Another New Guy/Shooter here

[Pew-Pew]

I've been lurking for a few weeks now, so I thought I'd finally say hi Picked up my 15-22 a little over a month ago as my first gun. I grew up in FL and rural NC plinking cans (don't believe in hunting) with pellet rifles and my Dads 10-22 and .22 pistol, but never owned a gun myself. Fast forward a few decades to an almost middle aged multimedia designer living in front of a computer in urban left coast hipster Portland and I suddenly get the urge to shoot again. I was gonna go for a 9mm Hipoint or Berreta carbine, but decided the AR platform would be more flexible for mods and a .22 cheaper to shoot. Not that I was ever gonna get a real AR or was seriously looking for home or SHTF defense, but I'm really bummed that I didn't research this whole .22 ammo shortage. I've only put a few hundred rounds through her, cause that's all I can find... Anyways, here she is:

After getting a cleaning kit, bag, and eye/ear protection, I promptly did the crayola thing, got some extra mags, slapped on an AFG, and reflex red dot before hitting the local outdoor range for the first time.

It shot flawlessly and accurately but my old eyes had trouble seeing a 2" square at 50 meters, so I went a little overboard and got a 24x 50mm wide freakin telescope, riser (so I can still access the charging handle), and cheek riser to compensate for that. Seeing that far was great, but it was cumbersome to use, top heavy, and just overkill for a .22

So I returned that (gotta love amazon prime) and got a compact reasonable 2.5-10x40mm scope with the gimmicky side laser and sighted it at the range a week ago.

This one works great and of course the rifle is fun to shoot. I had a couple of FTF stovepipes, but I'm blaming it on cheap winchester hollow points and my impatient loading. Anyways Sorry for the crappy cell phone pics and just wanted to say hi from a new shooter...

 

[Vinney47]

Welcome. Good looking setup you have there. I hope you re-enjoy the shooting sports for years to come!

Just out of curiosity... if you don't plan for home defense or hunting, what is the purpose of that light hanging on the front of your gun?

 

[GhostMutt]

Greetings from the UK.
Nice looking setup, like the tacticrayola and I must admit I liked the 24x50 scope...overkill or not, I think it looks ggggggreat....I have only recently took the large ferris wheel off of the side of mine haha, that is the beauty and the danger of this firearm.....mods. Change this, hang that, swap this, attach that. Oh the fun
Welcome to the wonderful world of the 15-22.

 

[Pew-Pew]

Welcome. Good looking setup you have there. I hope you re-enjoy the shooting sports for years to come!

Just out of curiosity... if you don't plan for home defense or hunting, what is the purpose of that light hanging on the front of your gun?

Thanks! Well that's a good question. While defense wasn't a main consideration (otherwise I would have gotten the Beretta storm), I would still use it in a pinch. I figured a hail of small, but carefully placed hollow points would still ruin an intruder's day.

 

[Pew-Pew]

Greetings from the UK.
Nice looking setup, like the tacticrayola and I must admit I liked the 24x50 scope...overkill or not, I think it looks ggggggreat....I have only recently took the large ferris wheel off of the side of mine haha, that is the beauty and the danger of this firearm.....mods. Change this, hang that, swap this, attach that. Oh the fun
Welcome to the wonderful world of the 15-22.

Thanks mate - My wife and I were just touring London, Oxford, Dover, Bath, etc just a few months ago. Beautiful country you have there!

Agreed, a big sniper scope was pretty cool looking - especially with a bi-pod and suppressor, but I just didn't see myself shooting much more than 100 yards and didn't find a huge scope very practical. In fact the only public outdoor range anywhere near me limits rimfire rifles to the 50 yrd lanes. I really gotta find some public lands to shoot on. How far are you shooting decent groups with your scope?

 

[GhostMutt]

Glad you liked the country but next time you must visit the north of England, better much better....hahaha sorry all the southerners.
Yeah same here 100 yards is about the range limit our club has, I have not had nearly enough practice with my 15-22 out at that range but can attest to its accuracy, not so sure about the operator though I am going in the next week and will be posting the results on here, stay tuned

 

[Skyhighatrist]

Hey guys! I'm also fairly new to shooting being an Englishman who moved to California 5 years ago! (I'm from Hertfordshire and the south is soooo much better than the north by the way! Hahahaha!)

Anywho I also use cheap Winchester hollow point white box bulk, and I know many people have issues with it, (some say it won't run through their 15-22 at all!). Although I've only shot 150rnds through mine so far as it's still fairly new, I only had one stove pipe and like you say, I'm blaming that on the ammo!

I see you have the cheek riser, and the riser under the scope. Have you considered buying a carry handle and mounting your scope directly to the top of that? Just my opinion but while the scope riser looked fine under that beast of a scope you had, it looks like slight overkill for the smaller scope!

I totally understand why it's needed though. I have a large 3-9 scope that had initially been sitting on an airsoft rifle, which I now use on my 15-22, and I have to mount it really far forward to access the charging handle. I need a riser too, although will probably just get a smaller scope as I usually only use the 3-4x anyways! Have my eye on a cheap Japanese 4x ACOG knock off with working fiber optics which I may get.

Either way, nice gun and welcome to the community!

 

[Rustyt1953]

Welcome to the wonderful world of plinking. What better way to spend a day. Glad to have you.

 

[Jaysq]

Welcome from North Carolina. Nice setup you have there for sure.

 

[photoracer]

I've been lurking for a few weeks now, so I thought I'd finally say hi Picked up my 15-22 a little over a month ago as my first gun. I grew up in FL and rural NC plinking cans (don't believe in hunting) with pellet rifles and my Dads 10-22 and .22 pistol, but never owned a gun myself. Fast forward a few decades to an almost middle aged multimedia designer living in front of a computer in urban left coast hipster Portland and I suddenly get the urge to shoot again. I was gonna go for a 9mm Hipoint or Berreta carbine, but decided the AR platform would be more flexible for mods and a .22 cheaper to shoot. Not that I was ever gonna get a real AR or was seriously looking for home or SHTF defense, but I'm really bummed that I didn't research this whole .22 ammo shortage. I've only put a few hundred rounds through her, cause that's all I can find... Anyways, here she is:

After getting a cleaning kit, bag, and eye/ear protection, I promptly did the crayola thing, got some extra mags, slapped on an AFG, and reflex red dot before hitting the local outdoor range for the first time.

It shot flawlessly and accurately but my old eyes had trouble seeing a 2" square at 50 meters, so I went a little overboard and got a 24x 50mm wide freakin telescope, riser (so I can still access the charging handle), and cheek riser to compensate for that. Seeing that far was great, but it was cumbersome to use, top heavy, and just overkill for a .22

So I returned that (gotta love amazon prime) and got a compact reasonable 2.5-10x40mm scope with the gimmicky side laser and sighted it at the range a week ago.

This one works great and of course the rifle is fun to shoot. I had a couple of FTF stovepipes, but I'm blaming it on cheap winchester hollow points and my impatient loading. Anyways Sorry for the crappy cell phone pics and just wanted to say hi from a new shooter...

It would require less adjustment and the scope sight-in would cover a greater range of targets if you chucked the riser and cheek piece and just mounted the scope right on the rail. Your bore axis to scope separation is way high. That is how it is designed to be shot. In fact all these type scopes are mounted so they would co-witness iron sights if you had both on there. I am a competition shooter (67yo) and I mount everything right on the rail. Doesn't matter whether it is my 3-gun AR or my speed shooting 15-22s.

 

[johncal]

It would require less adjustment and the scope sight-in would cover a greater range of targets if you chucked the riser and cheek piece and just mounted the scope right on the rail. Your bore axis to scope separation is way high. That is how it is designed to be shot. In fact all these type scopes are mounted so they would co-witness iron sights if you had both on there. I am a competition shooter (67yo) and I mount everything right on the rail. Doesn't matter whether it is my 3-gun AR or my speed shooting 15-22s.

I agree I see some guys with these sky scopes and just don't get it. The closer to the bore, the less parallax error, period.

Let say your scope is 4" above the bore and sighted to the bull's-eye at 25 yards. At 50 yards you'd be 4" below the bull's-eye not counting drop of course. that's a lot of error. Even worse with the handle mounted scopes.

That's why those old school low profile iron sights were so accurate. A lot less compensation..... of course your face has to fit in there as well.

A good example would be the laser on my scope. It is mounted around 1-3/8" to the right of center. That's just the way it is as it's part of the scope. I have it zeroed at about 20ft. At 10 ft it's around 3/4"to the right, at anything over 20ft, the laser starts going way to the left of target. Same deal. Although shooting at any large target from 10-30ft ( like a person) won't really matter that much. You'll still hit them, but that's all you really want to do with a laser. Quick and dirty acquisition.

 

[030201_S&W]

It becomes a mission, picking up 22 where ever you happen to find it. Have found CCI only a couple times in 2 years and mostly Remington of quantity. I live with it and always remember safe shooting means not putting the trigger finger on the trigger until.

 

[Skyhighatrist]

Yea I found some cci at a local gun show and snapped it up. Other than that there's a local ammo sale every year on Father's Day that has tons of it.. Each year they limit the 22 more and more though. Last year it was a brick. This year it was 100rds of good ammo, or one bulk box of 333 per person! 100rds?! That's not even a good day out's worth!

 

[Pew-Pew]

oh I agree about the inaccuracies at varying distances. The much larger scope was originally mounted high to allow easy access to the charging handle, but then I kinda liked how it felt. I'm still playin around and will probably drop it low again...

 

[Pew-Pew]

Yea I found some cci at a local gun show and snapped it up. Other than that there's a local ammo sale every year on Father's Day that has tons of it.. Each year they limit the 22 more and more though. Last year it was a brick. This year it was 100rds of good ammo, or one bulk box of 333 per person! 100rds?! That's not even a good day out's worth!

Man I really really wished I had known about this whole .22 shortage, since it probably would have steered me toward the CX storm. It's not the 15-22's fault. It's pretty freakin awesome!

 

[Pew-Pew]

It becomes a mission, picking up 22 where ever you happen to find it. Have found CCI only a couple times in 2 years and mostly Remington of quantity. I live with it and always remember safe shooting means not putting the trigger finger on the trigger until.

Yeah I hardly shop at Walmart or Dick's, but I now make a bee line to the ammo section in hopes they'll have something. I did get 500 rounds of CCI online, but it was expensive and I felt like I was just contributing to this whole hoarding price gouging that's going on...

 

[Pew-Pew]

Hey guys! I'm also fairly new to shooting being an Englishman who moved to California 5 years ago! (I'm from Hertfordshire and the south is soooo much better than the north by the way! Hahahaha!)

Thanks! Nice to see that most other countries have a North South rivalry goin. Just don't let it turn into a civil war!

Yeah, that riser looks too big for that current scope, even after I centered it and moved it forward. I'll probably just ditch the risers altogether. I'm probably gonna stick to cheap knockoff accessories as well. I can't justify quality mil-spec stuff for a .22 plinker that's not going into combat

 

[brucev]

Welcome! Here you will find lots of good folks!

The 15-22 is a great rifle. Your results using good ammunition are typical. Sadly, the few problems you described with the Winchester ammunition are not atypical. I have found this particular round difficult to use in my 18-3. In my Marvel 1911 .22 LR conversion this round simply will not function the pistol. It is faultless with CCI Mini-Mags, Aguila, Fed. Champion, etc.

To find .22 LR try the following links:
Find 22LR Ammo in stock at lowest prices | WikiArms AmmoEngine
GunBot 22lr rimfire ammo
.22 Long Rifle - Rimfire Ammunition - Ammunition
Results for Ammunition:Rimfire | Trop Elite Equipment
22lr ammo rimfire
http://www.bullets.com/products/Nor...oseek&utm_medium=aggregator&utm_campaign=ammo
http://shop.tropgun.com/servlet/-st...utm_content=Ammunition&utm_campaign=.22S/L/LR

 

[Skyhighatrist]

That's my thinking too. Can't justify spending tons on accessories when a cheap knock off will do just fine for my needs!

Also I'm sure this .22 'shortage' will ease up. People are being more diligent about what they spend and where they purchase so hopefully it'll get better! I just don't get it. There is no shortage, it's just people buying up and hoarding tons of it that reduces supply and raises demand thus altering price and availability. It sucks for sure, but it'll blow over.. I hope!

 

[Pew-Pew]

Also I'm sure this .22 'shortage' will ease up. People are being more diligent about what they spend and where they purchase so hopefully it'll get better! I just don't get it. There is no shortage, it's just people buying up and hoarding tons of it that reduces supply and raises demand thus altering price and availability. It sucks for sure, but it'll blow over.. I hope!

I really hope you're right. I recently started researching blogs and forums with people saying this shortage would ease up soon, but that was 2 years ago. If manufacturing is at full capacity, there's either just so many more people shooting with 22 now and or some are still hoarding like crazy.