L Ross
Well-Known Member
So as not to completely derail the Inexpensive .22 thread I thought it best to start this here. I hope I haven't already done a post about this. I used search but was unsuccessful.
Here at my Thorn Hollow shooting range I host an annual .22 BPCR rules silhouette Match shot out to the correct 200 yards. It is fun but sort of semi serious. For just plain fun I created a side match using .22 Boy's Rifles from the early 20th Century. Under size, mostly inexpensive, .22 single shots such as Hamiltons, Steven's Crack Shots, Marksman etc., Remington Model 6, (appropriate to a farm kid), Remington Model 4 Rolling Block, (for the doctor's kid), rifles from a time when a kid could sell magazine subscription and choose a .22 as his or her prize. Little .22s that a wind mill salesman could tell the farmer that the .22. was just the ticket for that pack of boys over there, and he'd get one free with the purchase of a new wind mill.
These little guns are getting. hard to find in decent shape but occasionally one will turn up with a good enough bore to still hit the 200 yards ram at 50 yards. We shoot whatever course we set up off hand.
12 1/2, 25, 37 1/2, and 50 yards. Usually we use the same silhouette target but have experimented with other small targets so we don't have to re-set the range.
Ammo is CCI .22 CB shorts to level the playing field and preserve these little guns.
My own boy's rifle growing up was a Steven's Model 15 single shot my Dad traded eight Victor #1 muskrat traps for. The previous owner had it up on a barn beam in a classic old Wisconsin dairy barn. Covered in cob webs, cow shit, and dust, the bore was completely leaded up from the farmer shooting rat shot in the barn at sputzies and of course rats.
Dad cleaned it up inside an out and wood burned a buffalo, a mule deer, a squirrel, and some elongated panels that were to resemble checkering in overall shape. We of course shot it with open sights, Then one year Dad scrounged up a little cheap 4X scope. He hack sawed a piece of shotgun barrel, beveled the edges until he created a scope mount like the grooved top on factory. He drilled holes through the "mount" and the top of the Stevens and tapped the holes. All rather neatly done considering he had no drill press. It was shot until it started to spit out of the eroded cone breech where the bolt sort of sealed it up.
I once won a bet by shooting a red wing black bird out of the air on the fly with it, but the bettor reneged and wouldn't eat it though I cleaned and plucked it for him. My brother took high score at the Hunter Safety shooting course when the Conservation Dept. took such things seriously. He also killed a white barn pigeon out in a freshly harvested pea field at 200 paces, (14 year ld kid paces), with it. I'm thinkin' the neighbors thought we were born with a either that .22 or a fishin' rod with a Zebco 202 on it, peddlin' a bicycle.
My brother has the Stevens at his house now.
Here at my Thorn Hollow shooting range I host an annual .22 BPCR rules silhouette Match shot out to the correct 200 yards. It is fun but sort of semi serious. For just plain fun I created a side match using .22 Boy's Rifles from the early 20th Century. Under size, mostly inexpensive, .22 single shots such as Hamiltons, Steven's Crack Shots, Marksman etc., Remington Model 6, (appropriate to a farm kid), Remington Model 4 Rolling Block, (for the doctor's kid), rifles from a time when a kid could sell magazine subscription and choose a .22 as his or her prize. Little .22s that a wind mill salesman could tell the farmer that the .22. was just the ticket for that pack of boys over there, and he'd get one free with the purchase of a new wind mill.
These little guns are getting. hard to find in decent shape but occasionally one will turn up with a good enough bore to still hit the 200 yards ram at 50 yards. We shoot whatever course we set up off hand.
12 1/2, 25, 37 1/2, and 50 yards. Usually we use the same silhouette target but have experimented with other small targets so we don't have to re-set the range.
Ammo is CCI .22 CB shorts to level the playing field and preserve these little guns.
My own boy's rifle growing up was a Steven's Model 15 single shot my Dad traded eight Victor #1 muskrat traps for. The previous owner had it up on a barn beam in a classic old Wisconsin dairy barn. Covered in cob webs, cow shit, and dust, the bore was completely leaded up from the farmer shooting rat shot in the barn at sputzies and of course rats.
Dad cleaned it up inside an out and wood burned a buffalo, a mule deer, a squirrel, and some elongated panels that were to resemble checkering in overall shape. We of course shot it with open sights, Then one year Dad scrounged up a little cheap 4X scope. He hack sawed a piece of shotgun barrel, beveled the edges until he created a scope mount like the grooved top on factory. He drilled holes through the "mount" and the top of the Stevens and tapped the holes. All rather neatly done considering he had no drill press. It was shot until it started to spit out of the eroded cone breech where the bolt sort of sealed it up.
I once won a bet by shooting a red wing black bird out of the air on the fly with it, but the bettor reneged and wouldn't eat it though I cleaned and plucked it for him. My brother took high score at the Hunter Safety shooting course when the Conservation Dept. took such things seriously. He also killed a white barn pigeon out in a freshly harvested pea field at 200 paces, (14 year ld kid paces), with it. I'm thinkin' the neighbors thought we were born with a either that .22 or a fishin' rod with a Zebco 202 on it, peddlin' a bicycle.
My brother has the Stevens at his house now.
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