Benefits of a Rimfire Trainer Rifle

Save money and build a solid foundation by training with a .22

Like many hunters in my generation, I have fond memories of early shooting lessons with my father’s single-shot .22 LR at empty soda cans set awkwardly upside down on creosote limbs in the deserts of Arizona. The lessons were simple in their delivery: Keep your finger off the trigger until you’re ready to fire, line up the front sight with the rear sight notch, find the can. When the front sight is on the can, squeeze the trigger.

Fifty rounds of Winchester Wildcat .22 later and we had a pile of razor-sharp aluminum cans not even fit for the recycling bin. While these lessons, at the time, seemed like a hurdle to pass before getting a crack at the real thing in the form of my father’s lever-action .243 Savage rifle, they were milestones to be reflected on and appreciated later in life.

Many hunters today have seemingly bypassed these rights of passage and jumped headfirst into long-range shooting–only to struggle with many of the fundamental skills gathered from the rimfire lessons with dad. Amongst many of the common bad habits I see at my local rifle range, I often see shooters unable to shoot without high-magnification sight pictures and equally unable to locate a target at distance within a reasonable timeframe.

This is echoed in many hunting stories when an opportunity is presented and the shooter is unable to locate a target, build a position rapidly, control their breathing, operate the rifle and optic properly, break a clean shot and finally, follow through recoil. These bad habits are hard to break, and once established, are even more dangerous. They lead to missed opportunities in the field or worse; missed follow-up shots on wounded game after losing visual due to recoil.

Walk, then Run

In my opinion, without a foundation built from training and shooting basics, we are setting up many new hunters for failure, as they often cannot operate a rifle system independently when the time arrives. Getting back to the basics with rimfire rifle training can help reduce these bad habits and also set up new shooters for success by allowing repetitious work in the fundamentals of marksmanship.

While long-range shooting courses are growing in many areas, most ranges are still limited to 100-300 yd. Far from being considered “long-range” for most modern rifle cartridges, these distances become increasingly difficult to hit with a 40 gr .22 LR projectile traveling at 1,000 FPS. Ballistician Bryan Litz of Berger Bullets and Applied Ballistics, one of the leading ballistic labs, recently compared a 300 yd shot with a .22 rimfire with subsonic ammunition to a 2,300 yd shot with a .375 Cheytac. Obviously, these are two opposite ends of the spectrum in rifle terms, but the bullet’s flight is an important factor from a training value standpoint. Training with subsonic bullet flight in rimfire rifles allows the shooter to hold nearly the same wind holds as their centerfire rifles and dial appropriated elevations without having to set up targets at distances beyond 1,000 yds.

Make it Interesting

Setting up several inexpensive steel swinger targets at a variety of distances and angles allows the shooters to practice locating targets, build shooting positions, read the wind, apply the appropriate wind hold or holdover/dial turret, and engage targets with the same fundamentals of marksmanship. This is an effective way to build a shooter’s checklist, so to speak, of fluid movements to increase your odds of success in the field.

To further measure your efficiency and increase stress, add a shot timer to track your progress. Soon, you will achieve next-level training while having a friendly competition with your hunting partners. A case of premium rimfire ammunition will set you back $120 per 500 rounds. Try to match that with 6.5 PRC or .300 WM premium ammunition. Not possible. The extra savings in ammo alone will offset the cost of adding the precision rimfire rifle or barreled action to your arsenal.

Updated Platforms

The rimfire rifle market has exploded in the last five years with precision rifles, mostly being overlooked by many hunters as “boutique rifles.” Looking back, I can not imagine how much further along I would be if I had the capabilities of today’s modern rimfire rifles to begin my training as a young rifleman.

With range limitations and ammunition scarcity, a rimfire precision rifle becomes a huge asset to the year-round rifleman. Having a rifle that mimics your full-size Remington 700-style hunting rifle but fires a .22 LR bullet has become a game-changer for many, including myself. I recently dove into the rimfire world with the release of the Zermatt Arms RimX action and Proof Research prefit precision rimfire barrels.

Zermatt Arms has revolutionized the rimfire rifle world by offering a precision-machined rimfire action that fits any Remington 700 clone footprint stock. The action features interchangeable bolt heads to accommodate .22 LR up to .17 HMR and utilizing a unique control round-feed design, allowing them to offer interchangeable barrels. The action is fed using a standard short-action DBM (detachable box magazine).

Utilizing my Outdoorsmans SAR700-A1 chassis allows me to swap out my .308 Win. Zermatt Arms short action with my RimX .22 LR action and simply swap out magazines. This simple change-out is done in my garage–allowing me to begin training on my property at 50-100 yds and has further increased my training at the rifle range to 200-300 yds with subsonic .22 ammo.

All About Reps

While I do regularly train with my centerfire rifles beyond 1,000 yds, I have found a noticeable improvement in my shooting while engaging targets at 100 yds daily by training with suppressed, subsonic .22 LR ammo. I can practice all my positional shooting before or after work without having to drive to the range or burn expensive components to work on my fundamentals. I am not bypassing centerfire rifle training. I am simply supplementing even more training to my day that I feel achieves far more than dry fire practice.

While the options may seem limitless with the new .22 LR rifle market, the most important factor is that you add a rimfire rifle to your training regiment. Getting trigger time in daily or even weekly throughout the year will always give you an advantage over the competition who breaks out their rifle to confirm zero a week before the season. Hunting opportunities are growing harder to come by and more competitive every year. Stack the odds in your favor, and enjoy the eight months of non-hunting season by picking up a rimfire precision rifle.

Check out the RimX here retail price $1,150 for the action including one magazine.

See the full line up of prefit carbon fiber and steel barrels from Proof Research at www.proofresearch.com, retail price $650 per barrel (prefit barrel is threaded and chambered for the action and includes a ½-28 threaded muzzle).

As always, keep the gun conversation alive by contacting me at colton@westernhunter.net with your questions or suggestions for future product reviews. Follow me on Instagram @papwinkle to see my online posts and reviews on all things precision rifle to make you a better rifleman.

And remember “Only accurate rifles are interesting” -Townsend Whelen