Pappy348;
Good morning to you sir, I hope that all is well in your part of the world and this finds you and yours well.
While I seldom find anything whatsoever to differ with you in your posts, I would at this time respectfully submit that everyone should have at least "a few" .22LR firearms.
Even up here in the restrictive firearm climate I exist in, our safe contains more than one .22 pistol and for a few reasons I won't begin to discuss the number of .22 long arms that may or may not exist within the safe....
In fact, this morning I ordered a Tikka 16" barrel to see what they are like - sorta "ugly/cute" like a moose calf is how I'd describe the photo. Anyway like a good mountain horse, we always said "pretty is as pretty does"!
Seriously though, if there's a better way of teaching good shooting form than with a good .22 rifle I've not yet found it. For the last 30 years that I've been teaching the provincial Hunter Safety course, I've been both instructing new students with a .22 rifle to start with, as well as advising new shooters to pick up a .22 which is similar to their primary hunting arm to practice with.
Then too, as my cyber friend from Florida, the esteemed Barbarian Dan notes, there's all sorts of things one can do with a .22 if one is pressed.
The local Conservation Officers used to use .22's to "deal with" problem bears in urban settings as it disturbed the gentle townsfolk less than either the 12 gauge or .30-06 they're issued. The grand old mountain horse who faithfully carried me for 17 years is buried in our yard and when his time came, we ushered him into a better place with a .22.
Since it's unlawful in BC to shoot deer with a rimfire of any sort, I won't admit to shooting any of them which were either sick or injured from a motor vehicle incident. Therefore I cannot comment on how quickly a well placed 40grain piece of lead may or may not work on mulies and/or whitetail.
Anyway sir, as always that's just one short, bald and increasingly aging Canuck's views on the matter and nothing more.
All the best to you this fall and good luck on your remaining hunts.
Dwayne
PS;
Forgot to mention that .22 firearms are still fantastic "trading stock" in all sorts of deals made up here on this side of the medicine line.
Despite what the media likes to have us all believe, there's still many, many, many Canucks who are licensed to possess firearms - so we do!
