Zero for 22 rim fire rifle scope

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I like 20 to 25 yards for squirrels. Then practice at shorter and longer ranges to see what the offset will be. Remember that with squirrels, most of the time you will be shooting upwards at an angle so the effective range to the squirrel won't really be that far.
 
One common way to do it is to set it up for 1.5" MPBR.

"Mean Point Blank Range" means the range where the bullet goes above and below the point of aim by no more than X. For deer hunting, 3" is common, but for small game, it's too big a deviation.

This is a basic MPBR table for many cartridges, to give you an idea of what MPBR looks like: http://www.chuckhawks.com/rifle_trajectory_table.htm

Bottom line? If you sight a rifle with a scope 1.5" over the bore, shooting high-velocity .22LR, you can sight it in at something like 1 1/4" high at 50 yards (1.5" at 45 yards is ideal, if you can set up a target at 45 yards).

The bullet will then go to about 90 yards before it drops more than 1.5", so you can hunt small game out to the practical range of the gun without worrying about the distance.

This varies a bit with the bullet weight and velocity. Try it with your rifle.

Another possibility is to sight it in at 50 yards. That will put you pretty close to dead-on out to 50, but the bullet will start hitting too low soon after 50. If you don't plan to shoot game past 50 yards, then that will work fine.

Here is a lot more info about .22LR in particular: http://www.gunsmoke.com/guns/1022/22ballistics.html
 
Thanks for the Information fellows. I have a Savage Anschultz Model 164 Sporter and have put a Simmons 22 Mag 3x9 with AO on it. I hope to sight this in to really be able to burst squirrels heads this fall or just to really enjoy the fun of plinking, etc.
 
"Mean Point Blank Range" means the range where the bullet goes above and below the point of aim by no more than X.

Huh, I always thought it was maximum point blank range.
 
25 yards is good for high velocity. Your bullet will hit at point of aim at 25 yards (rising) and 75 yards (falling) and be slightly higher that POA in between. At 100 yards, bullet will be about 5 inches low. The exact figures depend on your muzzle velocity and height of scope or sights from the center of barrel. Look up a ballistics calculator online.
 
Medusa,

You're shooting a .22 rimfire 200 meters? You're a far better shot than I. I'd make sure there are no tree branches in your line of fire...that must be some trajectory.

:)

Cheers.
 
You're shooting a .22 rimfire 200 meters? You're a far better shot than I. I'd make sure there are no tree branches in your line of fire...that must be some trajectory.

I'm trying up to 300m. At 150m (165 or so y) I do group 4 inches or less (5 shots per group), depending on weather. In light/med crosswind and through falling snow it does get's a little worse, though, being hard to get all bullets into 6 inch circle, at the same range. But I dot practice as often as I should, with more practice i could cut the groups at least 2 times.

The trajectory is pretty flat, actually, since I use HV ammo (v0 approx 390 m/s) - drop being 5 mils when going from 100 to 200m. After that, at 300m it does have a lot of drop, but has sufficient energy to kill streetlights or guard dogs.
 
Depends.

Different ammo different performance. I have an Anshutz 14441/42 I imported as a returning serviceman. I believe this is pretty much the same rifle mentioned, it is the light Anshutz action they use on some of the old Savage marked imports as a sports rifle or the entry level target rifle.

I have a fossilized 3x9 Bushnell put on the rifle in 1976 and use Winchester Super-X ammo with it. I started zeroing at 75 yards with it because I was shooting them there silly-wet metal critteres with it. The scope had the duplex style cross hairs and with a 75 yard zero I could use the pointers as well as the cross hair to acchieve hits at the 40 to 100 yard targets.

The main thing is to get out ans shoot your rifle to see where it hits relative to your point of aim at all ranges you intend to use it at.

While my 75 yard zero is perfect for both playing that game and my idea of a .22 as a walk around gun. Your best zero is not going to be mine. If you never plan to take a shot at more than 50 yards for instance you might well be served with a 50 yard zero and simply knowing what the rifle does at every ten yards from the muzzle to that range and maybe ten or 20 more given the same sight point of aim.

On the discussion on .22LR at "extened range":

When I had the opertunity to learn from Major E. J. Land (then NRA Secretary and before that one of the originators of the modern USMC Scout/sniper program and such) I jumped at it. As it was, the range facility available was a mere 100 yards and I was saddened that we could not streach our legs during the class. When I commented to Major Land that indeed all that was available with in an hour's drive was 200 yards he encouraged me to leave the HBAR in the safe and take my Anshutz to the 200 yard range. He said that when he was coaching USMC teams and national teams of one sort or another that he often had them break out 22 match rifles or heavy sporters and work at 200 and even 300 yards.

Consider that if you are using target or matchgrade ammunition that is subsonic to begin with you will not get the bullet wobble and loss of accuracy associated with most sporting ammo that occurs between 90 and 130 yards when the bullet drops out of the super sonic range.

When I was shooting 50 meter prone ITU style in Germany we often ran the targets out to 100 meters just to make life more interesting during practice. Big surprise, a sub half inch group at 50 meters is a sub one inch group at 100 meters. Like those little bullets were mounted on rails. This was on a semi enclosed range without the need to worry about wind naturally.

Try shooting the outdoor 100 yard small bore target at 200 meters ( mind the wind) and you may be very surprised at both the capabilities of your little rimfire and yourself.

I have fired a few rounds at 300 meters and found I could be a threat to plastic gallon milk jugs if I doped everything right. One day I would like to shoot some paper targets out there and have a look at what I am really doing.

Beside thinking of your .22 as just a hunter target or plining rifle, think of it a a pretty darned good training aid for your center-fires.

-Bob Hollingsworth
 
Hey Bob, true what you're saying. Zero depends on need, as ammo choice. I use HV for short range work, up to 150m, because of the flatter trajectory. Subsonic ammo drops more, but is more accurate at longer ranges.

One of the main reasons why I use .22lr rifle is exactly what you said, training for centerfires. If I'm accurate with .22LR at longer ranges, I'm accurate with centerfires too - good grip, stance, firing cycle, etc.

Rimfire rifle is pretty versatile and useful for a lot of tasks.
 
I like to practice with my M82 Kimber, using standard NRA 50-foot targets, firing a magazine full from the standing position on each bull, never taking the bolt from the shoulder.

This is great practice for hunting -- and it automatically zeroes your rifle for hunting. Dead on at 50 feet will put you dead on again at 75 yards. It's also the ideal zero if you shoot metalic silhouettes.
 
Medusa,

Interesting. I've shot out to 100M with Wolf MT ammo. I found it drops about 5 inches or so. I'm assuming - only because I haven't tried it but having reviewed some trajectory charts - that the energy loss past 100M (200M+) would be such that the bullet drops quite a bit. Your experience shows differently. Interesting.

I would question the assertion that there's enough energy to take out guard dogs at 200M with a .22LR (unless there's a pack of guard Chihuahaus that need controlling).

:)

Cheers.
 
Maximum, not Mean

You're forgiven, ArmedBear. Come to think of it, my ex was mean! Wait, she was also maximum when it came to hidden credit accounts. Now I just have fewer headaches, freedom, and more guns . . . Oh, and I sight my .22s at 75 yards.
 
Looking up a table I recalled in the old standard "Hatcher's Notebook" I found a table on .22LR performance from muzzle to 300 yards with a 1100FPS starting velocity. As the 40 grain loadings were all that was available when Hatcher did his work I must assume he was using such a weight in either a "Standard Veocity" loading or Match loading of the time.

He list 300 yard velocity as 750 FPS and 52 Foot Pounds energy. THis does not sound like much untill you consider that is about the velocity and power of a modern SuperX High Velocity 40 grain solid out of a Beretta 21A at the muzzle. I seem to recall that standard velocity or Match rounds from even six inch barrels like some revolvers folks carry for woods walking don't do much better at the muzzle.

Mind you a rifle zeroed to 300 yards with that 1100FPS round nose ammo will have the bullet about 4 feet high at 150 yards and the angle of the barrel bore relative to level will be 55.6 Mils ( call it 3.5 degrees if you must) and again wind will play hobb with the bullet as it moves for a hair over a second before getting to the target.

You might have noticed that not all scopes have enough adjustment for deaing with a .22LR at 300 yards without some modification to the scope mounts.

It is that critical need to dope the wind and to know and account for variations in range from Zero using offset aiming points that make using a .22LR at long range a valuable training tools for centerfire users.

How have we drifted from shooting ground squirrel at close range to shots with a time of flight over one second?

-Bob Hollingsworth
 
i zero rimfire scopes at 50 yards for two reasons:

50 yards is where rimfire scopes (at least the ones i've purchased) are parallax free
50 yards is where i put all the aluminum cans i want to shoot :)
 
Medusa,

Interesting. I've shot out to 100M with Wolf MT ammo. I found it drops about 5 inches or so. I'm assuming - only because I haven't tried it but having reviewed some trajectory charts - that the energy loss past 100M (200M+) would be such that the bullet drops quite a bit. Your experience shows differently. Interesting.

I would question the assertion that there's enough energy to take out guard dogs at 200M with a .22LR (unless there's a pack of guard Chihuahaus that need controlling).
I shoot 2 loads, one supersonic (390 m/s v0), one high-subsonic (330 m/s v0).

When using 150m zero (I'm leaning more and more to this, since I'd get more use out of the mil-dot - ie i could shoot farther by it alone) the HV rises about 4 mils at 50m,
is 2.4 at 100m,
zero at 150m,
-2.6 at 200m,
-5.7 at 250m (which I can guestimate on the reticle)
and -9 mils at 300m (path rises max 23cm above sightline at 80 or so m, drops to -50 cm at 200m, and -2.6m at 300m).

at 300m it reaches the NATO minimum energy level (70 or so J IIRC).

Subsonic drops more (-3.1m at 300m) and goes below NATO min at 225m.

I didn't say it doesn't drop. It drops like a rock after 200, but shot placement is the key. Even for the guard dogs. But you're right on this one - the closer, the higher energy, so I wouldn't try to shoot a canine at 300m unless I'd REALLY have to, but shoot at 100-150m range.
 
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