LTUME1978 wrote: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.
Rugerboy50 wrote:After a lot of research I'm seriously considering a 22WMR.
Thoughts?
Sure, why not?
