chacka wrote:in2anity wrote:Shooting lead instead of jacketed in these calibers will teach you a lot about trajectories - something I feel is super important for beginners. Is a shame new shooters are so quick to jump into the fast, flat cartridges these days (like the 223) - it makes things super simple, and really hides you from a lot of the nuances of markmanship and ballistics.
Hmm, I wouldn't say that. There is nothing at all wrong with the .223 or learning on one.
If you're just plugging away at 100m and never mixing it up then maybe there's an element of truth in what you're saying, but that could be said of anything really.
With a fast twist .223 though you can load up for some long range shooting and it gives new shooters room to reach out further and get better with more challenging shooting.
Well it's all relative to the size of the target isn't it - you don't need to reach out excessively to challenge yourself - take all the Olympic disciplines as examples of this. Scoring consecutive tens at 50m offhand is incredibly difficult. And how many of us have the luxury of being able to plink thousands of rounds at long distances? (In AUS that is) Percentage-wise, sweet f-all I say. Nope I stick by my sentiment; for the vast majority of us, if you wanna really learn to shoot (no I'm not talking bipod shooting), then you gotta pick something cheap (like a 22).
Don't get me wrong - the 223 is a kick-ass round, but for your average joe civilian starting out, youre better off practicing with something cheap and slow. You can always step up to 223 for hunting to simplify things later on; and f***k you'll appreciate it, so much more than if you immediately started on it. There's a reason 5.56mm is standard military - any monkey can point and hit a man sized target over a very long point-blank range without hardly a thought.
Yes, if you have easy and regular access to a variable long-distance range, 223 would be a good start. Unfortunately that's usually logistically a pretty rare convenience.
