Rimfire Training To Improve Your Big Game Hunting

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I had been hunting a series of gated logging roads this particular crisp, fall morning when I finally stumbled upon my quarry. It was well within my rifle’s effective range and standing broadside under a large spruce tree on high alert. The shot would have to be quick if I wanted to capitalize on the opportunity. A small lodgepole pine made for a semi-stable rest to brace the forend of my rifle against. Safety off, full breath in, I exhaled as the crosshair settled on the base of the neck. The muffled crack of a suppressed rifle rang out and the hunt was over. I walked up to collect the male ruffed grouse killed by a perfectly placed .22 bullet. No meat loss made for perfect table fare.

This same scenario is universal across the West for many hunters chasing big-game animals every fall. Maximizing success in the field for big game for me has had a direct correlation with targeting small game and increasing trigger time with .22 rimfire rifles. From Ruger’s timeless classic 10/22 to the latest RimX bolt-action repeater rifles built with the same brand-name components as many large-caliber hunting rifles commonly found today, the options are limitless for .22LR trainers. Having a full-sized, bolt-action rimfire rifle that matches my big-game hunting rifles has proven highly effective in my preparation for long-range precision shooting.

The ability to shoot a suppressed rimfire rifle with subsonic, match ammunition allows me to shoot daily on my own property on small steel targets at 100 yards to work on positional shooting and just plain trigger time beyond dry-fire training. Paired with long-range (200-400 yards) shooting at my local shooting range affords me fine-tuning work on body position, breathing, trigger control and follow-up shots for a fraction of what it would cost me to shoot my .300 Win. Mag. or even a .223 Rem. trainer rifle commonly used by many competitive shooters. With ammunition costs rising with no end in sight, and the scarcity of components that's even more troubling, I don't want to limit my training based on supply and demand.

MY RIMFIRES OF CHOICE

Having grown up with the Ruger 10/22, I have customized them in every way possible and found the Volquartsen receivers to be the best budget option for building a semiauto or bolt-action rimfire for durability and precision. The Volquartsen aluminum receivers are more durable and less prone to stripping the receiver base holes when mounting larger optics more commonly used today for precision shooting. I built two rifles on the Volquartsen Summit and Volquartsen standard semiauto 10/22 platform both set up with Proof Research prefit 10/22 barrels and Timney Calvin Elite trigger assemblies. Mounted in Magpul 10/22 stocks, these made for reasonably priced rifles capable of great accuracy coupled with adjustable LOP and cheek weld for proper fitting. These rifles are great trainers, but I found myself wanting to build a .22 rimfire clone of my favorite hunting rifle for the ultimate trainer.

When the RimX receiver was released by Zermatt Arms, I knew this was the perfect start for the ultimate rimfire trainer rifle. The Remington 700 clone would allow for a rimfire to be built nearly identical in size, weight and feel as my hunting rifles built on Zermatt TL3 receivers. With control round feeding, AICS-based magazines, Rem. 700 trigger platform and pre-fit barrels, the RimX is the finest rimfire action in production. I mounted a Proof Research pre-fit .22 barrel to the RimX and had TS Customs build his KS1 stock for the barreled action to match my other hunting rifles built on KS1 stocks. The system worked perfectly and offered me a very accurate rimfire rifle that points and feels identical to my large-caliber hunting rifles. With Timney HIT triggers set at 1.5 pounds in my rifles, I can get great training with the same rifle fit and feel while spending $150 on 500 rounds of Match .22LR subsonic rifle ammunition, compared to $1,125 for 500 rounds of match 6.5 Creedmoor ammunition.

RECOIL MANAGEMENT VS. TRIGGER CONTROL

While recoil management is a very important skill set to master, making your first shot impact on your intended target is a far more important skill set to master to me. The shot always prefaces the recoil. Learning how to break a clean shot on command should be the number one goal for the precision hunter. Many shooters struggle with the fundamentals of this skill as they are focused on harnessing recoil regardless of the cartridge they are shooting. Everyone can shoot a .22LR without worrying about recoil and focus on building the perfect trigger control system. Regardless of your rifle shooting history, everyone can enjoy and learn a thing or two from some trigger basics and shooting with .22 rifles.

I often hear people speak negatively about .22LR training as it doesn’t incorporate enough recoil management skills. Often, the same people making these arguments shoot 16-lb. 6mm Creedmoor and 6.5 Creedmoor rifles with five-port brakes and/or suppressors mitigating the little recoil these short-action cartridges produce. There isn’t much to manage with these low-recoiling rifles when compared to a hunting rifle chambered in 7 PRC or even a .300 PRC. Recoil-management training to me is shooting an eight-pound .375 H&H and learning how to work with the rifle, not against it.

CALLING WIND

Working with a .22LR training rifle allows me to shoot suppressed subsonic ammunition at my local 400-yard range and work on my precision-shooting fundamentals with all the same mechanics plus wind calls that most modern centerfire cartridges would need 1,000+ yards to see the same wind deflection and drift as a .22LR subsonic does at 400 yards.

For example: a 6.5 PRC with Factory Hornady 147-grain ELDM ammunition at 2,950 fps, has a 1.5-second time of flight and drifts 1.4 Mils at 1,150 yards. A .22 with SK Match 40-grain at 1,070 fps, will have a 1.47-second time of flight and drift 3.7 Mils at 400 yards. I am able to work on my wind calls and get a realistic time-of-flight path for a fraction of the price and at my local range. The nearest 1,000-yard range with variable winds is about 3.5 hours away from me compared to my local range 30 minutes away. The .22 allows me to shoot more often while getting a very similar training value. Granted, I do shoot at long range quite frequently using my precision rifles, but over the last few years of employing the .22, I have found myself shooting less frequently behind the large-caliber rifles without a noticeable change in my accuracy or first-round capabilities with all my hunting rifles.

In some ways, I feel my capabilities with wind drift has improved in part to the .22 rimfire training as it is more susceptible to wind drift than any of my other rifles inside most applicable ranges, keeping me more honest and in tune with what the wind is doing than I ever was with shooting my match rifles. Match rifles made me lazy; shooting high BCs, high muzzle velocity and low recoil you can get away with a lot. While your hit probability increases with these factors, you get complacent and idle with positions and wind calls. My subsonic .22LR rifles do not allow for indolent shooting on MOA targets, even at wind speeds of 5-10 mph.

DAILY TRAINER

When it comes to rimfire training, I prefer to work on two drills that incorporate 50 rounds of ammunition or less to complete. The first drill I start with is the 21-dot drill, which is typically shot with 1- to 1.5-MOA circles on a sheet of paper with different fundamental checks for each row of dots. For rimfire training, I shrink the dots to .5 MOA and shoot the drill at 50 yards or 1-MOA dots at 100 yards. There are countless ways to work through the 21-dot format, but I mostly use each dot for building my position and executing one clean shot per dot. This gives me 21 reps at position building and working on the fundamentals of breathing, body position, trigger control and target acquisition. This is a universal drill for every rifle platform and a great way to get away from just shooting three- or five-shot groups on diamonds.

For positional-shooting drills, I typically use two-inch shoot-and-see stickers on a white sheet of paper. Working offhand, standing, kneeling, seated and tripod supported for 10 rounds each gives me 50 rounds of great training for the common positions most hunters face in field conditions. Shooting these targets at 100 yards gives me a solid base for training and has dramatically improved my positional shooting with hunting rifles. Having confidence in any shooting position to place a shot with surgical precision will no doubt lead to success in the field during hunting season.

The ability to shoot targets at 50-100 yards daily is far more beneficial practice than shooting only a large-caliber rifle once a month at longer distances. When you combine both into your shooting regimen, you really advance your skill set and become very comfortable with positional shooting and making accurate wind calls. Even if you don’t have property large enough for a range at home, accessing public land, or shooting at your local range more frequently, will inevitably improve your shooting. Ensuring affordable training ammunition, via a .22 rimfire, will not only help keep you on the range training throughout the year in preparation for fall, it will also improve your wind-reading abilities. Add in small-game hunting, and you have a real-world training approach that most hunters are missing.

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