Low-End .22 Rifles

[kBob]

My Starter rifle was Winchester 67 (finger groove) that my Grand daddy gave Dad and Dad gave me. I think Grand daddy got it from some one that owed him for some blacksmith work when it was relatively new.

it killed a few Squirrel and a rabbit or three and a bunch of soup and soda cans. My first repeater was a Stevens Click clack that got shot as often as a "bolt Action" with the bolt locked closed as a semi auto. It shot S, L, LR and LRshot as a manual repeater and the first three as a semi auto. About three of four of the shot even cycled semi....except when dirty. I thought it was accurate, at least more so than the old Winchester until at 14 I took it to school (imagine that today!) and shot it along side the Remington 513T JROTC let me shoot......well it did keep them in the black from the prone at 50 feet. Of course when I brought in Dad's Nylon 66 it was not as accurate as the Stevens. My stevens seemed as accurate as any of the other sporting guns of the late 60's that got brought in to shoot beside the 513Ts but that was not saying much.....

I spent only 69 bucks and change for my first .22 with my own money and no one else signing in 1974. Does not sound like much, but most American Bolt actions were ten to twenty dollars cheaper and my new rifle had a magic name on it...... Anshutz. I bought it when stationed about ten miles from the factory (I never visited despite invites, ....idiot child) It was one of their lowest rated guns of the 1441 series and considered by Anshutz snobs to be a Flobert type action (maybe they see a different Flobert than me) but out shoots anything else in my safe to this day to 100 meters with good ammo and most with "whatever" As a service man I did not have to worry about the then 80 percent tariff on German guns and profit for the importer so it was a deal.

-kBob

 

[chicharrones]

View attachment 777301 Inaccurate rifles don't interest me anymore. If I can't get one to shoot the way I would like, it goes away. Rimfire Benchrest competition had quite an effect on my rimfire arsenal, starting with the purchase of a Winchester 52 target rifle and ending with a fantastic Rem 40X custom BR rifle.

Still, I own some "plinkers" that I love to shoot, including an un-modified Winchester 69A and Marlin 39A, but the accurized 10-22 bull-barrel is everyone's favorite. My grandkids and I love to shoot small steel .22 animal silhouettes offhand at up to 50 yards with both rifles and handguns. We only shoot targets to make sure of zeros. Grand-kids prefer to shoot from the bench, even without front rests. I always shoot offhand and it really tickles me to hit the larger silhouettes at 50 yards with handguns.

The picture is my old Remington 581 that I highly modified, with a Lilja barrel, Anschutz stock blank, pillar-bedding and trigger work. It's a far cry from the $49 rifle I bought in the early 1970s to teach my son to shoot, but I love to shoot it offhand and I'm now off to shoot it at the Club's Indoor range.

Have a nice day!

The ol' Marlin 39A. A perfect example of a solid plinker, although it isn't low end.

The first decade I used my 39, I never put a hole in paper with it as it was my plinker and small pest shooter. I didn't realize how heavy the trigger was or how other guns could outdo it until I eventually tried punching paper holes at 50 yards many years later.

Since it's still not a great paper puncher, it is rare I take it paper punching. I have other guns that surpass it easily at that task.

 

[C0untZer0]

You emptied an entire magazine into a rabbit and then finally shot it in the head?

Jeez man...

 

[boom boom]

I have two cheap .22 stories. The first was a Savage 64 in a good looking wood stock with a scope in almost new condition. It have one very visible flaw--someone had apparently stuck a bullet in the bore and apparently kept firing and ringed the barrel--it was even barely visible on the outside. Bought it at a pawn shop for about $50 with the idea of replacing the barrel. However, I found out that the ring was right past 16 inches. Had a gunsmith cut off the ringed part, recrowned the barrel for about $40 so I now have a Savage .22 with about a 16.2 inch barrel. That Savage will now shoots dime sized groups at 25 yds using a rest with what it likes using the scope. Shoots very well offhand and is light and lively due to the short barrel.

The second was an apparent rust freckled Marlin Model 60 that had an unfamiliar model number with the squirrel stock that I picked up at another pawn shop for $40 bucks but the owner warned me that it would only fire as a single shot. Inside the receiver, I don't think that it had ever been cleaned which the dried black crud inside the receiver was dragging the bolt so it would not feed from the mag correctly.

It turned out to be a special edition made for the Otasco chain stores (Oklahoma Tire and Supply Co--I believe) that went out of business in the late 80's and the rifle was made either in the late seventies or early eighties--it still had the high capacity tube magazine. After a thorough cleaning inside and out, it shoots fine--the rust was merely on the barrel surface and I removed it without hurting the bluing.

The funny thing is that I grew up in a town with an Otasco on Main St. and really wanted one of their .22 rifles that they sold (vague as to makes and models though) as a kid but got the "you'll shoot your eye out" treatment. I guess that means I am in my second childhood now.

 

[saturno_v]

My experience is that modern inexpensive rifles (22 and otherwise) are generally extremely accurate.

 

[Picher]

You emptied an entire magazine into a rabbit and then finally shot it in the head?

Jeez man...

I thought I was missing it, but probably put several through the same 3/4" hole through the lungs and it just sat there.

 

[Picher]

I thought I was missing it, but probably put several through the same 3/4" hole through the lungs.

 

[someguy2800]

Some of my favorite guns to shoot are also my cheapest ones, and in some cases my least accurate ones. I tend to tailor my shooting to what the gun is capable of and good for. I don't shoot my benchrest gun standing offhand because that is not what it good for. Likewise I don't shoot my marlin 45-70 off the benchrest at 300 yards because that's not what it good for either. If I want to shoot a 10" plate offhand at 100 yards it doesn't make much difference if its a 4 moa or 1 moa gun, the handling of the gun is more important. The problem is when I buy a gun with a specific purpose in mind and I can't make it accurate enough to do it.

The two pistols I shoot the most are my LC9s and my Ruger 4.2" sp101. I can hit the same size plate with both of them, but I can do it at 25 yards with the revolver and I have to stand at about 10-15 yards with the LC9s. Both are equally fun and challenging to me I guess.

 

[bluzman]

This thread from 2015 (https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...4-22-where-to-get-a-bolt.785096/#post-9997847) inspired me to revisit my very first firearm, a Remington Model 514. At the time I wrote:

"ABTOMAT, nice job. You inspired me to drag my much abused and long neglected 514 out of storage and clean it up. Like yours, under the surface rust was a patina that reflects what some would say was my misspent youth.

It was my first firearm, a birthday gift from a doting aunt when I was 13 or 14. I spent many a happy hour after school plinking cans, bottles and rats at the dump in a small Massachusetts town. Can you imagine what would happen today if a young boy openly carried his rifle into a landfill in this age of political correctness in that bastion of progressive thought? There'd be 911 calls galore. Child Services and the police would sweep down on the parents and remove the lad from the home. The main stream media would have a field day and if, god forbid, it was learned that small furry animals had been killed, this poor kid would be publicly pilloried by PETA. Oh, the humanity!

Since I'm now in my early 70s, that makes me "an elderly gentleman" I guess but my 514 still has all its parts. Here are a few pictures."

That Model 514 is still one of my favorites. It's still great fun to shoot and remains as accurate as when it was new and my eyes were young - in part because, after cataract surgery last year, my eyes are "young" again.

 

[tark]

That's a beautiful 514, bluzman. Sweet little rifles!

 

[bluzman]

Thanks!

 

[George Dickel]

When I was about 14 yrs old I worked a week for a neighbor farmer at $1 an hour. Took the money and bought a new Remington Nylon 12 (bolt action with the tubular magazine) but had to borrow the sales tax from my Dad to complete the sale. It wasn't an accurate rifle but it did the job on squirrels and rabbits and it was mine purchased with the money I earned.
I've been shooting smallbore silhouette off and on the last decade with a group of friends. The accuracy of that Nylon 12 wouldn't cut it in silhouette. You have 40 animals and only 40 rounds to shoot so a miss is a miss as you have to move onto the next animal in that bank. This is where that dime sized group comes in handy because if you have a bit of wobble in your aim you don't want an additional inch and a half or two inaccuracy on top of that. At a 100 meters on the Rams, that wobble and 2 inch grouping can definitely cause misses. Even though the Turkeys are closer at 77 meters they are even more difficult to hit because they are tall and narrow. Shooting beer cans, squirrels and rabbits requires a different accuracy level and you can keep on shooting at one of those until you get a hit as long as the animal stays in place.
The level of accuracy required depends on the type of shooting you are doing.

 

[George Dickel]

Picher how did that .25 auto bolt action rifle you were working on come out? I remember reading your posts years ago on benchrest.com about your trials tribulations trying to get it to work but never saw anything on what happened. I liked the idea, still do, but I'm not a machinist/gunsmith so I can't make it happen.

 

[Captcurt]

When I was 15 I stopped in at local store that I frequented when in town. The owner had a used Marlin bolt gun and sold it to me for $27. The former owner had tried to dress it up a little with a black forearm tip and checker it. He gave up on the checkering when half done. He had also filed the sear down to the point that the safety didn't work. Well, it worked but when you pushed it off the gun went off. I ordered a new trigger from Marlin for $1.50 and stuck a 6X Weaver rimfire scope on it. Nothing was safe after that. I had a job seining crawfish from some ponds in the summer. My buddies dad would order us a case of 22lr in the spring. I'm talking 5000 rounds. He would have to order us another case by the September squirrel season. Anything around the ponds was fair game. We took 3 or 4 boxes of ammo with us every trip. That little Marlin shot as good as any 22 that I have ever owned and I have had some nice, good shooting guns It would compete with my CZ 452 or my Winchester 52B.

Another cheap rifle that surprised me was a Model 75 Glenfield that my wife bought me. If memory serves, it was $35 with a 4x scope. It was a shooting machine.

 

[montanaoffroader]

Just picked up a Glenfield 75 the other day. As soon as I get a break in the weather, I will run out to the hills to try it out.

Probably take my Winchester 67, Nylon 66 and Stevens 887 click-clack along for the ride.....

 

[johnnydollar]

One of mine:

 

[johnnydollar]

And another, a restocked Norinco JW-15:

 

[jmorris]

I found several Remington 510’s at estate sales my wife dragged me to. The most accurate one cost me $35. More accurate than some $350 .22’s I have, more expensive ones than that even.

 

[bikerdoc]

I have a 10/22 I bought used in 1972. Put a scope on it and it is still accurate.
Bought an inexpensive Rock Island 22 rifle last year to teach the grand kids iron sights. It is suprisingly accurzte for $122 bucks

 

[ChanceMcCall]

Sometimes I think we spend too much time, energy, and money to get our shooting gear and ammo to shoot accurately, and not enough time just enjoying shooting and hunting.

My first new gun was a Stevens tubular semi-auto, which I shot with open sights for a while, then got a scope for it. I think it was under $40 and my mom had to sign for it.

It shot okay, but I never benchrested it for accuracy until a couple of years of hunting/plinking with it. It seemed to be a real killer and it got many squirrels and rabbits for me.

Then, one day I took it to the range to see how well it would group and it was terrible. At 25 yards or so, it wouldn't stay within 1 1/2"!!! Despite having shot many critters with it and managing to hit plenty of plinking targets, I traded it away!

As I look back, I wonder whether we put too much emphasis on dime-sized groups, but don't consider what is really needed, just to "bring home the bacon". After all, statistically, about 66% of all shots were probably within a half-inch of the aiming point and there aren't any scoring rings on a squirrel or rabbit, are there?

In fact, one day I spied a rabbit sitting about 30 yards away, along a camp road. I fired a magazine full of ammo and could actually see the ground through the 3/4" hole I made in the critter. Then, I reloaded and shot it in the head and it fell over. It was dead, but didn't know it! That rabbit didn't care whether it was shot with a half-minute rifle; it was still dead.

What do you think?

I don't think I want you hunting my meat.

 

[ChanceMcCall]

The ol' Marlin 39A. A perfect example of a solid plinker, although it isn't low end.

The first decade I used my 39, I never put a hole in paper with it as it was my plinker and small pest shooter. I didn't realize how heavy the trigger was or how other guns could outdo it until I eventually tried punching paper holes at 50 yards many years later.

Since it's still not a great paper puncher, it is rare I take it paper punching. I have other guns that surpass it easily at that task.

Either you end up with a defective gun or I ended up with a superior gun. My first .22 was a Marlin 39A (1951 manufacture date) and the trigger needed only a little work to be a great trigger. With considerable help from a very good gunsmith, I ended up with a very slick gun. I still have that gun, along with a 39D ($65.00 new) and I love those two guns. Now, they are not Olympic paper punchers but they are as good as any mass produced rifle out there in terms of group size, and certainly more accurate than the wildly popular stock Ruger 10/22 for accuracy. (I own two of those as well.) The 39 D works better than the 39A on closer range moving targets, but the 39A works better on stationary longer range targets when equipped with the right scope.

Cheap .22 I loved? The Remington Nylon 66 I won at a county fair. It certainly wasn't that accurate at any distance but it was great for plinking. I never cleaned that gun in all the years I owned it and it still functioned great and shot reasonably accurately when it disappeared in a burglary. It mostly rode around under the seat of whatever outdoor vehicle I was using without a case so it also was pretty banged up.

 

[Picher]

I don't think I want you hunting my meat.

I was about 16 at the time. Learned a bit since the 1950s. One shot-one kill!

 

[Picher]

Picher how did that .25 auto bolt action rifle you were working on come out? I remember reading your posts years ago on benchrest.com about your trials tribulations trying to get it to work but never saw anything on what happened. I liked the idea, still do, but I'm not a machinist/gunsmith so I can't make it happen.

I don't recall a .25 auto bolt action and didn't know anyone made them. I've worked on many bolt action and semi-auto rifles, though. I think I worked on a Marlin Model 25 for an aspiring shooter and it worked pretty well as an (unsanctioned) "Plinker-class" rifle. I didn't compete against folks in the Plinker Class. It was a club, introductory class and several guys loved it and never left that Class.

 

[Picher]

Just picked up a Glenfield 75 the other day. As soon as I get a break in the weather, I will run out to the hills to try it out.

Probably take my Winchester 67, Nylon 66 and Stevens 887 click-clack along for the ride.....

 

[Picher]

I think I had a Stevens 87A, a tubular mag rifle, probably a forerunner of your Glenfield 887. The action worked the same way, but it had a larger bolt knob and the knob could be pushed to the left to lock the action, and be operated manually. I shot it so much, it stopped feeding well.