Need advice on firearm and scope I'm looking to purchase

[SyndicateLawyer]

I'm looking to purchase my first firearm. As I am a beginner I want to get a .22lr to practice. I have picked out the following:

- Rifle: CZ 457 Varmint Long Range Precision TB 5rnd 20" for $1,975.00
- Scope: Arken SH4J 6-24x50 GEN 2 FFP VPR MIL for $749.00

Is this a good pick for a beginner? Is the scope alright and are there going to be any compatibility issues with the scope and rifle? Is this a reasonable price for a first rifle? DoI just buy Rings to mount the scope or is there anything extra I need to purchase?

[deye243]

Wher do I start
But you are a lawyer so I won't give advice without changing you $500 a minute

[deye243]

Others will be along shortly to give you all kinds of advice from WTH do you want to put the Hubble telescope on it and the others will say hang on a minute why such a small scope .
I'd give some advice but that would be no good coz I don't know s**t apparently.

[Oldbloke]

6-24x50 seems extraordinary high mag for 22lr.

What's the main use hunting, farms bush, range, target?

[bigpete]

Others will be along shortly to give you all kinds of advice from WTH do you want to put the Hubble telescope on it and the others will say hang on a minute why such a small scope .
I'd give some advice but that would be no good coz I don't know s**t apparently.

Ha ha, who's got on your nerves recently?
I must admit I'm one who thinks 6-24x is frigging massively overpowered,I don't even run anything that big on a centrefire let alone a rimfire. And I think spending 2k on " long-range " 22rf is ridiculous. But its not my money and I've no idea on the OPs purpose. Myself,I'd go buy an old model 2 brno and chuck a 4x40 on it and spend the next 50 years shooting thousands of rabbits etc and be pretty frigging happy

[Larry]

My second 22 was an Annie 1710HB and I took off a Bushnell 6500 5-25 scope from a 308 and stuck it on there. It is my favorite rifle and scope setup. from quick pest shots to shooting primers at 50 yds. A 25 times scope is not too high mag if you shoot targets at 50 yrds once you reach 40 you would be lucky to see the centre mark of the target without a good scope. Hard to aim small if you cant see small.

Personally I would recommend the cz515 as a fisrt 22 rifle they are just so much fun and versatile.

[SyndicateLawyer]

Others will be along shortly to give you all kinds of advice from WTH do you want to put the Hubble telescope on it and the others will say hang on a minute why such a small scope .
I'd give some advice but that would be no good coz I don't know s**t apparently.

Ha ha, who's got on your nerves recently?
I must admit I'm one who thinks 6-24x is frigging massively overpowered,I don't even run anything that big on a centrefire let alone a rimfire. And I think spending 2k on " long-range " 22rf is ridiculous. But its not my money and I've no idea on the OPs purpose. Myself,I'd go buy an old model 2 brno and chuck a 4x40 on it and spend the next 50 years shooting thousands of rabbits etc and be pretty frigging happy

I'm going to be doing target shooting and want to be able to shoot longer distances in the future. I thought that the scope was like a 1 time purchase, if I upgrade to a centre fire rifle in the future then I can use the same scope? Is there a downside to having a high powered scope or will it just be a waste of money.

I also want to participate in competition once I'm somewhat competent.

[SyndicateLawyer]

Wher do I start
But you are a lawyer so I won't give advice without changing you $500 a minute

Haha ofc, but I'm not a lawyer, I study law. But good idea, I will charge $500 once I become a lawyer

[Wm.Traynor]

Good morning Counselor
[see, I'm getting in on the Lawyer thing ]
But to be absolutely serious, I would not start with anything that is not easy to clean and that even rules out the odd bolt action. That is my experience anyway. However, my knowledge of rifles is far from broad so that is best left to the whole forum, as long as you remember the cleaning bit.
Good luck mate

[SyndicateLawyer]

6-24x50 seems extraordinary high mag for 22lr.

What's the main use hunting, farms bush, range, target?

Range and Target.

I have a property that will allow me to shoot upto 800m. So I slowly want to build my skill to be able to shoot that far. Don't know if that will be possible with a .22lr, but I'll try I guess, plenty of people doing it online. If .22lr limits me in the future, I can just get another rifle and use the same scope. That was my thought when selecting that scope.

Also every video I see online, they say get a high mag scope so you can see your bullet holes and so you get better features on the expensive scope.

[bladeracer]

Range and Target.

I have a property that will allow me to shoot up to 800m. So I slowly want to build my skill to be able to shoot that far. Don't know if that will be possible with a .22lr, but I'll try I guess, plenty of people doing it online. If .22lr limits me in the future, I can just get another rifle and use the same scope. That was my thought when selecting that scope.

Also every video I see online, they say get a high mag scope so you can see your bullet holes and so you get better features on the expensive scope.

I haven't reached 800m yet, but others have. I find around 330m is where it is still down to the shooter, past there it becomes more a matter of what the wind is doing. A 1200mm-square target at 500m becomes fairly easy to hit consistently, once you've sussed out what the wind is doing, but that is very, very difficult unless you have a large area of dusty ground around your target so you can see where your misses are falling. A 750mm-square plate would be more challenging to get every shot on, but also more frustrating trying to work out the wind. Your elevation is pretty easy to calculate so your shots should be within a meter high or low depending on wind values, but your windage might be five-meters or more off to one side. If you, or a spotter, can see where your misses are falling then it's a fairly simple matter to adjust your hold, or dial your windage, to suit, but if you are shooting on grass for example, it's a matter of trying _many_ different holds until you hopefully hear a ding indicating a hit.

As for magnification, the quality of the light and the air determines how far you can see small objects, not so much the magnification. With 7-power I can't see .22 holes in paper at 100m, with 9-power I can. At 18-power I can see holes out to 200m, but it's starting to get tricky, sometimes I might not see them until I have a "smudge" of three or four holes before I can make them out individually. With 40-power I can usually see holes out to around 250m, but not always. Past there even a $5000 Swarovski spotting scope couldn't see holes consistently. You are better served shooting at reactive targets past about 250m, in my opinion, steel plates that ring loud enough to be heard over the wind, or plates that move or fall over when hit.

I wouldn't go with a 50mm objective, that's huge. And I wouldn't go with FFP, especially on a .22LR. I also wouldn't use Milirads as I prefer working in minutes, but that's entirely personal preference, if you plan to shoot with other people using mils you might find it simpler to use mils. The .22LR has a _very_ steep trajectory so you need a lot of elevation to shoot much further than 200m. If you wanted to maintain a 50m zero for hunting rabbits and foxes, you will need a scope with at least 30MoA (8.7Mil) above centre to be able to dial out to just 200m (around 1600mm of bullet drop), and about 55MOA (16Mil) to reach 300m (nearly five-meters of drop). If you have a scope that has 120MOA (34.9Mil) total elevation adjustment, and you mount it on a 60MOA (17.5Mil) rail (or an adjustable rail/mount) then you could zero at 50m and still be able to dial out to around 500m (17-meters of drop). But, for me at least, instead of dialling my elevations I find it quicker and easier to use the SFP holdover reticle and the magnification to adjust the SFP reticle, which FFP doesn't allow. My scopes have 105 minutes (30.5Mil) of elevation adjustment, plus 15.4 minutes (4.5Mil) on the BDC reticle, for 120 minutes (34.9Mil) total, but by winding the magnification back to 4.5-power I get 61.4MoA on the reticle, for 165 minutes (48Mil) total. And I haven't found it any harder to see the targets at the lower magnification. I zero my long range rifle at 200m using an adjustable mount, which gives me the full 105 minutes to dial elevation if I want to (out past 500m).

Grab yourself a set of round plates, 200mm, 150mm and 100mm, set them up at 275m, and you can practice the Long Gong shoot every day. It's a good starting point I think for anybody wanting to shoot long range. It's cheap and very easy with only one distance and three targets to worry about. The large plate is large enough that it won't take very long before you're hitting it consistently, while the small plate is small enough to be very challenging. And being .22LR you don't need AR or BZ alloy, just mild steel. You can paint circles on a large sheet of cardboard to practice on while waiting for steels.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1772969349702586/posts/2231104373889079/
https://enoughgun.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=18502

[SyndicateLawyer]

Range and Target.

I have a property that will allow me to shoot up to 800m. So I slowly want to build my skill to be able to shoot that far. Don't know if that will be possible with a .22lr, but I'll try I guess, plenty of people doing it online. If .22lr limits me in the future, I can just get another rifle and use the same scope. That was my thought when selecting that scope.

Also every video I see online, they say get a high mag scope so you can see your bullet holes and so you get better features on the expensive scope.

I haven't reached 800m yet, but others have. I find around 330m is where it is still down to the shooter, past there it becomes more a matter of what the wind is doing. A 1200mm-square target at 500m becomes fairly easy to hit consistently, once you've sussed out what the wind is doing, but that is very, very difficult unless you have a large area of dusty ground around your target so you can see where your misses are falling. A 750mm-square plate would be more challenging to get every shot on, but also more frustrating trying to work out the wind. Your elevation is pretty easy to calculate so your shots should be within a meter high or low depending on wind values, but your windage might be five-meters or more off to one side. If you, or a spotter, can see where your misses are falling then it's a fairly simple matter to adjust your hold, or dial your windage, to suit, but if you are shooting on grass for example, it's a matter of trying _many_ different holds until you hopefully hear a ding indicating a hit.

As for magnification, the quality of the light and the air determines how far you can see small objects, not so much the magnification. With 7-power I can't see .22 holes in paper at 100m, with 9-power I can. At 18-power I can see holes out to 200m, but it's starting to get tricky, sometimes I might not see them until I have a "smudge" of three or four holes before I can make them out individually. With 40-power I can usually see holes out to around 250m, but not always. Past there even a $5000 Swarovski spotting scope couldn't see holes consistently. You are better served shooting at reactive targets past about 250m, in my opinion, steel plates that ring loud enough to be heard over the wind, or plates that move or fall over when hit.

I wouldn't go with a 50mm objective, that's huge. And I wouldn't go with FFP, especially on a .22LR. I also wouldn't use Milirads as I prefer working in minutes, but that's entirely personal preference, if you plan to shoot with other people using mils you might find it simpler to use mils. The .22LR has a _very_ steep trajectory so you need a lot of elevation to shoot much further than 200m. If you wanted to maintain a 50m zero for hunting rabbits and foxes, you will need a scope with at least 30MoA (8.7Mil) above centre to be able to dial out to just 200m (around 1600mm of bullet drop), and about 55MOA (16Mil) to reach 300m (nearly five-meters of drop). If you have a scope that has 120MOA (34.9Mil) total elevation adjustment, and you mount it on a 60MOA (17.5Mil) rail (or an adjustable rail/mount) then you could zero at 50m and still be able to dial out to around 500m (17-meters of drop). But, for me at least, instead of dialling my elevations I find it quicker and easier to use the SFP holdover reticle and the magnification to adjust the SFP reticle, which FFP doesn't allow. My scopes have 105 minutes (30.5Mil) of elevation adjustment, plus 15.4 minutes (4.5Mil) on the BDC reticle, for 120 minutes (34.9Mil) total, but by winding the magnification back to 4.5-power I get 61.4MoA on the reticle, for 165 minutes (48Mil) total. And I haven't found it any harder to see the targets at the lower magnification. I zero my long range rifle at 200m using an adjustable mount, which gives me the full 105 minutes to dial elevation if I want to (out past 500m).

Grab yourself a set of round plates, 200mm, 150mm and 100mm, set them up at 275m, and you can practice the Long Gong shoot every day. It's a good starting point I think for anybody wanting to shoot long range. It's cheap and very easy with only one distance and three targets to worry about. The large plate is large enough that it won't take very long before you're hitting it consistently, while the small plate is small enough to be very challenging. And being .22LR you don't need AR or BZ alloy, just mild steel. You can paint circles on a large sheet of cardboard to practice on while waiting for steels.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1772969349702586/posts/2231104373889079/
https://enoughgun.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=18502

Thanks for the info. Very helpful!

I'm not planning to hunt at the moment and will only be doing target shooting. Is there a scope that would be better suited? (My budget is $800; can go higher if there is considerable value for the price)

[SyndicateLawyer]

Others will be along shortly to give you all kinds of advice from WTH do you want to put the Hubble telescope on it and the others will say hang on a minute why such a small scope .
I'd give some advice but that would be no good coz I don't know s**t apparently.

Ha ha, who's got on your nerves recently?
I must admit I'm one who thinks 6-24x is frigging massively overpowered,I don't even run anything that big on a centrefire let alone a rimfire. And I think spending 2k on " long-range " 22rf is ridiculous. But its not my money and I've no idea on the OPs purpose. Myself,I'd go buy an old model 2 brno and chuck a 4x40 on it and spend the next 50 years shooting thousands of rabbits etc and be pretty frigging happy

I'm really interested in long-distance shooting and want to practice with this rifle to build my skills up to over 500m. I'm not sure if this rifle will help me get there or hold me back.

I'm lucky enough that spending around $2000 on the rifle isn't a huge concern, but I do wonder if it’s worth the investment. Also, I noticed you put 'long range' in quotes—are these claims from the manufacturer usually just marketing fluff or will a rifle with that label be actually better. And do you have any scope recommendations for a scope that I can use for short and long distance shooting?

[deye243]

For the rifle it is just marketing hype as it is nothing more than their standard varmint barrel on the same action as their whole line of rifles comes in a chassis that's about the only difference it's not going to be any more accurate than all their rifles that will all be down to the ammunition and if you're hoping the hit targets out as far as 500 with a Rimfire you can expect to pay close to $50 per box for that kind of consistency needed Rimfire ammunition is notorious for a lot of vertical .
For a cheap scope these are proving to be great bang for buck and yes the bigger the objective lens the better especially on heavily overcast days.
arken ep5 5-25×56
https://www.thebarn.net.au/Products/ARK ... VPR/113619

I would go moa as it's a smaller increment than Mills or point one of a mill

[SyndicateLawyer]

For the rifle it is just marketing hype as it is nothing more than their standard varmint barrel on the same action as their whole line of rifles comes in a chassis that's about the only difference it's not going to be any more accurate than all their rifles that will all be down to the ammunition and if you're hoping the hit targets out as far as 500 with a Rimfire you can expect to pay close to $50 per box for that kind of consistency needed Rimfire ammunition is notorious for a lot of vertical .
For a cheap scope these are proving to be great bang for buck and yes the bigger the objective lens the better especially on heavily overcast days.
arken ep5 5-25×56
https://www.thebarn.net.au/Products/ARK ... VPR/113619

I would go moa as it's a smaller increment than Mills or point one of a mill

I think I might get the EP5, as a lot of people have been recommending it over the SH4J. I'm not going to be shooting 500m everyday, but being able to do so and not being limited by equipment would be nice.

[bladeracer]

Others will be along shortly to give you all kinds of advice from WTH do you want to put the Hubble telescope on it and the others will say hang on a minute why such a small scope .
I'd give some advice but that would be no good coz I don't know s**t apparently.

Ha ha, who's got on your nerves recently?
I must admit I'm one who thinks 6-24x is frigging massively overpowered, I don't even run anything that big on a centrefire let alone a rimfire. And I think spending 2k on " long-range " 22rf is ridiculous. But its not my money and I've no idea on the OPs purpose. Myself ,I'd go buy an old model 2 brno and chuck a 4x40 on it and spend the next 50 years shooting thousands of rabbits etc and be pretty frigging happy

I'm really interested in long-distance shooting and want to practice with this rifle to build my skills up to over 500m. I'm not sure if this rifle will help me get there or hold me back.

I'm lucky enough that spending around $2000 on the rifle isn't a huge concern, but I do wonder if it’s worth the investment. Also, I noticed you put 'long range' in quotes—are these claims from the manufacturer usually just marketing fluff or will a rifle with that label be actually better. And do you have any scope recommendations for a scope that I can use for short and long distance shooting?

Starting out with .22LR will translate to longer ranges with centrefires after you've gotten a good grounding on trajectory and wind reading, for a whole lot less money than doing all that practicing with a centrefire. Personally, having tried it a lot, I don't think there's a useful amount to be learned shooting .22LR beyond about 350m max, though it is still good fun. The very poor ballistic coefficient of the cast and heeled .22LR bullet (around .135) makes it less predictable at distance unless you happen to shoot somewhere that either has no wind, or very stable wind, which is a rarity for me. When you switch to centrefire rifles with much more consistent jacketed bullets with BC's of .600 or more you'll see much tighter groups at two, three, even four times the distance of the .22LR. The high-BC bullets are far less affected by wind, and the much higher velocities (around three times higher) mean they are effected by the environment for significantly less time.

With the .22LR at 500m, a change from 1mph to 3mph in a pure tailwind will lift the bullet about 70mm higher on the target, with something like a 6.5mm 147gn ELDM the wind change only lifts the bullet by perhaps 6mm, it's virtually unaffected. The amount of difference in lateral wind drift is similarly vast. A 3mph wind is generally considered to be imperceptible to most people but is very noticeable in the .22LR bullet at distance. A 3mph change in a full-value crosswind at 500m will move the .22LR bullet perhaps 1000mm across the target, if the wind is gusting 3mph the group will be meters wide.

How much you are happy to invest in it is entirely personal, I just use the Ruger Precision Rimfire and Ruger American Target with Bushnell scopes for my long range shooting. A rimfire rifle marketed as "long range" will have a canted rail, probably at least 30-minutes, something for attaching a bipod or tripod, and probably a butt stock with adjustable comb and a means of mounting a monopod or bag rider for good rear support. I doubt you would find yourself wanting something better than what you are looking at, but it's possible you might find a rifle or scope that you prefer to use. You really won't know that until you start trying a variety of rifles and scopes for yourself. The scope claims to have 108 minutes or 32Mil of elevation adjustment, so that's good. The reticle is very busy but I reckon I could work with it without too much confusion, and it has another 12Mil of holdovers. The rifle comes with a 25-minute rail, but has a match chamber so might not shoot so well with the cheaper ammunitions. I prefer cheap ammo, the point of .22 shooting for me is that it is a whole lot cheaper for practicing than centrefire shooting. If I have to pay a dollar a round to get the accuracy I require then I would prefer to just shoot centrefire at much longer distances with better results. Make sure you talk to your dealer about buying your ammo by the case, after you spend some time finding out which ammunition it prefers, you might be able to save 20% or more buying it 5000rds at a time. And a case of ammo doesn't last long at all when you start practicing.

If you want to be able to use the same scope for close-range and long-range shooting it just needs to have a lot of elevation adjustment. Combine it with an adjustable rail/mount or a fixed rail of around half the total elevation adjustment of the scope and zero it at close range with the elevation turret fully down, this gives you the full adjustment for shooting. You can shoot long range with less elevation adjustment but you will have to zero much further out. A scope with 120 minutes of elevation mounted so it's zeroed at 50m at the bottom of the turret will allow you to dial out to around 500m. A scope that only has 40 minutes of elevation will need to be zeroed with an adjustable mount at around 400m to dial out to 500m. To shoot a rabbit with this setup at 20m you would have to hold about 500mm under the rabbit, not at all practical

[SyndicateLawyer]

Others will be along shortly to give you all kinds of advice from WTH do you want to put the Hubble telescope on it and the others will say hang on a minute why such a small scope .
I'd give some advice but that would be no good coz I don't know s**t apparently.

Ha ha, who's got on your nerves recently?
I must admit I'm one who thinks 6-24x is frigging massively overpowered, I don't even run anything that big on a centrefire let alone a rimfire. And I think spending 2k on " long-range " 22rf is ridiculous. But its not my money and I've no idea on the OPs purpose. Myself ,I'd go buy an old model 2 brno and chuck a 4x40 on it and spend the next 50 years shooting thousands of rabbits etc and be pretty frigging happy

I'm really interested in long-distance shooting and want to practice with this rifle to build my skills up to over 500m. I'm not sure if this rifle will help me get there or hold me back.

I'm lucky enough that spending around $2000 on the rifle isn't a huge concern, but I do wonder if it’s worth the investment. Also, I noticed you put 'long range' in quotes—are these claims from the manufacturer usually just marketing fluff or will a rifle with that label be actually better. And do you have any scope recommendations for a scope that I can use for short and long distance shooting?

Starting out with .22LR will translate to longer ranges with centrefires after you've gotten a good grounding on trajectory and wind reading, for a whole lot less money than doing all that practicing with a centrefire. Personally, having tried it a lot, I don't think there's a useful amount to be learned shooting .22LR beyond about 350m max, though it is still good fun. The very poor ballistic coefficient of the cast and heeled .22LR bullet (around .135) makes it less predictable at distance unless you happen to shoot somewhere that either has no wind, or very stable wind, which is a rarity for me. When you switch to centrefire rifles with much more consistent jacketed bullets with BC's of .600 or more you'll see much tighter groups at two, three, even four times the distance of the .22LR. The high-BC bullets are far less affected by wind, and the much higher velocities (around three times higher) mean they are effected by the environment for significantly less time.

With the .22LR at 500m, a change from 1mph to 3mph in a pure tailwind will lift the bullet about 70mm higher on the target, with something like a 6.5mm 147gn ELDM the wind change only lifts the bullet by perhaps 6mm, it's virtually unaffected. The amount of difference in lateral wind drift is similarly vast. A 3mph wind is generally considered to be imperceptible to most people but is very noticeable in the .22LR bullet at distance. A 3mph change in a full-value crosswind at 500m will move the .22LR bullet perhaps 1000mm across the target, if the wind is gusting 3mph the group will be meters wide.

How much you are happy to invest in it is entirely personal, I just use the Ruger Precision Rimfire and Ruger American Target with Bushnell scopes for my long range shooting. A rimfire rifle marketed as "long range" will have a canted rail, probably at least 30-minutes, something for attaching a bipod or tripod, and probably a butt stock with adjustable comb and a means of mounting a monopod or bag rider for good rear support. I doubt you would find yourself wanting something better than what you are looking at, but it's possible you might find a rifle or scope that you prefer to use. You really won't know that until you start trying a variety of rifles and scopes for yourself. The scope claims to have 108 minutes or 32Mil of elevation adjustment, so that's good. The reticle is very busy but I reckon I could work with it without too much confusion, and it has another 12Mil of holdovers. The rifle comes with a 25-minute rail, but has a match chamber so might not shoot so well with the cheaper ammunitions. I prefer cheap ammo, the point of .22 shooting for me is that it is a whole lot cheaper for practicing than centrefire shooting. If I have to pay a dollar a round to get the accuracy I require then I would prefer to just shoot centrefire at much longer distances with better results. Make sure you talk to your dealer about buying your ammo by the case, after you spend some time finding out which ammunition it prefers, you might be able to save 20% or more buying it 5000rds at a time. And a case of ammo doesn't last long at all when you start practicing.

If you want to be able to use the same scope for close-range and long-range shooting it just needs to have a lot of elevation adjustment. Combine it with an adjustable rail/mount or a fixed rail of around half the total elevation adjustment of the scope and zero it at close range with the elevation turret fully down, this gives you the full adjustment for shooting. You can shoot long range with less elevation adjustment but you will have to zero much further out. A scope with 120 minutes of elevation mounted so it's zeroed at 50m at the bottom of the turret will allow you to dial out to around 500m. A scope that only has 40 minutes of elevation will need to be zeroed with an adjustable mount at around 400m to dial out to 500m. To shoot a rabbit with this setup at 20m you would have to hold about 500mm under the rabbit, not at all practical

Thanks a lot for this information, definitely will keep this mind when making the purchase.

[deye243]

You can dial up to where spring pressure still works plus you should have another 20 or 30 moa in the rec as well weather it's enough I don't know but I think you will have your hands full with 200 to 300 yards for a while .

[Peter988]

I am a dinosaur. I have used my 22 for the past 60 years to shoot rabbits out to about 100m. I can’t imagine bothering to shoot a 22 at 200m or longer. I would get sick of missing. Some folk obviously get a kick out of it. If you just want to shoot distant targets go straight to a 223. At least you will hit a few things.

[bladeracer]

I am a dinosaur. I have used my 22 for the past 60 years to shoot rabbits out to about 100m. I can’t imagine bothering to shoot a 22 at 200m or longer. I would get sick of missing. Some folk obviously get a kick out of it. If you just want to shoot distant targets go straight to a 223. At least you will hit a few things.

Like anything else, if you put in enough practice there's no reason you should be missing that often. With some practice you should be able to fairly consistently hit a 100mm circle at 200m with a scoped .22LR, and a 200mm circle at 300m. But when you start hitting it so often that a miss is an anomaly it's time to make the target smaller or move it further away. For me, this sort of shooting is all about practicing and learning by pushing the envelope well outside the situations you'd encounter while hunting, while greatly exaggerating wind and trajectory by using a short, blunt, slow bullet. When you can consistently hit small targets placed randomly across a paddock from 100m out to 300m with a .22LR then you can be very confident in your abilities to cleanly take live targets at much closer distances. When I decided a few years ago that I wasn't happy with my offhand shooting ability I put in a great deal of .22LR practice and improved a great deal fairly quickly. Determine where your weaknesses are and work on improving those, you gain nothing by constantly practicing the stuff that you're already good at. If you're sick of missing the target, put in the practice until you get sick of hitting it

It's very easy to estimate ranges around 250m and be out by ten meters or more. With a .223, or any number of high-velocity rifles, the difference in bullet drop over that 10m is maybe 30mm so you'll still nail even a small target, with a .22LR your shot might be 300mm high or low and miss by a lot. If your 250m range estimate is 20m out your shot might be 600mm high or low. If you haven't tried it before I suggest simply getting out in a paddock and having some fun yourself.

As for the .223, noise, cost, and finding somewhere big enough to shoot are the reasons I prefer to practice with .22LR. I can lay in a paddock for three hours and burn half a brick of .22LR ammo for $35, instead of $400+ for centrefire ammo. And I can walk out and do it near the house whenever the urge grabs me, it doesn't leave my ears ringing, or bother my neighbours. To shoot much further than 400m I have to go to friends' places.

[Peter988]

Yep. Like I said. Some folk get a kick out of it and I understand everything you say. Horses for courses. I don’t target shoot. As a hunter I have no interest in extending distances. I’ve only ever shot 22, 222 or 223 so rarely shoot past 200m. But that’s not to denigrate what you do in any way at all. I get that.

[Wapiti]

Crikey. Me too, targets are only to check zero for humane hunting, or for good field load development, but we all have different needs.

Having said that, a mate and I spent about 1/2hr dropping 22LR HV's onto some cans (or tried to) at 350m and what we reckoned was, there was no point going more than a 2-7x proper rimfire scope (which we use because of the paralax requirements for the short range round) because the slightest breeze change or heat shimmer threw the little slugs off by feet difference, it didn't matter what extra magnification we had, couldn't take advantage of it because the little lead rocks were going everywhere. At our skill levels anyway.
After that 1/2hr we decided to do something else.

[Coxy383]

I'm looking to purchase my first firearm. As I am a beginner I want to get a .22lr to practice. I have picked out the following:

- Rifle: CZ 457 Varmint Long Range Precision TB 5rnd 20" for $1,975.00
- Scope: Arken SH4J 6-24x50 GEN 2 FFP VPR MIL for $749.00

Is this a good pick for a beginner? Is the scope alright and are there going to be any compatibility issues with the scope and rifle? Is this a reasonable price for a first rifle? DoI just buy Rings to mount the scope or is there anything extra I need to purchase?

Simple answer is you won't be disappointed in either purchase there.

[bladeracer]

Yep. Like I said. Some folk get a kick out of it and I understand everything you say. Horses for courses. I don’t target shoot. As a hunter I have no interest in extending distances. I’ve only ever shot 22, 222 or 223 so rarely shoot past 200m. But that’s not to denigrate what you do in any way at all. I get that.

I started with target shooting when I was thirteen, with PCYC and air-rifles, open sights at ten metres indoors, then Army Cadets shooting open-sight .22LR indoors and outdoors, though I think the ranges were only about 25m, hard to recall nowadays. Then I moved to the country in 1983 and spent a couple years chasing foxes every day. I still did a lot of practice, mostly with .22LR, but I thought 120m was a very long shot for .22 back then. I remember trying to hit something out around 400m or so, without success, but I was just messing about, it wasn't serious. There was a valley near the house where I would put some targets up along the pines on the fenceline and shoot them from the old dairy, which was probably not more than 100m. My rifles then were unscoped semi-autos (10/22, Winchester 190 and a pair of Model 20 Stirlings), so it was challenging enough to be fun. I have no interest in competing against other people, so I have only shot once at a rifle range since Cadets in 1983, a 200m to 500m military rifle competition I shot last year in NSW. I enjoyed it, but it really wasn't worth all that time, expense and effort when I can walk out into the paddock here and shoot the same sort of thing for my own enjoyment. All of my practicing is either experimenting with ideas, or trying to improve my general shooting abilities for hunting purposes. I simply enjoy shooting for the sake of the shooting, I don't need trophies or awards, and I certainly don't need some sort of abstract metric to make me feel that I'm a better shooter than the people around me. I just want to be confident in my own abilities in the field, without trying to second guess myself as to whether I'm capable of taking a shot. By constant practice I know whether a shot is viable, within my own ethical framework. My girlfriend is the same, zero interest in shooting rifle competition, she just enjoys practicing to build her confidence in her own abilities.

I did do IPSC pistol for many years, which is all done at clubs, and I'm getting back into handguns again now, so I'm spending a lot of time at pistol clubs after twenty years away. This involves an hour travelling to the clubs, and back, so time and dollars add up quickly, but my girlfriend is also getting into it and we're enjoying ourselves. I'm looking at IPSC, 3-Gun and Cowboy Action among other disciplines, which combine pistols, rifles, and shotguns, so I am technically shooting rifles at clubs again after forty years.

[bladeracer]

Crikey. Me too, targets are only to check zero for humane hunting, or for good field load development, but we all have different needs.

Having said that, a mate and I spent about 1/2hr dropping 22LR HV's onto some cans (or tried to) at 350m and what we reckoned was, there was no point going more than a 2-7x proper rimfire scope (which we use because of the paralax requirements for the short range round) because the slightest breeze change or heat shimmer threw the little slugs off by feet difference, it didn't matter what extra magnification we had, couldn't take advantage of it because the little lead rocks were going everywhere. At our skill levels anyway.
After that 1/2hr we decided to do something else.

For me, that 350m is around the boundary between shooting and spraying into the wind. When conditions are perfect I can hit stuff, but even slight variations in conditions makes it too frustrating to be a test of shooting skill.

I often have the scope set down to 4.5-power to have enough reticle for holding over, and I still manage to hit stuff okay. Magnification is really helpful when shooting at targets that you can't see very clearly, they let you see the target clearly so you can hold the sight on it. But you don't usually need a lot of magnification to be able to make out a target that you're likely to be able to hit with a .22LR. If I were shooting at a chicken's egg at 300m then I'd probably find more magnification helpful.

[mickb]

I'm looking to purchase my first firearm. As I am a beginner I want to get a .22lr to practice. I have picked out the following:

- Rifle: CZ 457 Varmint Long Range Precision TB 5rnd 20" for $1,975.00
- Scope: Arken SH4J 6-24x50 GEN 2 FFP VPR MIL for $749.00

Is this a good pick for a beginner? Is the scope alright and are there going to be any compatibility issues with the scope and rifle? Is this a reasonable price for a first rifle? DoI just buy Rings to mount the scope or is there anything extra I need to purchase?

mate just checking your intended purposes and 22LR as a beginners gun is usually in the context of it teaching you the basics of manipulating a firearm, zeroing a scope, holding aim etc at low cost and low recoil.

Extreme long range with rimfires the 500m + you mentioned, is an extreme sport for rimfire. You dont need to do this to learn to shoot extreme range with a centrefire. In fact its going to be a lot easier to learn long range with a decent centrefire designed for the purpose in the first place.

Not knocking your plans or choices.. if you want to dive right into long range rimfire as a sport there is nothing wrong with getting into that sport. And you can of course use that 22LR for normal/beginner shooting as well.

[bigrich]

I'm looking to purchase my first firearm. As I am a beginner I want to get a .22lr to practice. I have picked out the following:

- Rifle: CZ 457 Varmint Long Range Precision TB 5rnd 20" for $1,975.00
- Scope: Arken SH4J 6-24x50 GEN 2 FFP VPR MIL for $749.00

Is this a good pick for a beginner? Is the scope alright and are there going to be any compatibility issues with the scope and rifle? Is this a reasonable price for a first rifle? DoI just buy Rings to mount the scope or is there anything extra I need to purchase?

[Fester]

22lr is the right place to start but it's a bunny hunter and 50m to shoot precision groups.
Even at 100yd, you will need the exy target ammo to shoot a half-decent group.
I used to use a 4-12x40 Bushnell and could use it to put a 10-shot group about a fist size on the 200yd targets after walking in using the dirt splashes, best with good wind conditions or you will be blowing 2m off target as well as aiming about 2m over.

I now use a 4-16 and can see holes on the 100 targets and get pin-point precision on the 50-yd targets to shoot those bug hole groups.

[safeshot]

I belive the scope specifications are a good choice ie 6 x 24 x 50. This is because you an crank it down to the 6 for .22 field shooting or spotlighting and the 24 x will be useful when you go to the range to do some .22 bench rest. Yes I know a lot of BR shooters use a scope with a lot more XX's but you an have a lot of shooting fun with the 24 scope.

An old mate of much experience said to me in my younger years, "There are two rules for scopes. One is like breeding horses you put the best on top" and the other, "Spend on top what you spent underneath"
So a .22 clunker kept in back of ute condition (yoiks!) doesnt need a multi dollar scope as the inherit accuracy in such an old neglected rifle is not there. and you would not put an El Cheapo scope on an olympic grade Anshutz either. and of course there is the old maxim that is a fair guide being "you get what you pay for."
so there is some thing more for you to think about work with or ignore.
and The choice of a 50mm objective lens thats the muzzle end one, is good as a 50 mm lens has a lot more light gathering than one smaller. So taking the formula diameter twice x11= then divide by14 = area in square mm. eg 50 x50 x11then divide x14 equals 1965 sq mm. A 40 mm scope lens is 1257 sq mm.
Best wishes on your buying.

[safeshot]

ps.. CZ are a very good rifle.