{"id":3936,"date":"2016-11-19T22:39:17","date_gmt":"2016-11-20T02:39:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/?p=3936"},"modified":"2016-11-19T22:39:17","modified_gmt":"2016-11-20T02:39:17","slug":"22s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/22s\/","title":{"rendered":".22s!"},"content":{"rendered":"

With a rare weekend not teaching and realizing we hadn\u2019t shot a match since first quarter 2016, the Evil Princess and I did a quick look for what was available and found a .22 steel match at the friendly Little River Sportsmen\u2019s Association<\/a>.\u00a0 We grabbed some bulk box .22 ammo, threw an ACOG atop her 10\/22, blew the cobwebs out of the Clark Custom 10\/22 I had used years before to make Rifleman at my first Appleseed event, and as an afterthought grabbed an out of the box S&W M&P15 .22 rifle I had won at a match in 2010 or so. For pistols, we grabbed two of the EP\u2019s Ruger 22\/45 pistols, the only .22s we had on hand for which we had four magazines) and headed for the shoot.<\/p>\n

We didn\u2019t win a damn thing, but the shoot was still a hoot.\u00a0 We were reminded that when you\u2019re \u201caway from the game,\u201d you get slow. Lesson learned.\u00a0 We were reminded of something else: autoloading .22 rimfires are not the most reliable firearms on Earth.\u00a0 Long and narrow with a big protruding rim at the rear, the .22 Long Rifle cartridge is not ideal for feeding from box magazines. On our whole relay, only one shooter escaped malfunctions, and the EP and I both had several.<\/p>\n

Our ammo had been purchased during the long ammo drought of the Obama administration, brought on by the well-grounded fear that there was an anti-gunner in the White House.\u00a0 In discussing the matter with other shooters who regularly hit this neat little .22 match, the general consensus was that CCI Mini-Mag is currently the most reliable ammo for self-loading .22 firearms.<\/p>\n

The Evil Princess took some iPhone video, and on the way back I remarked, \u201cYou should be able to put together a helluva montage of jam-clearing vids.\u201d \u00a0\u201cOh, (expletive deleted)!\u201d she replied. \u201cI didn\u2019t think of that, and I deleted most of them.\u00a0 They mostly had comments you wouldn\u2019t want on the Backwoods Home <\/em>blog, anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still fun.\u00a0 And cheap.\u00a0 (The ammo, not the Evil Princess. She is fun, but not cheap.) Yes, we all kvetch about the price of .22 ammo, a direct result of its near-unavailability for the last eight years.\u00a0 I recall being offered a 500-round brick of economy grade Winchester .22 in West Virginia in 2013\u2026for a hundred dollars even. (I passed.)<\/p>\n

On Facebook today, friend (and occasional commentator here)

\"22<\/a>
22 Ammo on sale today in Lewis County Washington. Photo courtesy Tom Walls<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

Tom Walls posted a photo of Federal\u2019s good quality American Eagle .22 ammo for sale in Lewis County, Washington at $2.89 per box of fifty.\u00a0 While that provokes us geezers into fits of what the Evil Princess diagnoses as \u201cfogey-ism\u201d \u2013 \u201cWhen I went to the Western Auto and bought .22 Long Rifle for my dad when I was a boy, it was fifty cents a box!\u201d \u2013 we have to remember that just about everything else costs ten times more now than it did then.\u00a0 That would translate to .22 Long Rifle at under thirty cents a box if old money were new\u2026not as bad a deal as we seem to think it is today.<\/p>\n

My take-away? .22 rimfire in a semi-automatic firearm is not reliable enough (and certainly not powerful enough) for life-or-death firearms use\u2026but it\u2019s still affordable\u2026and it\u2019s darn sure still FUN!<\/p>\n

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Evil Princess runs her RB Precision\u00a0Evolution stocked Ruger 10\/22 under Trijicon ACOG. You know they’re serious when the sight costs more than the rest of the gun.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"LRSA<\/a><\/p>\n

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Lee Turner does a masterful \u00a0run with Ruger 10\/22 rifle.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n