Sunday Shooting

Yesterday was March 31st, or Easter Sunday and, in addition to hunting for Easter eggs with the children and helping them to polish off the fruits of their search, I whiled away a very enjoyable couple of hours down at my local gun club helping a mate of mine set up his newly acquired rifle and scope

The rifle in question was similar to the one shown in the picture below, namely a CZ 455 thumbhole bolt action .22 rimfire. My mate bought it from Solware complete with a moderator, a bipod and one of the new Hawke Sidewinder scopes with the SR Pro reticle, and a 10 round magazine to add to the 5 round one that comes in the box

Armed with said rifle set up and 100 rounds of ammunition we began the process of zeroing in the scope and putting down a layer of lead on the barrel. This was the first time the gun had been fired so it will take a few more rounds to truly bed down but I reckon we were pretty successful with the scope. My mate fired off a few rounds on his own to start off the process and then we took it in turns firing 5 rounds at either side of a dual target card to do the fine tuning

As you can see from the following images, by the time we'd finished the rifle was firing pretty much where we were aiming it. We were shooting at 25 yards so nothing to write home about distance wise but, bearing in mind this was the first time I'd shot a .22 rifle [with the exception of the 20 shots I fired off at the British Shooting Show earlier this year], I came home feeling chuffed to bits with how my half of the target cards looked. I'll leave you to work out which of the seven pictured below I was the most delighted with

 

Precision engineered and carefully crafted components brought together in one perfectly formed, fun-filled package. That's my initial assessment of the gun I had the opportunity to use and all in all, the sound of the muzzle crack as the bullet exited the barrel, the smell of burnt gunpowder in the nostrils and the pleasure gained from realising that the shot I'd just fired penetrated right through the heart of the target, made for a thoroughly enjoyable and, I hope, soon to be repeated Sunday afternoon. Way better than slouching on the sofa soaking up Sunday afternoon TV. Happy hunting!