Sighting in a .22 rifle is a lot more fun than fine-tuning a bigger gun, like a .300 Winchester Mag. You can shoot a full brick of .22 ammo and never get sore, but you’re probably going to start flinching after only a few shots from a big-bore Magnum.
So after shooting a couple of rabbits over the weekend, and realizing I wasn’t hitting exactly where I was trying to, I decided to try to dial in my rifle a little more. So I set up the bench, tacked up some targets, and got to shooting. I made minor adjustments, shot more, made more adjustments, and shot some more again. Once I had the rifle hitting exactly where I wanted it from the bench, I tried some shots from a kneeling position. Then I moved on to standing.
I found out quickly that the problem was not with how my sights were aligned. The real problem was that I’m not nearly as steady as I was 10 or 20 years ago. I could have saved myself a lot of time, effort, and ammo by just shooting from a braced position.
But what’s the fun in that? I may not have accomplished much, but at least I had a very enjoyable afternoon. Granted, I shot up a full brick of .22 ammo, which leaves me with very little left in my gun safe. Now I know my rifle is dead-on accurate, and I know what I need to do to make sure I hit where I aim, but there’s not much ammo left for shooting actual rabbits.
And that’s a problem. I’ve now been to every gun store in Cheyenne, and nobody has any .22 ammo left. They all said they’re expecting shipments later in the week, but I want to shoot rabbits now, not Saturday.
So the moral of the story is that if you don’t have a whole lot of .22 ammo, don’t start messing with your sights.
