RifleEnthusiast
Member
- Joined
- Dec 22, 2011
- Messages
- 10
I've been looking into buying a .22LR rifle and I'd like to hear your opinions and advice on whether my choice is correct or not. Let me give you a little bit of background. I used to do 10 meter air pistol competition using Steyr and Feinwerkbau pistols about 15 years ago. The only rifles I ever shot were air rifles when I was learing how to shoot many many years ago.
Recently I got interested into picking up shooting again, and I came across the AR style "tacticool" rifles (yes I know a bit shallow
)
This is what I'm hoping to be able to do:
1. Mostly 50 ft indoor target shooting, I'm in Portland metro, OR, and because of our weather up here and the distance/convenience of getting to the ranges, it's mostly going to be an indoor range (at least mostly in our rainy season.. a good 9 months of the year).
2. Inexpensive ammo, since I'm pretty much going to be learning so I'm hoping to not spend a lot of money on the ammo.
3. I am looking to do precision shooting rather than just having fun unloading the magazines As I said before I've done competition shooting with pistols (so I know at least some of the basics of that). There's that thrill one gets when putting all the holes on the target as close together as possible and in the bulls eye
4. I "may" use the rifle at some point to do smallbore competition at 50 or 100 yards (maybe even 200 yards at most, but I know that is really really pushing the limits).
5. A fun rifle that I may use for fun shooting at a buddy's ranch, rock chucks, ducks, plinking here and there.
6. Again I like the tactical look factor, not so important to me that it's a 'real' AR platform/experience (since I have not had that experience previously so it's pretty much meaningless to me).
7. As I said before precision and accuracy are important for what I want to use it mainly for.
8. Silhouette shooting sounds like fun too, but again if I use the rifle for that it won't be anything beyond possibly 100 yards.
9. I am not that price-sensitive (within reason of course! )
Anyway after doing quite a bit of research I had my choices narrowed down to
the following:
1. An HK 416D.
2. Remington 597 VTR.
3. Ruger SR-22,
4. S&W MP-15/22
After reading http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/tactical-22-rifles/ it looks like the HK's trigger is very heavy for any target shooting (without replacing it).
The Remington was the most accurate (people on the different forums seemed to agree with that) but everyone seemed to have some sort of FTF/FTE and as a newbie I don't want to have to deal with these issues, I want something reliable.
This leaves the Ruger and the S&W. From reading on forums, I gathered that these who want an AR experience will be better with the S&W, those who want accuracy are better with the Ruger. People keep pointing out that it is a 10/22 platform and not a real AR experience (again to me as a newbie I don't have this experience and don't know if I want it or not to satisfy the criteria above).
So at this point I am leaning towards the Ruger SR-22, I intend to fit it with iron sights (and to buy telescopic sights for outdoor longer range shooting), I plan on learning and using it for a year or more and then perhaps replace the trigger with a KIDD/Timney (or other) trigger that is lighter.
What do you guys think about this choice? Are there any other rifles that I need to consider? again it's mostly the cool factor + precision shooting.
I apologize for the long post, I tried capturing all the information I gathered in the past few weeks.
Recently I got interested into picking up shooting again, and I came across the AR style "tacticool" rifles (yes I know a bit shallow
)This is what I'm hoping to be able to do:
1. Mostly 50 ft indoor target shooting, I'm in Portland metro, OR, and because of our weather up here and the distance/convenience of getting to the ranges, it's mostly going to be an indoor range (at least mostly in our rainy season.. a good 9 months of the year).
2. Inexpensive ammo, since I'm pretty much going to be learning so I'm hoping to not spend a lot of money on the ammo.
3. I am looking to do precision shooting rather than just having fun unloading the magazines
As I said before I've done competition shooting with pistols (so I know at least some of the basics of that). There's that thrill one gets when putting all the holes on the target as close together as possible and in the bulls eye 4. I "may" use the rifle at some point to do smallbore competition at 50 or 100 yards (maybe even 200 yards at most, but I know that is really really pushing the limits).
5. A fun rifle that I may use for fun shooting at a buddy's ranch, rock chucks, ducks, plinking here and there.
6. Again I like the tactical look factor, not so important to me that it's a 'real' AR platform/experience (since I have not had that experience previously so it's pretty much meaningless to me).
7. As I said before precision and accuracy are important for what I want to use it mainly for.
8. Silhouette shooting sounds like fun too, but again if I use the rifle for that it won't be anything beyond possibly 100 yards.
9. I am not that price-sensitive (within reason of course!
) Anyway after doing quite a bit of research I had my choices narrowed down to
the following:
1. An HK 416D.
2. Remington 597 VTR.
3. Ruger SR-22,
4. S&W MP-15/22
After reading http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/tactical-22-rifles/ it looks like the HK's trigger is very heavy for any target shooting (without replacing it).
The Remington was the most accurate (people on the different forums seemed to agree with that) but everyone seemed to have some sort of FTF/FTE and as a newbie I don't want to have to deal with these issues, I want something reliable.
This leaves the Ruger and the S&W. From reading on forums, I gathered that these who want an AR experience will be better with the S&W, those who want accuracy are better with the Ruger. People keep pointing out that it is a 10/22 platform and not a real AR experience (again to me as a newbie I don't have this experience and don't know if I want it or not to satisfy the criteria above).
So at this point I am leaning towards the Ruger SR-22, I intend to fit it with iron sights (and to buy telescopic sights for outdoor longer range shooting), I plan on learning and using it for a year or more and then perhaps replace the trigger with a KIDD/Timney (or other) trigger that is lighter.
What do you guys think about this choice? Are there any other rifles that I need to consider? again it's mostly the cool factor + precision shooting.
I apologize for the long post, I tried capturing all the information I gathered in the past few weeks.
