Today was rimfire range day for me.
I took my Ruger Super Single Six, Browning Buck Mark, Ruger 22/45, S&W M&P Compact and my Ruger 10-22 with me for today's shooting session.
First up was the Ruger Single Six. It's a convertible but I shot only the .22LR today. The gun has a 9.5" barrel and has been to Magna-Port for some customization work. Kenny did an action job, numbered the chambers of the cylinder, replaced the front sight with a Patridge style, polished and jeweled the trigger and hammer and did some plating work I believe with titanium to give a general gold appearance and polished the pins.
This gun is a really fine shooter. Truth is it shoots far better than I do these days. I already knew it was properly sighted in for 25 yards but it hasn't been shot in a good long while so I put it on paper like all the rest of them. I set the stand with the paper targets on it at around 10-12 yards. That doesn't give same POI as at 25 yards but with handguns is pretty darn close unlike the rifle.
At that range I shot one ragged hole not that I expected anything else from it or any of the others. I then moved out to the 8" falling plates at 25 yards. The first plate took 3 hits with the rimfire before it came off. Some took only one hit and none took more than the 3 hits that first one took. All shots on the plates were hits. But then I've easily run 6 of 6 using this revolver on 4" plates at 25 yards. Again today all shooting was from sand bags on the bench at 25 yards other than the paper at about half that. I ran several cylinders of Armscor 38 grain HPs thru this one.
Next up was the Browning Buck Mark. It wears a 2X Bushnell scope on it and was the only handgun today with a scope, all the others have factory iron sights on them.
Shooting routine was similar to the Ruger. I loaded the magazine with 10 rounds of the Armscor HPs and shot for group at the paper just to verify it was still shooting to POA as again I haven't shot this gun in a long while. When I finished off the box of Armscor ammo I opened a new box of 325 Federal Auto Match ammo and did the rest of my shooting with that today.
Since this gun is scoped I decided to go to smaller targets when I went to steel. I shot a swinger target with 4" diameter and also hit the rabbit some. In all I ran several magazines of ammo thru this one all were hits also.
Next up was the Ruger 22/45. This one has the 5.5" target barrel and the 1911 style/size grip on it. I really like this gun. It has proven accurate in the past and has a pretty good trigger action to it for a factory stock gun.
I ran one magazine of the Federal thru it on the paper target just to verify no major shift in POI since I last shot it. It had not been as long since shooting this one as the other two and I didn't expect nor did I get any surprises.
The 8" falling plates had already been knocked off and since it rained pretty hard last night things were muddy enough I didn't go out to reset them and just shot at the other metal targets I have set at 25 yards. Mostly I shot the rabbit target and the 12" gong and got satisfying pings from each shot. Like with the Browning I ran several magazines of ammo thru this one before putting it away and going to the next.
Next up was the smallest gun of the day. It was my S&W M&P Compact. This gun is basically a Shield size M&P with adjustable sights. Of the guns shot today it was prolly the last one I had used so wasn't worried about the sight setting but still like all the rest I fired it first on paper. I think the barrel is maybe 4", not more on this one.
Due to the shorter sight radius I did my shooting at the 12" gong and rabbit targets. I good days I have run straight on the 4.5" swingers but I wasn't seeing the sights that clearly today so stuck with larger targets that gave me a ping sound at each shot. This one likely has the worst trigger of the guns shot today tho it isn't horrible and certainly is better than my centerfire S&W M&P guns. I again ran several magazines of ammo thru this one.
I then set the handguns aside and broke out the only rifle I took with me today.
My Ruger 10-22 has a full Mannlicher stock made of the black/gray pepper laminated wood. It's a handsome rifle and was the only gun of the day that gave me feeding issues.
This rifle wears a Leupold Rimfire 2-7 scope of the old smaller size that Leupold no longer makes. I only shot 5 shots on paper with it at first as all of them went into basically the same hole and barely enlarged it over bullet diameter. But the shots were a full inch low at the 10-12 yards the paper target stand was set.
I had done a basic sight in on this rifle after putting the scope on it but most of the shooting with it had been done by my 12 year old grandson so I took a little time to fine tune the sight in today.
I did this by shooting at the smallest of my swinger targets at 25 yards. I'd guess it a bit less than 3" in diameter. Big enough to guarantee hits each shot but small enough to get a good idea of POI for adjustments. I raised it up enough to hit to center at 25 yards and moved it very slightly laterally.
I then ran a magazine full of ammo at the 12" gong at 100 yards. I knew it would drop a good deal from a 25 yard zero so chose the 12" gong to make sure I caught all the bullets. I aimed about dead center at the very top edge of the target as best as I could and got a nice 10 shot cluster of hits that from 100 yards away looking thru the scope appeared to be no more than 3" or so in diameter. The gun can do better but would need a more refined point of aim to do so.
I moved back to 25 yards and ran another couple mags of ammo thru it on the smallest of my swinger targets.
I mentioned a feeding issue on this one. I was using the magazine that came with the rifle and I can't say for sure if the ammo had any bearing on it but it failed to eject and load the next round every two to three rounds. I set it aside and loaded a different magazine and got no more feeding issues. I have used this magazine in the past with several different types of ammo with no issues but today it sure wasn't feeding the Federal Auto Match ammo. I will have to explore this further but I have other magazines and the Auto Match was all I had with me other than the one box of Armscor already shot up.
I'd guess I went thru over 100 rounds today, likely over 150 rounds. Not a long range session but these days I don't seem to have long sessions in this tired old body anymore.
Next shooting session, whenever it might be, I think will be revolvers, perhaps .38 Special, .357 Magnum, .44 Special and .45acp from the Ruger BH and maybe .22LR also or maybe just center-fires next time out.
