By James M. Ayres
Your first gun should be a target-grade rifle or handgun chambered for the .22 long rifle cartridge. This principle used to be gospel. All new shooters were advised to start with the little rimfire. Then something changed; I’m not sure what. This now appears to be a minority opinion, one that many experts today disagree with. I have read that some think it’s best to go right to the gun and caliber the new shooter intends to use for big game or self-defense, especially if the object is self-defense.
I believe a foundation of marksmanship laid down with a .22 will better serve a shooter than any other introduction to shooting. About the only exception I can think of would be the shooter who plans to shoot only trap or skeet and never intends to do any other kind of shooting. Even then, starting with a .22 is not a bad thing.
A strong and solid foundation for marksmanship is best built on a few thousand rounds of .22 ammunition, expended in both fun and in serious practice. There’s a good deal more to shooting than hunting and self-defense, but if either of these endeavors is your goal, you won’t go wrong starting with a .22. Target shooting, from plinking to Olympic level, bench rest, trap and skeet are only a few of the shooting sports that have occupied and entertained millions. Virtually all of these activities can be built on a foundation laid down with the lowly .22 rimfire. Further, the twenty-two is more than a training round. It is a useful and versatile cartridge. I know more than one person who relies on a .22 for subsistence hunting, and others who, for various reasons, have used it for self defense.
Historical Notes: Information available indicates that the .22 Long Rifle was developed by the J. Stevens Arms & Tool Co., in 1887. It is the .22 Long case with a five-grain blackpowder charge (likely with a granulation similar to what we would now call FFFFg), and a 40-grain bullet instead of the original 29-grain. The Peters Cartridge Co. is supposed to have first manufactured it, specifically for Stevens. If this is true, then why does the 1888 Stevens catalog refer to a UMC .22-caliber Long rimfire rifle cartridge? This would be a gross ingratitude, at best. This 1888 catalog lists the Nos. 1, 2, 9, and 10 model break-open rifles as available in the new chambering with increased rifling twist. The New Model Pocket or Bicycle rifle also chambered it. The 1888 Marlin-Ballard catalog recommends the new .22 Long “Rifle” cartridge for its No. 3 Gallery rifle as being more accurate than the common .22 Long or Extra Long.
At one time, the .22 Long Rifle was available in blackpowder, semi-smokeless, and smokeless powder loads. Remington introduced the first high-velocity type, in 1930. The 40-grain solid and 36- and 38-grain hollowpoint bullet have been available for many years. The original case was not crimped, a feature that finally appeared in 1900. Space does not permit a full discussion of the different loads and types of .22 Long Rifle cartridges or the rifles and handguns that chamber it. Suffice to say, it is the most accurate and highly developed of any rimfire cartridge ever.
General Comments: The .22 Long Rifle is the most popular match cartridge in existence, and also the most widely used small-game and varmint cartridge. The high-velocity hollowpoint is the best field load and will do a good job on rabbit-sized animals out to 75 yards. Beyond that, it is unreliable. The Long Rifle is a great favorite of poachers for killing game out of season with close-up head shots. The modest report does not alarm or alert passersby or officials. At close range, the high-velocity load with the solid-lead bullet will penetrate six inches of soft pine board and has a maximum range of nearly two miles. Maximum range is achieved at the relatively low angle of between 25 and 30 degrees, so one must be very careful. Humans shot with the .22 Long Rifle often show little immediate distress, survive without complications for several days, then die very suddenly. This is mentioned because many individuals regard .22 rimfires as play things not powerful enough to be dangerous. Careless shooting with the .22 rimfire has probably led to the closure of more areas to hunting and caused more trouble than any other cartridge. Use your head and be careful! There is also a .22 Long Rifle shot cartridge, loaded by most companies and useful mostly for rat and other pest control.
Twenty-twos are just plain fun to shoot. They have none of the muzzle blast and recoil that intimidate so many new shooters. I have seen more than one first-time shooter try his hand with a large-caliber rifle or pistol only to be driven away from the sport forever with ringing ears and a sore shoulder from a monster magnum rifle, or a stinging palm from that Dirty Harry special. There’s no excuse to not use good ear and eye protection when shooting. However, even with the proper protection, the kick of a full power .44 Magnum revolver can be a bit much for a new shooter, or even some experienced shooters to deal with.
Accuracy always matters. But it can be especially important when you’re learning to shoot. A new shooter should expect to make many mistakes as part of the learning process. He or she will not benefit from a firearm that cannot be relied upon to produce consistent, excellent accuracy. With an inaccurate firearm a new shooter cannot be sure if a miss is his fault or that of the gun. With a “no excuses” gun, you can focus on improving your marksmanship and not worry about the gun.
Twenty-twos have the virtue of being inexpensive to buy and to shoot. A thousand rounds of .22 long rifle ammo costs less than dinner in a cheap restaurant, less than a car wash in Los Angeles, less than…well, you get the idea. Twenty-twos are cheap to shoot, even if you’re buying top quality ammo. The guns are also inexpensive to purchase. Unless you go for a top match-quality pistol or rifle, or a highly decorated one, you can get a .22 that will shoot the ears off a rattlesnake at fifty yards.
Make no mistake; the .22 is far more than a training round. It is effective beyond what its limits would appear to be. In part this is due to good sectional density, which enables it to penetrate well. There are subsistence hunters the world over who use the .22 to take whatever game is available, including large game.
One of my friends is an Inuit from Alaska and uses a .22 rifle to hunt caribou and moose to feed his family and to kill marauding walrus when they destroy his nets and eat his fish. Caribou and moose are very large animals. The technique Mike uses for caribou and moose is to get very close and shoot a burst of at least five rounds into the heart and lungs. He shoots walrus, which can weigh four hundred pounds and have sharp tusks, from about ten feet using headshots. The point is that the .22 is much more effective than most people think it is.
The military and various other government agencies also use the .22 to good effect. I was taught to always keep a Bug-Out Bag (BOB) close at hand to be used in the event I had to E&E (Escape & Evade) and found myself in a survival situation. I was to always keep in my BOB, a target-grade .22 pistol and 200 rounds of ammunition. The reasoning for this specific handgun was that it would take any reasonable game; it was effective as a self-defense weapon; its report was relatively quiet; and, the entire package, pistol and ammunition, weighed very little.
Today this kind of training is called Survival Escape Rescue Evasion (SERE) and is taught to elite units, covert agents, and pilots. In one military school I am aware of the trainers and students take everything from frogs to deer with .22 handguns as part of their SERE training. They do so legally on a military reservation.
The .22 is an effective all-around cartridge. It’s good to know that in a survival situation, you can take large game with a .22. However, do not go out in search of your autumn whitetail with your new .22 pistol or rifle. Be sure to check regulations with your local fish and game authorities to learn which firearms are legal for the game you pursue. In general, small game is fair game for a .22, but check and make sure.
When you select your .22, be aware that performance will vary with various brands of ammo. You should try as many different variations as you can find in order to determine which one groups best and which is most reliable in your gun.
Without exception, everyone in my Basic Training and Advanced Infantry Training classes who qualified as Expert, which none of us considered a major accomplishment, had owned and shot a .22 since they were kids.
By James Card
I like gear that breaks down. To put it more specifically, gear that is designed to disassemble into separate parts for convenient storage and transport. One of my favorite fly rods breaks down into seven pieces and fits into a small tube. My recurve bow is of the take-down kind: unbolt the two limbs from the riser and other than those three pieces, all I need are arrows, the bowstring and my shooting glove. Ruger’s 10/22 Takedown gives me the same satisfaction: the barrel twists off a locking mechanism and in the other hand is the stock and action. Combine that with the fly rod and recurve bow and you’re set for a great backcountry outing.
There is a creeping feeling about take-down gear items: a sense that they are not built solid enough as their one-unit counterparts. This perception of quality can range from items that at first seem nifty but are really pieces of junk to take-down equipment that equals or surpasses their solid-state competitors. With the Ruger Takedown (the company spells it as one word) there is no doubt that the rifle functions as well as all other 10/22 rifles. And that says a lot since the 10/22 has been in production since 1964 and it is one of the finest semi-auto rifle designs ever produced.
When I first picked up the Takedown, the locking mechanism was so intuitive that I was able to take apart and reattach the barrel without looking at the user’s manual. It locks with an affirmative twist and unlocks with a twist and a push of a nub-like lever. It’s that simple. Other than that, it has all the great qualities one would expect from a 10/22. The black synthetic stock is plain and simple and that might turn off some shooters but to me it is a virtue: this is a gun designed to be a traveling companion. A few scratches accumulated during your adventures is little to fret about for a tool that is meant to be used often.
