50 at 200

[Arrowhead]

Originally Posted by jaia

Sellier and Bellot 38 grain hollow point 22lr rated 1230 fps

455 Varmint, Lilja, Sinclair





Results on target due to poorly handled components.
All that spread could be minimized by protecting the bullets from repeated impact
during manufacture, transporting and assembly. The lubricant covers the dents and dings
but by taking a close look, can be seen using eyeball version 1.0.
I inspect all my cartridges before chambering, now that I know what to look for.

With an ES 124 fps, it'll never be anything but short range hunting/plinking ammo.

Thanks to you I have become interested in the 200 yard game and also for saving me some money experimenting with ammo. I bought an RPR earlier this year and told my wife it was my second childhood rifle. For a time I was thinking I had made a mistake but by trial and error I have it delivering slightly less than .5" to slightly Less than .6" groups with CCI SV at 50 yards. Every few groups I get a flier and I'm mostly blaming the ammo. I can tell when I cause one and most aren't my fault. This afternoon I will do my final upgrade, installing a Timney trigger to get rid of the stock accu-trigger clone.

The weather service is promising us a day with very little wind tomorrow and if that holds true I'll be at the range before sunup tomorrow morning to start my long range adventure. I'm taking along some old Wolf Match Target to try out too.

[jaia]

Enjoy yourself A.
Post those results here so we can see what happens.

[Arrowhead]

Will do but you will have to take my word for what happens. I'm not computer savvy enough for the picture posting thing. I'm an analog, not electronic person.

[gcrank1]

David, fwiw, some years back (before the great 22 ammo shortage) I shot over 3000 45 gr. 'Hornet profile' cast bullets and some 2000 'surplus' factory lead plated hp bullets (iirc they were Win.)from three very different 22 Hornets, one scoped, 2 with peep sights. All benched with front and rear bags.
I established baseline performance with jacketed at my 50yd. home range and not at high end velocity loadings; I think from 1500-2000 fps. The cast bullets I ran variously from 1050-1450ish; all load velo's checked on a Crony, many targets saved for future reference and comparison.
I came to expect about 3/8" 5 shot ctr-ctr groups with jacketed, more than a few at 3 tenths.
With the cast, visually culled and sorted for gross defects, and in the 22lr velos fairly common was 1/2" with a few to the 3/8ths and a bunch at 5/8s. The jacketed held the edge on consistency for groups.
Two of the rifles had the traditional 1:16 twist for the Hornet, the other a 1:12 which I had hoped would stabilize a longer, better BC bullet for 200yd. schuetzen matches.
My trials proved to me that the traditional Hornet 45gr lead bullet was optimum for the 1:16; guess those old timers knew something .
I became frustrated with the 1:12, it wasnt as good with the 45s or heavier at 50yd and I was morphing away from 22cal cf. I found happiness with the faster twist 25-35 and cast after a trial of the 25-20 (again, the traditional slow twist was not friendly to longer, better BC bullets).
Sold my Hornets and the 25s just before the rf shortage hit.....talk about timing. I had a decent supply of rf that made me through, and 22rf is my caliber of choice for 'bang for the buck', but my gut sense of it is that the current production is not up to what I had come to expect. Perhaps I have become proficient enough over time that now I recognize shortcomings I was not aware of before?
No matter, it is what it is, what we got is what we can shoot. This thread certainly weeds out the BAD from the bad and not so bad....sadly, it shows there isnt much that is really good and that is lot dependent. Maybe it always has been. And Im so tired of reloading 22Hornet, maybe 222 also. Im going to keep shooting 22rf because it is just so easy to do so and still FUN (much of the time).

[David Valdina]

Did you happen to shoot any of the cast bullets at 200 yards ? Or even at 100 yards ? Based on the rules given here I would expect for .5" groups @ 50 yards, 1.5" @ 100 yards and 4.5 @ 200 yards. If considerably smaller at distances, what is up ?

By the way, my experience between 50 yards and 100 yards with .22 rimfire agrees with this rule.

[gcrank1]

I poked a few out at 125ish on the neighbor's field when the ground was worked and I could pick aiming points. Not enough to be statistically valid. From a decent sit and hold they would land where I was looking, LOL....not that it means much in the context of this thread. I would have been pretty confident of at least scaring a small varmint.
Btw, we shoot a 22rf 200yd. silhouette match with properly scaled critters so I have a pretty good sense of what size groups different rifles and ammo do from the sighter targets when dialed in (and these aint garden variety sporting rifles). I would have put the Hornet into the mix had I still had it. Im sure the boys would have humored me as my pedestrian lead loads wouldnt damage the goods. But, a sil. match aint a benchrest match! What kind of 'shot dispersion' will knock over steel wont get you through the cut to a BR match. I look at the groups posted here in the sil. match context; many of those 200yd groups explain why we miss the rams (10 yrs on and nobody has cleaned the ram rail yet). Good thing we dont have Hostile Eggs shooting back!
I, too, fully concur with the results seen here.

[Taterchip]

Jaia have you shot any of the sk long range stuff, and if so what post number.

[Taterchip]

Found it!

[jaia]

Tater...You did that on purpose...didn't ya'?

Hey, y'er doing good with the CZ 100 yard challenge.

I check it every week to see how y'alls results compare when extrapolated out to 200 yards.
Some very nice targets posted


I've been reading up on the aerodynamics of golf balls.
Interesting point, backspin is desirable, provides lift and longer flight.
Sidespin is to be avoided or minimized as it pulls the ball off line depending on direction of spin.
Apply that thought to bullet trajectories and it explains the odd spirals I see.
The bullets, or atmospheric lensing caused by bullets, is visible through the scope.
The trajectories show up against the the white of the backer and are curving not only up/down
but also left to right. It's not wind drift, it's the aerodynamic effect of bullet spin, same as a golf ball.
Understandable why these bulk rimfire cartridges show so much spread. All those dents and dings on the bullets
are ruining any chance of producing repeatable projectile flights. Combined with mv spread
no wonder it's almost impossible to obtain consistent results, with anything but high end rimfire ammunition.

CCI Mini-Mags.............................................. .......Lapua Midas+

[Mikey_P]

Originally Posted by jaia

Understandable why these bulk rimfire cartridges show so much spread. All those dents and dings on the bullets
are ruining any chance of producing repeatable projectile flights. Combined with mv spread
no wonder it's almost impossible to obtain consistent results, with anything but high end rimfire ammunition.

CCI Mini-Mags.............................................. .......Lapua Midas+

Very nice comparison, jaia. A picture's worth a thousand words, that's for sure! Thanks for posting.

Mike

[bobnoffs]

i have been watching/reading this thread for several years and i guess i don't understand the point of 200 yds. it doesn't represent a distance that is used in hunting with a 22 l.r..the 50 shot groups are probably effected by wind as much as anything and the group size doesn't translate into any useful info for me anyway. what can i take away from a 200 yd. group when i am shooting squirrels?
the 200 yd group is interesting but seems 50 yd 50 shot groups would give more useful info about the 22lr. without throwing the wind into it? yes, i understand factory irregularities are making groups bigger but at 200 yds, so what? am i gonna pick the tightest group i shoot at 200 yds or the tightest at 50? what info did i get from 200 that i didn't get at 50?
what am i missing?

bob noffs

[Arrowhead]

Originally Posted by bobnoffs

i have been watching/reading this thread for several years and i guess i don't understand the point of 200 yds. it doesn't represent a distance that is used in hunting with a 22 l.r..the 50 shot groups are probably effected by wind as much as anything and the group size doesn't translate into any useful info for me anyway. what can i take away from a 200 yd. group when i am shooting squirrels?
the 200 yd group is interesting but seems 50 yd 50 shot groups would give more useful info about the 22lr. without throwing the wind into it? yes, i understand factory irregularities are making groups bigger but at 200 yds, so what? am i gonna pick the tightest group i shoot at 200 yds or the tightest at 50? what info did i get from 200 that i didn't get at 50?
what am i missing?

bob noffs

I felt about the same way as you until recently but I have become bored with 50 yard shooting and don’t do any 25 yard shooting except when sighting in a new setup or pistol shooting. I have just decided to move to 100 yard and 200 yard shooting to see just what my equipment and different brands and grades of ammo are capable of. It gives me something new to experiment with.

[jaia]

Why 200 yards? Time of flight.
It amplifies everything to extremely obvious extents.
I didn't understand a whole lot regarding rimfire when I started tinkering with 22lrs in 2011.
I figured aim, shoot, hit the center, done. You can imagine how well that worked out.
Picking off tree rats isn't punching paper, learned that real fast. Rifle quality, setup, bench,
conditions and ammunition were worked with and tested until I had a basic understanding.
Pushing the range further and further showed there were still things going on that I didn't comprehend.
Where were those odd strays coming from? How do you compensate for wind and still have fliers
that ended up to the left when the wind is moving right. Why so much vertical spread with one cartridge
and so little with another.
At 25 yards most rimfire will chew up a bullseye.
At 50 yards half decent ammo will produce moa results.
100 yards and you have to have competition grade ammo to obtain consistent moa.
At 200 yards, you have to do everything right, and have the best ammo available.
200 yards and most rifles will stay on paper, allowing me to work on my skills
while keeping it challenging. 50 and 100 yards don't make me grin like 200 yards does
when I do everything right and end up with moa results. Easy is boring, l like having to work for it.

How does 200 yard results apply to lesser distances?
Apply the half third rule, remember? Half the distance means one third the spread.
I have the challenge of long range and can calculate the results at lesser distances.
Shoot a 4 inch group at 200 yards, means 1.3 inches at 100 yards and 0.4 inches at 50.
200 yards is simply more entertaining.

[Adventurer]

Each and every person I’ve put behind the trigger @ 200 yards ; has a big ole beaming smile. Sometimes they are so giddy they are laughing. People that have shot , and some people who have never shot before. Man or woman , they all have a ball with it.They love hitting something that far away and hearing the delayed ring of bullet striking steel. I’m kinda partial to it myself.

[gcrank1]

We shoot out to 200 several times a year; has all been very interesting and informative to me (and I submit, others of my ilk). Havent seen any other thread like this and glad to have it