getting pumped to go out and get a Rugar 10/22 and put a few hundred bucks into customizing it, but please slow down. A bolt action is much better for accuracy. It is also cheaper and there are plenty of old junkers out there for cheap that just need a bit of wood conditioner and blue touch up. The great thing about this idea is you only need a $75 rifle, $30 in a scope and mount and a few bucks in ammo. You can plink all day getting the hang of long range shooting. Why not learn sniping through experience rather than by spending a fortune on equipment( I’m not comparing the effectiveness of a “real” sniper with a home grown rimfire sharpshooter, just giving you a realistic option )?

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My e-mail is jimd303@netzero.com
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