I must be feeling a bit nostalgic in my advancing years. This past week I took out my first .22 which was given to me 50 yrs ago on Christmas Day in 1970. I hadn't fired that gun in too many years. It's a Montgomery Ward branded/Mossberg mfg'd 842/346, tube fed, bold action. I was also gifted a 3/4" tubed .22 scope, but had a receiver sight put on it, as that was what was needed for a rifle league I wanted to join. This rifle got ignored for many years as I went on my .22 rf quest for ultimate accuracy, which took me onward to full custom, purpose-built benchrest rifles. Having achieved the goals I set for myself in BR, I sold off most of my BR rifles and concentrated my shooting efforts on the shotgun sports. My rimfires have mostly sat idle for the last 5 years. This, my first rifle, has sat unused for probably 30 years. When I last put it away it was oiled up (can't remember what I used) but it had congealed in the action and so I sprayed the bolt with Gun Scrubber and cleaned it all up.
Putting that rifle on the bench at my club after all these years and remembering the excitement, pride and great times I had shooting that rifle with my Dad and Grandfather was a true joy. I grew up in the North Country of NY and that first winter with that rifle was very cold and snowy. With no indoor rifle range at that time and with the miserable conditions for shooting outdoors, my Grandfather set up an impromptu range for me in the basement of his ranch-style house using 3/4" plywood and sand bags. I shot off a card table he had down there. I shot so much that eventually the shots were shooting thru all that backing and pocking the cement blocks of his wall. That was when he declared that that was enough! I can still remember when I put 3 shots thru the same hole and said, "That was lucky". My Grandfather looked at me and asked, "Is that where you were aiming?" "Yup". "Then that's not luck boy, that's skill." Hearing those words swelled me up with pride and confidence, thinking, "Maybe I could be good at this?"
So began my love of the .22 rifle. I shot that rifle until I just had to have a 10/22 so I could rapidly throw bullets around. Later I wanted a higher end .22 that more closely matched my centerfire rifles and bought my Cooper 57M. That rifle shot so well that I got the itch to compete in some local benchrest matches that someone told me about and encouraged me to enter. That led to having my dedicated benchrest rifles built and competing in sanctioned matches at the Regional, National and International levels of the sport. For many years, that was my singular recreational passion, my wife might say obsession.
So, getting behind that old (but still in good shape) Montgomery Ward .22 once again and putting a few rounds downrange with it felt just so right. I found out that, that old rifle has expensive taste, as it shot the Federal Auto Match poorly but really liked the Eley Match ammo I had left over from my BR shooting days. I was center punching targets with it at 50 feet and then it didn't take long for me to figure out the holdover to hit a 6" gong at 100 yds,. I have to admit that it was a little harder to use those peep sights now than the last time I shot it. I expect it won't be long until the next time I bring it out to the range to shoot and once again think back to that day in my Grandfather's basement, 50 years ago.
Let's hear about your first .22 and whether you still have it and shoot it.
