22LR Range?

Not being a great woodsman, I wonder how you folks even see a squirrel at 300 yards, let alone hit one. The drop of a .22 LR is a lot at that range, so you not only have to see the critter, you have to hold over 9 or 10 feet.

Of course, that will vary with temperature, so I wonder if there is any hot air involved in some of those feats of long-range marksmanship.

Jim
 
Not all 22 long rifle match ammo's subsonic. I've shot RWS R100 match ammo at 100 yards and its accuracy is almost 1/2 inch. Specs for its muzzle velocity is 1138 fps; some lots are faster. That's supersonic at temperatures below 80
degrees F. Goes subsonic well before 100 yards.

500 grain 45 caliber round nose bullets went subsonic long before going through 1000 yard targets in the 1880's. They were as accurate as .30-06 match ammo's 172-gr FMJBT used in the 1920's shooting the same scores on the same target; 36" 5-ring. It was supersonic at 1000 yards.
 
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Jim,

Believe I said the chipmunks were too small to see…. and they are probably not interested in hanging out at the terminus of our range..gong is kinda noisy.

Think I mentioned peep/receiver/tang sights.

Also common to walk them in with a spotter and find the right bush or rock to aim at for the perfect Kentucky windage.

Belief is not required or expected…… give it a try yourself some time, might just be a pleasant surprise what a little imagination can do for your day.

9" gong, easy-peasy once you're dialed in. 1 lb. Propane cans a bit harder but the holes tell the tail and a .22 will still knock them of a 2X4 at 300

Our other game with a propane can is to hang it from a string and once you get it moving' with the first hit, see how long you can keep it in motion with subsequent hits…. Our now 18 year old nationally ranked shotgunner kicks all our asses at that. we're at 50yards for this one.

And here's one that will really straighten your hair…. the 18 year old's dad hits that gong at 300 pretty damned consistently OFF HAND with an old Remington [513 I think]….. I'm nine months older than him, I need a sandbag.

Mike
 
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22-rimfire, that was 35 years ago when I had better eyes and a steadier hand.

My childhood home had a front porch that was right at 200yds away from a ground hog hole in one of our hay fields, I would sit there and wait for the critters to come out and get away from the hole. I would make a noise to get them to stand up and I would hit them between the eyes. I do not recall ever wounding one and it going back in. A 200yrd shot with CCI Stinger required me to aim about 4-6" high

I agree in not wounding animals, their death should be fast and painless. Of course as a 12 year old kid back then it was about killing groundhogs and collecting the $1 a hog bounty my dad put on them. I cant remember how many cattle and horses we had that were injured stepping into groundhog holes, not to mention when you hit a hole with the tractor it would almost throw you off and under the rear tires. They were a nuisance.
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I did pretty much the same thing although my Dad did not pay a bounty. Hell. He barely was able to afford to pay my mizerly allowance and always owed me for a month or more. Ah... good old days really. I miss my Dad.

It's funny how your perspective changes as you get older. I used to do a lot of 22 shooting and groundhog hunting was one of my main summer activities. I cared about the chucks getting into their holes, but that often didn't keep me from shooting. I tried to sneak up on them and be within 75 yds with my 22 rifle with 4x scope. At that distance I was pretty good. My usual target was the eyes or ear and yeah, I hit them there often believe it or not. Good old days.

My dream rifle back then was a Remington 541-S. I really wanted one, but a shotgun and deer rifle were higher priorites in my teens. Dad didn't provide rifles for us kids, we had to buy our own. In my early 20's , I bought a Weatherby Mark XXII semi and it was a good accurate 22 rifle. I later picked up a 541-S as a grown up. Have a 541-T also now.
 
I've never shot small game at more than 75 yards or so but one time I accidentally shot a dove that was eating seeds on the ground about 150 yards away behind my target I had set at 50 yards. I was shooting groups and I noticed the dove off in the distance. I shot 9 shots and the tenth one I saw a puff of feathers. The others didn't hit anywhere near the dove buy that bullet must have been fated to end that poor dude's tenure cause it hit dead center and it wasn't pretty.
 
We shoot mini silhouette with the 22 lr, the "ram" is about the size of a squirrel at 200 yards, and you can get 9 - 10 out of 10. But - that's with good guns, match ammo, from a stable rest, high mag scopes and several warm-up shots. Wind is your killer, I've held off a foot in modest side winds.
 
Tree rats?

From an evolutionary viewpoint the Squirrel is far-and-away a more advanced animal than a rat.
From a creationist viewpoint, the tree Squirrels are nearly as high above a rat as an Angel is above an ape.
Squirrels have some level of inherent nobility and purpose. The rat is a parasite of civilization. Calling a Squirrel a tree-rat isn't a whole lot different than calling the people on the other side of the tracks, "terrestrial apes".
The 22LR will kill them all at any range where a reliable hit can be made. However, if we decide to hunt any game animal, we should do so honorably.
 
I can get them pretty consistently anywhere inside 100 yards. Squirrels have tough skin so you have to make sure your shot placement is halfway decent. Might make a few bad, but I don't worry how long it takes the squirrel to die. I have shot them at 20 feet and seen them do a dozen back flips. Our squirrels are tough SOB's to kill.
 
All of the boxes of .22LR ammo I have says dangerous to 1 mile. It may not hit what you aimed at, but it still will do damage at that range. Be sure of what is behind your target if you should miss it.
 
We've all made some impressively long shots with .22LRs, some I'm ashamed of taking when I was young and stupid. However, I still like to shoot at 200 meter gongs and other action targets, estimating hold-over. I never tried to zero a .22LR at that distance, though.

I never even tried shooting my rimfire benchrest rifle at 100 yards, so don't know what it will do there, but have made many 50 yard groups under 2/10", while testing ammo and adjusting barrel tuners. It seemed like wasting my very expensive match ammo to shoot at longer distances.

No other .22LR rifles I have has shot better than 1" groups at 100 yards, but we have a very windy range and I never seem to be there with my LRs when it's calm.

However, once I thought I was shooting at a large rusty can in a field at 100yards with my Ruger semi-auto pistol, and with one shot, killed a woodchuck, hitting it in the head. Accidents will happen!
 
The original question:
How far away is a 22LR effective to kill a squirrel?

40gr lead round nose 1200 FPS
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The bullet has more than enough energy to punch clear through a tree rat (sorry, Pathfinder, but they are opportunistic omnivorous rodents that compulsively chew on everything .... they are just less paranoid because their natural affinity for heights gives them a false sense of security the brown rat lacks) to way out past where even a machine rested rifle would not hold to the accuacy requirement for the hard part:.... and that part is making that hole in a vital area, either the heart/lungs or the brain .... the spine is not a lot wider than the bullet- it'd stop them, but if you hit that, it'd be luck.

Both these vital zones are tiny.... not much more than an inch across. If YOU can hold YOUR RIFLE to that, then it'll do the job.


I can get them pretty consistently anywhere inside 100 yards. Squirrels have tough skin so you have to make sure your shot placement is halfway decent. Might make a few bad, but I don't worry how long it takes the squirrel to die. I have shot them at 20 feet and seen them do a dozen back flips. Our squirrels are tough SOB's to kill.
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Squirrels are NOT tough, if you hit them in either the heart/lungs or brain. Hit them anywhere else with a projectile that isn't going the kill them with hydrostatic shock (you'd need a fragile bullet and at least 2.5 times the velocity the .22lr will provide)and they will die .... eventually.

I kill them in my back yard with a pellet gun .... that's a .177" pellet of 7.9grains weight, leaving @ less than 750 f/sec .... and it will penetrate the head or chest of a squirrel 35-40 feet up in a tree that's 40+ feet from the house .... their skin won't stop that .... but if you don't hit them just right, then they'll run off...... and hopefully die. I don't care, so long as they stay away from my house and vehichles. :mad:
 
I did a lot of long-range (100 yards) shooting and experimenting with a couple of .22 rifles when I was younger. I found out that at 100 yards, most ammo will not shoot tight enough groups for shooting squirrels. Nevertheless, finding the cartridge that shoots best is a matter of buying a 50 round box of all available brands...in those days, we all most always found that our particular rifle "liked" a particular brand of .22 long rifle standard velocity ammunition.

I found that I could easily shoot tight groups, well within that needed for a squirrel at 100 yards. However, that was shooting from the bench with both a front sand bag on a bench rest, and a standard rear bench rest bag. When it came to shoot from field positions, even prone, fifty yards was about as far as I could be effective, if that.

In short, the limiting factor was not range of effectiveness of the cartridge, but the human factor of ability to shoot from field positions.
 
Not all 22 long rifle match ammo's subsonic. I've shot RWS R100 match ammo at 100 yards and its accuracy is almost 1/2 inch. Specs for its muzzle velocity is 1138 fps…
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Have you chronographed it from your rifle? "Spec" may not be reality when fired from your gun.
 
Am I ennobling sage rats by calling them ground squirrels?
:rolleyes:

Somewhere I have a book that says the speed of sound is 1168fps at sea level.
Wiki says its 1125.32fps in dry air at 20C.
(I wonder if the speed of sound changed after we got the Internet...:rolleyes:)

At what distance from the muzzle would a 1200fps bullet drop below that?

No idea, but I'm sure its well before 100 yards.
Might be just short of 50yds.
 
Well, it says a mile and a half on the box I'm looking at right now. I doubt I'd be able to see a little rodent at that range.
 
Ammo Quality

In my opinion, today's 22LR ammo is nowhere near as good as the ammo from the 1970's. The Western XPERT ammo in the yellow boxes was the best I ever shot. I had a Marlin semi-auto that would routinely put 5 of those into 3/4" at 100 yards. Nothing I've shot in this century has even come close. I know this is about squirrels, but if you can't hit 'em, they will get the last laugh.
 
There are still many great 22 rifles made today. Most are not semi-automatics. The Marlin M60 is a very good inexpensive 22 rifle and it often has amazingly good accuracy once you find the ammo that it prefers. That can be a problem these days, but that hopefully will change. You just have to start shooting it with different 22 ammo until you settle on something it really likes (accuracy wise). That is not to say that you won't be blasting away bulk ammo at plinking targets. It is all part of the fun with 22's.

Scopes..... if price matters a lot, I would go with Simmons in something like a 2-7x with a 32mm objective. That size just works for 22's and is plenty bright. Just buy a rimfire scope.
 
The R100 ammo I chrono'd in my Anschutz went 1145 fps at 10 feet. There's a 20 to 30 fps spread across all lots of it, just like all rimfire match ammo.

Accuracy of the best Rimfire match ammo in the late 1970's was about 3/8" to 1/2" at 100 yards with 40-shot test groups. The Russian Olimp ammo made in the early 1990's (and was finally allowed to be sold in the USA) would shoot that well but its production stopped a few years later when the Soviet Mafia took over the plant near Moscow and retooled everything to make AK47 ammo. Nowadays, it's nye impossible to find rimfire ammo that'll shoot under 3/4" at 100 yards.
 
Eley match seem to shoot 1/2" groups for me at 100 (5 shot groups, never tried 40). I don't shoot well enough to see a difference between Eley Match and Tennex.
 
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