What could be causing this?

Since you asked,my first suggestion would be talk it over with your Dad.

Can you learn to shoot with a 10-22?Sure!!It has sights to align,and a trigger to squeeze.Its accurate enough,if you miss,its you.Thats all you need.Is it an ideal rifle to learn classic 50 ft .22 smallbore shooting?Not quite.Are you following that discipline,or plinking?

Some coach once said "Don't let the things you can't get done prevent you from doing the things you can do".

Try to find online a few pages of the old,oh,1910 or so Sears Roebuck Catalogue.Or Google Quackenbush,and Stevens Cracksot,and Remington #4 Rolling block.What they called "boys rifles"A lot of fine shots started with those.

I do not know what kind of money you have.If you must have another gun to learn to shoot with,I suggest a larger size,longer barrel old 1940's.50's'60s or so bolt action 22 rifle.Remington,Mossberg,doesn't much matter.Winchesters will be expensive.The Remington 510,511,513,514,540 etc series is great.

Savage offers a modern one in the $225 range.If the used ones are over $135 or so.But,there are so many old .22s around,I bet some uncle or friend or? might have one in the closet.


Single shot is fine.Look for 2 screw holes on the side of the receiver for a peep sight.It will need sling awivels,you can put those on.

A leather 1907 sling is nice,but they can cost $60 .Try E-bay.A used one will work.

Eye and ear protection.A loading block.You can use a piece of carpet,bedroll size,for a mat.

That would be the thing to focus on.You do not need 100 yds.Too much time walking.25 yds,max,or 50 ft.The 10 ring on a 50 ft target is about .22 dia.Slung up,prone,peep sights,expect to be shooting in the 90's if you use your fundamentals.

Get a stack of NRA 50 ft targets,I think there is a way to do the Jr NRA 22 course in a "correspondence" fashion.

"Position Rifle Shooting" is another good book.

Go through the progression,Pro-Marksman,Marksman,Sharpshooter,etc.
 
So that's a no on the 17 H.M.R.?

Also, I think i should do some bench rest shooting before i start progressing to field positions. Denis suggested that before, and it would give me a chance to learn the rifle better.
 
Hi,
It's not treading on sacred ground, it's laying out Mo's situation for other participants here.

Mo,
I understand you find the .22 boring, but it remains the best teaching & learning tool above a pellet gun.

I don't get the sense that you fully explored it in what I suggested, which was master it with irons at 50 yards & then take it out further with a scope.

If you get your backyard range built, you should be able to do that easily, without travelling to a fee range, which means you can work on the gun just about anytime your parents are willing, with minimal effort.

If you get bored, add a challenge.
Assuming you have your .22 ZEROED, which is a critical first step, with both irons and scope, and you can consistently create smallish groups on paper AT YOUR CHOSEN POINT OF AIM & at known distances, then ditch the paper & set up alternative targets.

Pop cans, degradable orange clay pigeons, Oreo cookies, vanilla wafers, whatever. (No glass objects, please.)
Set 'em up at varying distances, and shoot at 'em with irons first.
When you can hit with irons, add your scope & set 'em up farther out.

When you do this, you learn breathing, a steady hold, sight picture, and trigger control, without the distractions of anticipating recoil or heavy muzzle blast.
You also learn holdover/holdunder at various distances, and how to judge where you need to aim to hit at various distances.

Holdover won't translate directly into a centerfire later on in terms of the differing trajectories involved between a rimfire & a centerfire, but it will give you a grasp of the basic principle.

ADD FUN!
MAKE IT FUN!

You want to enter competition now before you even know how to shoot.
You'll be wasting your time, and competition is not where you go to learn basics. Competition is where you go to compete & fine tune, AFTER you've got the basics down.

Shooting a .22 at paper is largely boring.
95% of my shooting is on paper. It's not all that much fun, but I get paid for it.
You don't.
That's why I suggest moving beyond paper, but ONLY after you've mastered paper.

In my case, I had (and have) a couple million square miles of desert to chase rabbits in with my .22.
Buddy & I took .22s along exploring old mines & such. We shot at targets of opportunity, and that's where the .22 produces the fun.

In your case, without access to public lands in NC (been there, full of trees & private land), that's not an option.
You can still put fun into a .22 while learning it, and that doesn't mean burning 50 rounds & calling it good.

Yesterday I was working with a pellet rifle.
My job requires shooting it at paper, and going for best possible accuracy on every shot.

That can be a ho-hummer & it wasn't till I got the "paperwork" done, including sighting it in at two known distances, determining accuracy in four different pellet types, and getting to know the trigger & aimpoints, that it became fun when I set up pop cans at 50 yards in the back lot here.

BASICS!
FOUNDATION!
LEARNING!
CONSISTENCY!

Learn your .22.

You've talked about competition, you've talked about coyotes.
You want to hit NASCAR before you even know how to drive. Bad idea.

If you absolutely can't tolerate the rimfire, then the .223 is an excellent caliber to begin with.

I knew my .22, but I didn't get any type of real instruction at all till I hit basic training in the military.
The .223 was easy, and on top of my rimfire foundation I had no problem whatever shooting Expert from the git-go, while others with no gun experience were taking to the program a bit slower.

If you find the .22 intolerable, then try for one of the two modern rifles mentioned, for the reasons mentioned.

I think you're having a hard time understanding that you have to learn to walk before you can enter a track meet.
You don't want to spend the time & effort to learn & establish the basics, you don't want to use a more efficient tool, and you really should be able to see by now that it's not working for you the way you're going about it.

I'm not knocking you, Mo, I'm just speaking bluntly to get your attention.
You are handicapping yourself in your approach.

Denis

And- Don't gimme no sorries. :)
 
Add on the .17.

More expensive than the .22, which is a factor.
If you're going to go rimfire, suggest you stay with what you have.
If you're going to buy a new rifle, the .17 has limited applications FOR YOU in any hunting scenarios above rabbits & squirrels where you are.
Denis
 
So from the bench I assume? How would I dial in the iron sights? I'd like to get something better than the stock sights, as I don't like them that much. I've been wanting to put a red dot or a set of tech sights on it or something.
 
From the bench.

I'd recommend you stick to factory irons & here's why:

Learning iron sights with your .22 translates much more realistically & efficiently to the use of iron sights across the board, in other rifles you may acquire later on.

If you learn with a red dot on your .22, you'll pretty much be learning ONLY a red dot.

You go back to your milsurps later, you'll have to learn irons anyway, one step backwards.
If you want only irons on any newer modern rifle, you'll still need to learn iron sights at some point.

Learning notch & post irons on your rifle will also translate to similar sights on a handgun later down the road.

The red dot is cooler, and works great in quick acquisition, but doesn't teach you the same universal principles as the post & notch that's so common on so many guns.

Remember I told you I had my nephew at 11 hitting clay pigeons up a hillside at 60+ yards regularly using my singleshot H&R .22, with factory iron sights, in less than two boxes of ammo?

My feeling, and I won't argue it, is that if you can get good with ground-level notch & post, you can do well with them on just about anything.

That said, if you think you'd be happier with a better set of irons, up to you.
I'd just strongly recommend you don't get into red dots & similar systems yet.

You work with notch & post and a decent scope, you'll be learning how to shoot well with the majority of sighted hunting guns you've been looking at, and it'll give you a good taste of what glass can do for you if you might want to change your mind there later on.

Aperture rears are popular & offer advantages, but you don't typically find them on hunting rifles from the factory, so without spending after-market money to stick one on a later hunting rifle if you get one, you'd still have to transition to notch & post somewhere.

Up to you.

As for dialing in the sights, I set my .22 rifles with irons at 50 yards. I know how to compensate inside that distance & up to about 75 yards if I need to.
My scoped 10/22 Target Tactical I have zeroed at 100 yards.
It can easily take out clay pigeons to about 120 yards, I could probably go further with good success but have not tried.

Make your own choices there.
Denis
 
Mo -

DPris has given you some excellent advice. Too much to add in a quote. To support his advice, I'll tell you about how I started:

I shot a firearm for the 1st time 8 years ago at the tender age of 43. Fortunately, I instinctively knew the fundamentals were important, so I spent my 1st 2 years doing nothing but practicing with a .22 rifle off a bench. Sight picture and trigger control. Period. I thought it was fun and was too naive to understand most thought was I was doing was exceedingly boring.

After about 3 years, I started competing, but by then, I was hooked on DA revolvers, so I started in IDPA. I made Master in about a year, shot the World Championship as a Master in my 2nd year, and took top Master in 4 consecutive National Championships afterwards, then beat the reigning National Champ last year in one of IDPA's Big 3.

I'm currently taking a break from handgun competition to work on my rifle skills. My nephew and I shot that Appleseed clinic you also attended, and I made rifleman with an iron-sighted bolt .22 rifle. About that time, I got a good AR15 service rifle and started practicing for some High Power rifle competition. I shot my 2nd HP match the weekend before last, and won the match with a High Master score.

The reason I'm telling you this is that I firmly believe the hard boring work I put into laying a good foundation early payed huge dividends later, and that if you lay a solid foundation now, mastering the fundamentals with a good gun/ammo that you can shoot, the shooting world will be your oyster. Really and truly so. If you don't lay a good foundation, though, you'll likely be continually frustrated and disappointed later and will try to solve the "problem" by jumping around.

I wish you much success!

Tom


p.s. forget the .17hmr. Stick with a .22
 
Roger that. That gives me time to find my scope rail for the 10/22. Somehow it got lost whilst transitioning it off the rifle. Also, what kind is targets do you guys reccomend? I have some of 8" shoot-NC targets that are a little hard to see at 100 yards. That would be fine for 50?
 
Dear Mo (AKA Short Attention Span :) ),
Refer to extensive previous discussions on the black bulls.
Denis
 
Yes on your 10/22.
Yes on your Mosin.
No on your K31 (far as I know).

Assume you were asking about your Ruger.

I found on my wife's 10/22 the fiber optic wasn't as precise a sight picture overall as the post on two of my 10/22s.

Frankly, if I were going to change anything on the Ruger's sights, it'd be the REAR sight, not the front.
Denis
 
Yeah, I just don't like the visibility of the stock sights. I don't have 20/20 vision unfortunately. They make a combo set with a front/rear sight set that are fiber optic.
 
The FO will stand out better, but may not give as clear & precise a sight picture as other types.
They're better for hunting than target shooting.
If your eyes require them, do what you need to do.
Denis
 
No time right now, Mo, gotta get some errands done.
Check Brownells for 10/22-adaptable sights to get started?
Denis
 
Might try the Williams Fire Sight.
Understand that fiber optic light pipes CAN be vulnerable to breakage, if you bang 'em on something.
Denis
 
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