J
Jeff, CA
Guest
I went to my first 22 rimfire shoot this weekend. The announcement said things like, "any old plinker will do"... yeah, right. I took my tube-fed Marlin model 60 with factory sights. It wasn't hard to pick it out from among the tricked-out 10/22's and Anschutzes with bull barrels and Unertl target scopes almost as long as the guns themselves. 
The rear sight on the Marlin has never kept its elevation adjustment; it always creeps (more like zips) down to the bottom of its range (I've never had any trouble with that, since that's perfect for 0 to 50 yards, but 175 is uncharted territory for this gun). The front sight is a perfect mate - the top is nice and rounded, like a quonset hut end-on, and the paint at the top rear edge of the blade is chipped off.
We were shooting at 6" square steel plates at 75, 125 and 175 yards. During the sight-in session, the fancy-scope guys were counting clicks; I was picking out aiming points on the dirt berm out at 200 yards. One good thing about shooting a 22 at 175 - you have plenty of time to open your off-side eye to look for the impact. Naturally, the wind picked up as soon as the sight-in session ended.
We had 6 rounds to knock over 5 targets, twice, at each range. Score was hits/shots at each range, and total. I shot 9/11 at 75, 3/12 at 125 and 1/12 at 175, for a 13/35 - dead last
The guy I was keeping score for (who won the match) had a Winchester 52/Unertl combination. He scored 10/10, 10/10 and 9/10. His only miss spun the plate 90 degrees, and he figured the chances of being able to hit it edge-on were nil.
Conclusions:
1. I need better sights for the Marlin, but I won't spend more on them than I spent on the gun itself.
2. When's the next one?
The rear sight on the Marlin has never kept its elevation adjustment; it always creeps (more like zips) down to the bottom of its range (I've never had any trouble with that, since that's perfect for 0 to 50 yards, but 175 is uncharted territory for this gun). The front sight is a perfect mate - the top is nice and rounded, like a quonset hut end-on, and the paint at the top rear edge of the blade is chipped off.
We were shooting at 6" square steel plates at 75, 125 and 175 yards. During the sight-in session, the fancy-scope guys were counting clicks; I was picking out aiming points on the dirt berm out at 200 yards. One good thing about shooting a 22 at 175 - you have plenty of time to open your off-side eye to look for the impact. Naturally, the wind picked up as soon as the sight-in session ended.
We had 6 rounds to knock over 5 targets, twice, at each range. Score was hits/shots at each range, and total. I shot 9/11 at 75, 3/12 at 125 and 1/12 at 175, for a 13/35 - dead last
The guy I was keeping score for (who won the match) had a Winchester 52/Unertl combination. He scored 10/10, 10/10 and 9/10. His only miss spun the plate 90 degrees, and he figured the chances of being able to hit it edge-on were nil.
Conclusions:
1. I need better sights for the Marlin, but I won't spend more on them than I spent on the gun itself.
2. When's the next one?
