A Day At The Range!

The weather was crazy this week, we decided to go to the shooting range instead of ice fishing, due to the warm, & wet weather this week. Michael wanted to get his halogram site set up on his Ruger 10/22, so we took that out and the Remington 870 youth 20 ga. for Jacob to start shooting, so he could get ready for our Ohio turkey hunt in April. Jake adjusted well to the 20 gauge, but he did have a hard time trying to stand and shoot. The gun was still a little too heavy for him. We need to get him used to shooting at a standing position, due to the fact he has to take a hunter's safety class in 3 weeks. He will have to shoot from a standing position.


I sighted in Michael's 10/22 for him at the range. It wasn't too bad to get it ready. We started on the 12 1/2 yard range or pistol line. Click on the target to see larger picture. On the first target you can see our first two shots were on the paper at the lower left. We had to start somewhere. Then we went 2 1/2 complet rounds up and 1 1/2 rounds right, that put us 2 clicks left and 3 clicks low. We then went up 2 1/2 rounds up and 1 round right, that put us dead on vertically, and 2 clicks right. Our next adjustment was 1 complete round left, that put us dead on at 12 1/2 yards, only 5 shots to get there!
The above target was for 25 yards. First shot was 7 clicks high, and 1 click left. We went down 3/4 of a round and right about 1/4 round. That put us right on top of the bull, I went over 5 clicks which put us basically in the same spot only dead center horizontally. I then moved down 5 clicks which dropped it down to 1 click below the bull. This seemed to drop too much so I shot again and it drifted right about 1 click. We then cleaned the rifle and moved it back up 5 clicks. That last shot put us back on top of the bull. Thinking that it was close enough, we moved on to the 50 yard range.
The above target was at the 50 yard range. The first shot was 1/2 click low and 1 click left. I made a 2 click right adjustment and let Michael take over. He put the first two through the bull. Then he started to experiment with the different reticle patterns. Only 13 rounds to hit the bull at 50 yards, not bad!

The above target was used for the different patterns to see if they shot differently. I used the cross hair pattern to do the basic sight in. Michael wanted to switch to the small red dot and tried to shoot the bottom left target. As you can see the 5 shot group was about 3 clicks high and one click left. He then switched back to the cross hair pattern and shot the bottom right target and put 3 shots in the inner black ring, one just on the edge of the same ring and one flyer. I never shot it with the small dot, so I don't know if it was him or the pattern that made the difference. I do know that I like to use the cross hair pattern to draw my eye to the center of the target.

Once we got sighted in the boys began to plink away, with good sucess. Later in the day about after about 100 rounds into it, Jake had a misfire!!! I cleared the action and inspected the round. The firing pin DID hit the primer rim, but it didn't fire. I then took two pliers and pulled the bullet out of the case and dumped the powder out onto the snow. There was a clear impression made on the primer rim. This is the first time I have experienced this and I guess it does happen every so often. You just need to be careful when pulling the bullet out to disable the round.