The oldest is sick and was unable to make it to swim lessons last night. Luckily for us, it stormed like hell and they canceled the class so we get a make up day on Friday.
Since Friday was going to be range night, I hadn't loaded any 10mm up yet. So I had to rush to the range last night and just took the Ruger .22. I was kind of bummed because I've been wanting to shoot the 10 for a while, a little for the boom factor and a little for the fact that I need to stay in shape with my defense weapon.
Got to Shoot Straight and realized I forgot my targets. So I picked up 10 smaller ones which, actually was ok with me. .22lr show up better on the pink than they do black.
Started off pretty rough. I was shooting like an unmanned fire hose and was having a hard time maintaining concentration. Granted, the couple next to me was shooting a .357 Magnum and every time they lit off a round my eyes would water, but that's no excuse.
Surprisingly, I had quite a few dud rounds. However, I soon found a great use for them. I would eject the dud and mix it back in with the pile of rounds to be loaded. Now, I had no idea when I'd hit a dud or even if I would. Guess who discovered that he had a (very slight) flinch? The good news was that by the end of the evening, I'd hit a dud and the muzzle wouldn't move a millimeter. Flinch gone.
As the evening went on, I got my groupings at 10 and 15 yards to 8 ring and smaller. However, I noticed I kept shooting wide. Then I noticed that my front site was loose...again. The great guys at Shoot Straight fixed it up for me at the end of the night (a little Loc-Tite should hold it) but I had to manage while I was shooting. Still, for having a loose front sight, I managed to hit the 10 ring quite a bit.
A big factor in that was the fact I finally learned how to use the site properly. It's been a little odd not using two dots in back, one in front. My Dan Wesson has two bars and a bright red front sight that all have to line up, the Glock has two dots in back and one in front (which generally lets you know you're shooting forward and not much else), and the rifles have open sights which are totally different.
Anyway, with the Ruger, there's a single line on the back in the middle and the Hi-Viz front sight. I found that the back sight was irrelevant save the little white line. As long as the front dot made an i then you were on target. I don't know why I was trying to use the edges of the rear as some sort of reference. But when it finally snapped on how the thing worked, my groupings simply shrank by half.
Lastly, I've had a dickens of a time feeding the Ruger. The first round would never load and I looked like some sort of jackass constantly slamming the magazine in over and over. Many times I smooshed the bullet too bad to shoot. Once I got the first to load, the rest just popped in with no problems. Only had two jams the entire night, and I shot at least 150 rounds.
Turns out, the bolt locks open after the last round is fired. I would drop the magazine, put another in, then let the bolt slide home. This rarely worked the first time. What I realized is that if I shut the bolt, then put the magazine in and pull the bolt back & release, it would feed perfectly every time. Of course, I figured this out on the last 40 shots, but at least next time will go a bit smoother.
Overall, by the end of the evening, I was shooting well and had cured the flinching. Dry firing this thing is hard because the bolt locks open and won't fire unless a magazine has been inserted - and Ruger designed this .22 to be dry fired safely. It's just too damned annoying to cock it.
Then again, can you ever really have a bad day at the range?
What I realized is that if I shut the bolt, then put the magazine in and pull the bolt back & release, it would feed perfectly every time.