Range Report

Younger, Dad, Older from left to right

This won't be a long post, but it's a good one. Older daughter Melanie & I bought matching .22 rifles, just for fun, and took 'em to the range for sighting-in, and then a bit o' practice.

Both shot low and to the right, out of the box, but those are easy things to correct. After 10 shots, each were putting shots where we wanted. Well, more or less, considering inexpensive iron sights, but still.

Mel's proved to be quite finicky, with frequent failures to eject, along with a couple of misfires. Mine had a few FTEs, as well, but no light strikes. I had oiled the slides on both of the semi-auto plinkers, but clearly it was not enough. Jenny, who came along for the fun, had some Remington gun oil in her range kit which worked wonders. Mel's had only one additional FTE thereafter, and mine worked flawlessly.

We had ammo from Federal, Remington*, and CCI; my rifle ate whatever I put in it, but Mel's didn't like anything but the Federal "Champion" ammo.

Younger daughter Sam was the star of the show, though. Using Jenny's .scoped 22 and shooting off-hand with the CCI mini-mags, she put 10 shots into a cluster only 1 3/4" across at 50 yards.

I haven't shot this well without a shooting rest since moving to bifocals two decades ago. (grumble, grumble)

* One note: the Remington ammo was very inconsistent. Some rounds fired without much more sound than someone snapping their fingers, and others produced a louder report and sharper recoil. As you'd expect, the accuracy was horrible. Now I know why it was the least expensive option at the store.