Rimfire rifle's

[Rugerboy50]

Starting the search for A rimfire rifle.

For now I'm concentrating on 22 LR.

For now I'm looking at a Savage Mark ii BV and a cz model 455.

I'm wanting accuracy out of the box. I have a plinker.

Is 17mhr or 22wmr that much better?

The main function will be bench rest shooting up to 100 yards.

[A-R]

I've only shot .17 and it was substantially more accurate than .22LR from similar bolt-action rifles (both Savage, I think). Beyond 50 yards it was night and day.

[puma guy]

Be careful with the .17. I noticed your location is Friendswood. If you shoot at PSC I'm pretty sure .17's are restricted from the .22 Rimfire Range. You'll have to shoot at #1 or #4 Bench Rest. If I am passing along incorrect info to Rugerboy50 somebody please correct me.

[Charles L. Cotton]

Be careful with the .17. I noticed your location is Friendswood. If you shoot at PSC I'm pretty sure .17's are restricted from the .22 Rimfire Range. You'll have to shoot at #1 or #4 Bench Rest. If I am passing along incorrect info to Rugerboy50 somebody please correct me.

Not anymore. We finished our testing and you can use .17 Remington on Range 3, but not the new Tin Can Alley.

Chas.

[Rugerboy50]

Good information.

I am a PSC member.

I need to study up on 17MHR vs 22WMR.

For the most part i shoot handguns and bench rest on # 4.

[LTUME1978]

The CZ is a pretty good rifle but if you want great accuracy in a 22 rimfire, you are going to have to move up to an Anchutz. You will also have to move up to Lapua or Eley ammo (grade/accuracy depends on how deep your pockets are but either is expensive). If you are a member of PCS, go by one of the silhouette matches on the 4th saturday of each month. Some of those guys will have Anchutz rifles and the good standard velocity ammo. You can get an idea of what the equipment looks like. This will be a very expensive game (high accuracy 22) to get into if that is what you want to do. With an Anchutz and good Eley ammo (from a lot that your rifle likes - you will have to test lots to find the magic combination) you can 1/2 inch group at 100 meters if your are a really good shot off the bench and there is no wind.

[LTUME1978]

Charles,

Did the testing include checking to see if the impact of the 17 will bend the back stops from repeated firing? That will be a big concern for the silhouette shooters there.

[Charles L. Cotton]

Charles,

Did the testing include checking to see if the impact of the 17 will bend the back stops from repeated firing? That will be a big concern for the silhouette shooters there.

Yes, we were concerned how our steel backstops would handle the .17 Rem.

Chas.

[LTUME1978]

Charles,

Thank you for the quick reply. You are up way to late replying to these posts :-).

John

[Rugerboy50]

After a lot of research I'm seriously considering a 22WMR.

Thoughts?

[The Annoyed Man]

The CZ is a pretty good rifle but if you want great accuracy in a 22 rimfire, you are going to have to move up to an Anchutz. You will also have to move up to Lapua or Eley ammo (grade/accuracy depends on how deep your pockets are but either is expensive). If you are a member of PCS, go by one of the silhouette matches on the 4th saturday of each month. Some of those guys will have Anchutz rifles and the good standard velocity ammo. You can get an idea of what the equipment looks like. This will be a very expensive game (high accuracy 22) to get into if that is what you want to do. With an Anchutz and good Eley ammo (from a lot that your rifle likes - you will have to test lots to find the magic combination) you can 1/2 inch group at 100 meters if your are a really good shot off the bench and there is no wind.

Rugerboy50 may have changed his mind about price point, but in our PM exchange he was not willing to spend Anchutz money, which I did mention to him, and that's why I pointed him to the Savage and CZ rifles which are at a price point near the top of what he was willing to spend at the time.

In the past, Rugerboy50 seems to have always solidly researched his long gun acquisitions, both by PM and by open consultation on the board; and in the end he has always made a good solid purchase of a quality firearm—maybe not the one I would have chosen, but then it's not my rifle, is it?

I don't know very much at all about the .17 cartridge. I've never fired one, although I imagine that it wouldn't be much more fuss than firing a .22 LR or a .22 WMR. Perhaps another caliber to consider if one is looking at .22 WMR and .17 Rem is the .204 Ruger. Although is is between the .17 Rem and the .223 Rem in horsepower, as a centerfire cartridge it is much closer to the .223 than to the .17 Rem. Because my tactical needs are already met, the latest market pressures resulting from the looming AWB has caused me to reassess my caliber choices for future long gun acquisitions. For instance, until now, all of my bolt action rifles and one of my ARs have been chambered in .308.......currently one of the least available cartridges in the country. Fortunately, I have some ammo in that caliber and the ability to load a couple of hundred more on hand. For any kind of battle/tactical long gun (shotguns included in the "tactical" ammo niche), there is very little ammo to be had, and it is very hard to find. But Saturday while at the local Academy, while the shelves were completely bare of either 5.56/.223, 7.62/.308, or 00 buckshot, there was a relative abundance of .243, .270, 7mm-08, .30-30, .30-'06 and (of all things) .45-70. It was priced higher than normal, and they were limiting purchase quantity to a box or two per customer, but it was available. I recently acquired, on a whim rather than by design, and as much for its collector interest as for any other reason, a Mosin Nagant 91/30—my first ever antique mil-surp rifle, and my only "non-.308" bolt-action rifle (although technically, it IS a .308" bullet). If I were to buy another modern rifle today, I would most likely buy one chambered in one of those available "hunting only" calibers mentioned above that are not as terrifying to American communists (only because they haven't turned their malevolent attention to them yet), and then I would begin stockpiling ammo and reloading components for it. Of the five available centerfire chamberings I mentioned above, I would probably choose the .30-'06 for its sheer versatility, but the others would definitely be in the hunt...so to speak. I mention this for the reason below......

I have heard rumors that .22 LR ammunition is also hard to find right now, although I haven't personally noticed it because I have probably 2,000 rounds of it on hand and I don't shoot it that much. But if that scarcity is real, it is likely true for the same reasons as for the other ammo scarcity (people snapping up M&P15-22s and similar guns and as much ammo as they can carry because they are named rifles to be banned by the AWB). Given that Rugerboy50 already has a plinker in .22 LR, and given his initial interest expressed in PMs to me of accuracy out to 200 yards rather than the 100 yards expressed here in this thread, one could make a rational argument for buying an accurate rifle in one of the other three common smallbore calibers besides .22 LR: either .17 Rem, .204 Ruger, or .22 WMR.

All three of those calibers, particularly the .22 WMR, have been available on the market long enough to get good data about general availability (in normal times) relative to one another, price relative to one another, performance relative to one another, bullet weights and types relative to one another, and available rifles (or handguns) chambered in those calibers.

Given my own experience with rifle/ammo purchases recently, I've had to reevaluate some of my previous buying logic. I confess that I have 'til now been a snob about any of the old foreign manufactured bolt action mil-surps, and I enjoyed making fun of them as much as the next guy. But now that I own one—purchased strictly on a whim, so I can't claim credit for any intentional wisdom in the purchase—I can appreciate that there is actually some wisdom in owning one of these old warhorses for reasons other than their value as collector pieces. And that has led me to view potential future purchases differently than perhaps I might have otherwise. I honestly know very little about the three smallbore calibers I have mentioned here, but if one already has a plinker rifle in a cheap caliber like .22 LR, and there is little ammo available for it, then the logic of purchasing an accurate smallbore rifle in an alternative caliber seems unassailable to me.

My world has been turned topsy-turvy a bit, and I detest liberals even more for it, because they are communist wolves in rainbow unicorn's clothing. There is something fundamentally bent and twisted about a person who eschews self-examination and self-improvement in favor of trying to tell everyone else what to do and then trying to force them to do it. But the politics of the whole thing aside, this is the reality of the situation in which we find ourselves, and wisdom would dicate that it ought to inform our purchases. If Rugerboy50 were on the market for a tactical rifle of some sort, I wouldn't be advocating that he consider alternatives, unless they were in some way fulfill the same niche he was looking to fill—for instance, a more easily available and reasonably priced Ruger Gunsite Scout over a much more expensive and harder to find M1A or AR10.....all three having the same chambering and crossover of use. But tactical isn't what he's looking for, and that considerably expands the array of rifle/caliber combinations to check out.

Sorry about the long and rambling answer (what else did anyone expect from me? ), but those are the thoughts which come to mind for me.

After a lot of research I'm seriously considering a 22WMR.

Thoughts?

Sure, why not?

[Topbuilder]

The CZ is a pretty good rifle but if you want great accuracy in a 22 rimfire, you are going to have to move up to an Anchutz. You will also have to move up to Lapua or Eley ammo (grade/accuracy depends on how deep your pockets are but either is expensive). If you are a member of PCS, go by one of the silhouette matches on the 4th saturday of each month. Some of those guys will have Anchutz rifles and the good standard velocity ammo. You can get an idea of what the equipment looks like. This will be a very expensive game (high accuracy 22) to get into if that is what you want to do. With an Anchutz and good Eley ammo (from a lot that your rifle likes - you will have to test lots to find the magic combination) you can 1/2 inch group at 100 meters if your are a really good shot off the bench and there is no wind.

I have some experience with the CZ's. I went with the 452 20.5" barrel for each of my sons 16th birthday. There were some design elements that made me choose the 452 over the 455. The 452s are still available.
After A L O T of research I found the same conclusion - if you want a rifle more accurate than the CZ you will have to pay 2-3 times as much. One hole targets are common at 25 yards. Feels good in the hand. Light, good looking wood. I'd go with .22 LR just for the more common, cheaper ammo.

[LTUME1978]

TAM,

Thank you for the additional information, I was just going by what was posted. Under the FWIW category, a little more information on rimfires. I shot small bore and air rifle silhouette for a number of years. I started in the middle of the range with Kimber bolt actions (HS and a SVT that was modified with a bloop tube and weights). They are very accurate rifles if you get good ones (I was lucky and did on both and still have them). However, as I neared master class, some of the top shooters strongly encouraged me to go to the Anchutz rifles. I have two of them (1712 for hunter class and 1808 standard rifle). They are not really any more accurate than my Kimbers but have better triggers, better ergonomics on the stocks and they are really fine rifles. If you ever shoot one for very long, you will understand and will want one (or several). I do have one CZ that I bought for my daughters to shoot and still have that one as well. With trigger parts upgrade, it is a decent rifle.

All of these rifles are dependent on the ammo. You can use the same brand and type of ammo and get significantly different results in a particular rifle from lot to lot. I can generally find a lower price ($4-5/box) practice ammo that will shoot 1-1 1/2 minutes of angle fairly easy without to much testing. To get the really good stuff, you will have to test manufacturing lots and it may take a while to find something the rifle really likes (approaching 1/2 minute of angle). One of my Kimbers hated 7 lots of Lapua (1 1/2 - 2 minutes of angle at 100 meters) and absolutely loved the eighth lot (1/2 minute of angle). When you find something that works, buy all you can afford (at least a case of 5000 rounds). It is also very hard to shoot a subsonic round in a rimfire that accurately. It can be very humbling (and expensive) learning that lesson (I know from personal experience).

Going with something like a CZ and SK ammo is a great place to start until you have proven that you are able to outshoot that combination. Then it may be worth considering moving up then if the desire and pocket book allow.

With what you wrote, I don't think a 22 long rifle is what he is looking for. I don't have any experience with 17 or 22 magnum (would like to but just don't have the justification for one). CZs are a great rifle for the money. I have a Savage Long Range Precision in 6.5 Creedmoor and it is amazing. Either would probably be good in the 17 or 22 mag.

On your other discussion, I don't know much about other rifles so I will leave that to others. One thing I have been told often though is that it is a good idea to have at least one 30-06 in your collection as that is probably the most common caliber out there for hunters and, if things get really bad, you would have your best luck finding ammo for that. I have an old 700 BDL in that caliber that I have not shot in almost but I keep it for that reason.

Let us know how this progresses and what is selected.

Thanks,

John

[Rugerboy50]

Tam is spot on in his comments about me.

As TAM states i spent quite a bit of time researching my last .223/scope purchase and went with a Savage 10 series line that I'm really happy with.

When making choices i lean towards soild middle class products.I make my living in the technical PPE field and I research things to death before making a final decision. It can be annoying but it's served me well over the years.

Right now I'm leaning towards the CZ line or a Savage accutrigger system. I read that the CZ is more accurate and i like the wood furniture vs the savage laminate wood. Volquarsten has some nice stuff and I'd have to save for awhile longer to step up to that level. Is it really worth it? I don't know.

I have looked at 6.5 creedmore and observed members shooting them. I see that as an option once the almighty college debt is paid off and a couple of weddings are paid for.

[puma guy]

Tam is spot on in his comments about me.

As TAM states i spent quite a bit of time researching my last .223/scope purchase and went with a Savage 10 series line that I'm really happy with.

When making choices i lean towards soild middle class products.I make my living in the technical PPE field and I research things to death before making a final decision. It can be annoying but it's served me well over the years.

Right now I'm leaning towards the CZ line or a Savage accutrigger system. I read that the CZ is more accurate and i like the wood furniture vs the savage laminate wood. Volquarsten has some nice stuff and I'd have to save for awhile longer to step up to that level. Is it really worth it? I don't know.

I have looked at 6.5 creedmore and observed members shooting them. I see that as an option once the almighty college debt is paid off and a couple of weddings are paid for.

You might want to read "The Gun Digest Book of the .22 Rifle" by C. Rodney James. I found it interesting and very helpful.