Daughters first outing at long range

General Firearms Precision Rifle - Bolt Gun
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I took my 13 year old daughter out to the range today to try the new Bergara B14R .22lr trainer out at distance. This was the first shots on the rifle and the first time my daughter has ever shot past about 25 yards. She’s always been very “meh” about going to the range with me but she had a lot of fun today. She said she much preferred this over short range handgun and 22 rifle shooting.

I used CCI 36 grain Mini Mag. Not the greatest ammo for a precision rifle but I have 1000 rounds of it and it’s better than bulk pack stuff. Zeroed at 50 yards and it shot about 1.5 MOA. I didnt put out a target to get a good group for measuring as we were eating into our long range steel time.

The long range is being reworked and several targets have been moved or removed. Everything closer than 200 yards was gone. So that’s where we started. The 200 yard target is fairly good size, probably about 12x18 inches, and we had no problem hitting that. Wind was gusty from about 5-15 MPH so we had to hold a little bit of wind at that range. Left edge hold was sufficient.

When we pushed it out to distance things got a bit harder. 310 yards was a full size silhouette. The wind died down a bit for a while and we had no problem there. Low wind and a generous sized target really gave her a confidence boost. We then switched to a roughly 12 inch gong sitting at 330 yards. Soon after we switched the wind picked back up and wind calls were anywhere from 2-5 Mils depending on the gusts. Hit rates plummeted a good bit down to maybe 20-30 percent. I feared this was going to dissuade her, but she really enjoyed the challenge.

After about 100 rounds through the 22 she tried my BCM/Colt rifle sporting a red dot. She went 5 for 5 on the 310 yard silhouette from the bench using the mag monopod method. She really didn’t like the muzzle blast and sound. Maybe in another year or so she’ll grow into it.

She’s got a lot more to learn, but it looks like I might have a long range buddy now.

20230102_112809 by chase, on Flickr

20230102_110719 by chase, on Flickr

https://youtu.be/vDGDHb_bNxQ

https://youtu.be/v_l-tRKCJFs

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Good Papa, well done getting her out so one day she can handle firearms to protect herself. Time will sort that out Im sure. That Bergara is a very cool .22. Looks like fun was had by all.

PB

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Looks like fun!

My Bergara shoots Automatch pretty well if you are looking for a low cost alternative. The Walmart by me usually has it in stock.

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We often set up new shooters at 500 and 1000 yards. It’s bitter-sweet as it was a long evolution to get there ourselves… learning everything the hard way.

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See if you can finds some S&K Long Range Match. Out of my BXR I can easily keep half inch groups or less at 50 yards. I’ve tried some Norma 22 and groups open up quite a bit. Sounds like she had a ton of fun! Thats pretty good shooting with a 22. Great job!