Practice rifles

[YZ-80]

Great looking rifle sir!

Thanks! They are nice for the price. Interchangeable barrels too!

 

[Greyfox]

I routinely practice and shoot pests with the same rifle/scope I use for Rimfire PRS. It is set up to hit 10" steel out to 350 yards. Wind and elevation adjustments are accurately corrected using the same Ballistic Rangefinders I use with my centerfire hunters. Additionally, I'll shoot and practice centerfire PRS, Egg Shoots, etc. with a 6.5x4, a good, lower intensity cartridge that complements my 6.5x284 hunting rifles. All this is excellent conditioning for hunting season........my top priority.

 

[Capt RB]

I use a .22 out to 300yds for wind and fundamentals. I use a 308 for centerfire range time to cement recoil management and also use it for students. This Fall I was at 4315round count. I'm currently at 4488. It doesn't shoot as it did, however, it will still hold better than 1/2 moa out as far as I shoot it. The 308 to me is a better practice cartridge due to the fact you will have to manage recoil whereas a 223 has so little you can cheat and not pay a penalty. The barrel life of both the 08 or 223 allows years of use this way.
When I do bring a hunting rifle with it's lighter weight barrel A long day would be 20 rounds. All of them are loaded to the highest node I can run accurately. I will bring them when I have either a lot of wind or a big change in temp to get the data. Otherwise, they are at home.

 

[Backcountry sports]

Do you primarily practice with your hunting rifles?

Do you use a small cartridge "trainer" for trigger time, fundamentals, better barrel life?

Most LR hunting rifles are barrel burners and while barrels are expendable, when you're shooting 100 rounds a month or so on a big boomer you're going to be doing load work up before hunting season every year...not even considering component costs...so how do you personally balance getting trigger time?

this is a bit of an open ended conversation I'm just interested in what y'all are doing, and figured this could be a good and educational discussion with many stuck inside and bored

I use my bolt action 223 and 204 for practice that way I dont waist the good ammo for the hunting rifle or wear it out and it's way cheeper

 

[JanP]

I hunt with a Blaser R93, just have to change the hunting barrel for a 223 barrel. That I use fors practice. Actually I have just one stock with Atzl trigger and 9 different barrels from 223 till 458Lot.

 

[dfanonymous]

I pretty much use all my rifles. Some get treated differently then others, per their dynamic.

 

[imartin]

Agree with Capt RB. I picked up a 308 recently that I plan to use primarily as a practice gun. For me it's a different experience shooting a rifle with some recoil compared to say a 22 LR. Shooting fundamentals are the same regardless of the cartridge, but something about keeping that mental edge and focus knowing that a gun is going to recoil is an important piece of practice for me.

 

[TRG65]

I love shooting and practicing with a 22. I think it does benefit. It is easy and cheap to shoot 100 rds of 22 at 100 or 150 and get great practice with noticeable benefits. However, for me its not 100% translatable, just because of the lower recoil, I sometimes get sloppy then on how hard I hold my centerfire. I still need to practice with the centerfires too, but it can cut down on the number of centerfire rounds needed.

 

[Tyler Kee]

Not a direct answer for what you asked, but I got a wild hair sometime back and built a huge spreadsheet and article looking at the economics of "trainer" rifles. I never published it, but this is as good a time as any.

Guidance: The Case for a .223 Trainer

Recently, I had the opportunity to review a Trainer Rifle chambered in .223 REM from the fine folks at Accurate Ordnance. It was an outstanding rifle, and unlike some rifles I drop off at UPS, I wa…

www.writtenbytylerkee.com

The Too Long; Didn't Read (TL;DR) is that trainer rifles pay for themselves within 5000-15,000 rounds. Otherwise, it's still quite a bit cheaper to just shoot your main rifle and rebarrel it when it wears out a barrel. The spreadsheet is linked at the bottom. You are free to plug in your own variables for your own personal use.

 

[rayzlens]

I practice daily with an air rifle and an air pistol. I like them because they can be fired indoors without ventilation, only require 33 ft to meet standard match distances and reinforce all the fundamentals. In fact the lower velocity really exaggerates problems with the fundementals.
Trigger time counts and as someone who lives in an area with severe winters and has to drive 80 miles to the nearest range with any length it is often the only way to get my practice in.
Then at the range I can focus on range estimation, wind doping and the other elements of long range shooting.
I have reduced the number of firearms I own in deference to the old range adage, "beware the man with only one fun, he probably knows how to use it." Familiarity counts.

 

[406precision]

Pretty big fan of a switch barrel set up for this application that way everything but the caliber is the same ...we built my 9 year old a .223-6.5 prc switch and it makes it really easy for him to get used to the scope, stock ergonomics, and trigger control while not being concerned with recoil...then about a month from season I swap him over to the larger caliber for hunting

 

[RMorris]

The best kind of question!
"Amateurs talk ballistics, experts talk logistics"
My answer is that I shoot a lot of other stuff but have really been using a:

.308 PRACTICAL RIFLE.
Not a barrel burner
Super accurate
Not re-inventing the wheel
Has recoil that is enough to cause a flinch if my mind isn't where it needs to be.
Has surplus options for working on other aspects of the craft.
A practical all around back up to my specialized guns and useful rifle to decent ranges.
Makes the wind call matter more than some other calibers.

 

[Tony243]

I break out one of the .22s almost every weekend, just to get trigger time. I only break out the centerfire rifles once every 4-6 weeks since my range is in the back yard and the wife complains about getting the crap scared out of her every time I fire lol!
.22lr is so much fun at 100yds that I'm about to extend my range to 150yds since I'm on corona time.

 

[Deleted member 103481]

I break out one of the .22s almost every weekend, just to get trigger time. I only break out the centerfire rifles once every 4-6 weeks since my range is in the back yard and the wife complains about getting the crap scared out of her every time I fire lol!
.22lr is so much fun at 100yds that I'm about to extend my range to 150yds since I'm on corona time.

Heavily considering a 22 trainer for backyard fun, always just used 22s as small game and Plinkers before