Youth Rifle .223 - Get Close - Recipe - Success

     If you have perused this blog a bit ......

     You might agree with me on the heavy gun thing.  You might agree light recoil helps accuracy.  If you have not perused my blog, please check out some of my earlier posts and note I have a recipe for all this:

    1.  Heavy gun, check,

    2.  Light recoil, check,

    3.  Bipod, check,

    4.  Light caliber - preferably a .223

    4.  The final ingredient is the most important - “If you think you are close enough, get much closer.”

   Here in Texas with deer blinds and bait, you have the perfect situation for accurate shot placement under hunting stress.  100 yards is pretty easy at the rifle range, on a bench, with a sandbag.  But hair and horns result in central nervous system overload.  So, cut it in half in the field.  Yup; 2 X 25, the mid-field stripe, 50 yards – maybe less!    Rig the deal my good man!   

     55 grain soft points pushing 3,000 fps create a delightful "POP" on impact.  They are quite convincing.  My son's first hog, right at 200 pounds, was not ballistically astute, had not considered a 55 grain bullet as too small.  He responded by sticking his feet up in the air.

3 months later we picked up his skull.  Notice the baseball sized chunk missing just left of his artistically applied eye. There are no chew marks, so this is not the result of an over zealous coyote wielding a Sawzall.

Our .223 has another nuance.   We call it, "The 1st gun" meaning:  If this is the first time you are hunting with us, we give you our Handi Rifle Ultra Varmint .223, the same one seen above.  WHEN you are successful, your name is permanently engraved on the stock.  Tipping the scales just under 10 pounds but she's "muscular" - but not "fat".  Recoil is almost non-existent contributing to a healthy blog roll.  This picture is dated. Three more names are on there now and we have a hunt coming up in the next couple weeks.

A little bullet in the right place beats a big bullet pulled due to pucker factor - every time.   (I highly recommend the H@R Handi Rifle Ultra Varmint!  It is offered in larger calibers's) - whatever gun you choose, take my recipe, liberally apply rule #4 - your success rate will skyrocket.

Hunting and fishing is the ultimate "green" experience.  Teach every kid you can find how to participate in the ecosystem.  Lord knows they get enough tree hugging propaganda out there.

Small Boy with Laugh Lines

A.D.D. is AWESOME

Airgun + Sexy = Accurate Cheek Pressure

I have an especially good wife.  She is “especially” because of many things not applicable to this niche forum on guns and such.   What is applicable?  This special lady bought me my first German Air Rifle – an RWS model 52.

I’ve managed to keep both happy for 20+ years now.

Here’s a sexy picture - applicable to this discourse.

 

A couple weeks ago I found my self alone, just me and her, at the ranch house.  Though it had been a few years, I remembered how to handle her.  Four shots resulted in nice performance.

The 9mm casing is there to show how tightly this gun shoots.  Trust me; high end airguns, much like those rifles we shoot, are way better than we are!  Empty rifle brass

on a saw horse make a good shooting gallery at 20 yards. 

CARNAGE!

  25-35, 7.62, three . 357 magnum casings....in that order.

Here is the shooter’s view through the 6X42 RWS scope (My camera didn’t like the magnification for some reason but you get the jist of it).   You can see the hold off required to hit the middle target (discussed below).

 One thing different about this kind of task, use heavy wood like a 2X4, the pellets stop on impact and you can see the misses in your scope.  This helps you to judge hold off.  In this case the wind was about 15 MPH in my face.  For some reason, despite earlier zero confirmation, to hit the brass, I had to hold off three vertical crosshair widths to the right.  Sure, I could have adjusted the scope, but fooey on that……..we were alone and I was in the mood for action!

For those of you obsessed with accuracy, I found out my RWS is quite responsive to cheek pressure.   Less is more with this gun.  If I barely placed my cheek on the stock I got better results.  That isn’t the kind of thing you figure out banging away with a .300.  But it could help you shoot your .300 better. 

The cheek pressure discovery made me push further; I stuck a 3” nail in the saw horse. Three shots later – a metallic thud resulted in a grey nail head……The pellet went into chunks on impact leaving enough evidence.  That is some tight shooting mister!

Man I love this gun.

Kid’s like her too.  It is a great way to teach new shooters to stay down and look through the scope while shooting.  Cheap ammo and lot’s of practice increases accuracy greatly.   The RWS Model 52 is about 11 pounds, adult length, has a crisp trigger, Monte Carlo, stock and a full size scope.  Which sounds like a marketing piece and it is.  If you teach a kid to shoot that gun well; they will succeed with that long, heavy, adult sized rifle you give them to pop deer with.  The only thing you need to fix about your deer rifle is recoil.  Look in my archive on this blog – there are many suggestions.  I am the sole person saying “recoil is bad” in the sporting world.  The rest of the party thinks recoil is “part of being a man”.   That train of though is stupid.  I would never ask you to kick me in the shoulder just to prove I am a man……why with rifles?

What is not stupid is buying a sexy, high end, Airgun.  Caress her slowly and learn about cheek pressure.  You think your wife will buy you one after reading that?  Good Gosh man, don’t tell her.

Small Boy with Laugh Lines

A.D.D. is AWESOME