Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Long Range Hunting Cost efficient rifle for practice?

My opinion for lots of affordable practice is a 223 bolt action. For center fire rounds, for the non reloader, it doesn’t get any cheaper. For some reason they’re less expensive than the 22 Hornet, 222 Remington, and 221 Fireball even though they hold more powder and larger amount of brass. The other advantage is that it’s more available than the others even in these times. I reload but I still have gobs of factory 223 that I use to train or practice with every now and then. It won’t match the other rifles you have but the trigger time is very valuable. Things to make sure you get the most value is to treat each trip to the range or wherever you go as a serious session. Change up a few things like only shooting at 200 or more yards, never again shoot at 100 yards. On occasion, set up the paper target at 300 or 350 and see how you do and if the drop is what it needs to be when compared to shorter distances. Try a few times going out to 500 with paper targets, but be careful spending a lot of time there as it can screw you up if little progress is made. If that happens, stop at that distance and come back later. This could tell you if your turrets or zero stop is working too. I can’t see the 223 being a performer much past 650 yards but the form, technique and experience you gain from all that cheap practice will pay off on all the other long range you do. Another thing that I found helps is to shoot other targets. Steel is good and small rocks are good fun. Too much paper targets gets boring and I feel lends itself to more mistakes or sloppy shooting. Shooting things other than paper does something to the brain that seems to enhance focus. To get the most out of those targets, the size is important. A 5-8" steel target at 500 yards is better than a 24” or torso type steel gong that most kids can hit after a little warm up. Same goes for the size of rocks.

Great post. I agree. Way more fun to shoot “things”.

Couple thoughts…. .223AI is better still; be sure to get a fast twist; and one issue with 223/223Ai is spotting your shots at longer distances. They don’t move much dirt, they don’t make the “whop!” on a steel plate. Clays are a fun thing to shoot at, cheap, and you can usually tell when you hit them. I actually put a brake on my AI so that I could easily see my shots. Even a 223 can jump enough to lose the sight picture, if it’s a light build.

A fast twist AI with a mag setup allowing a longer COAL opens a lot of really fun doors. I don’t know what the “best” bullet to use these days is, but the 75 ELDM is pretty awesome. Just in case somebody doesn’t know this, you can (and must, actually, it’s how you make your brass) shoot .223 in a .223AI.

223 or 308 would be great options. Look on GB. There are always good deals on there.

In consideration of this same question, I went with the 6.5 CM, affordable and easy to shoot (I already have a 308).

That's the beauty in both of those cartridges. Have you ever tried the 223 for shooting further out? They are all fun to practice with. Since the op does not want to handload, those 3 cartridges are probably on the top of the list, for what he's wanting: IMHO.

Everyone is different here. I feel exactly the opposite about shooting paper. The reason you may be getting bored or lose focus is because the paper does NOT lie and guys have a hard time with that. Shooting steel gets boring to me. I have to focus on small targets to keep things interesting.

Paper is definitely needed and required. I just find that too much is not helpful. It’s trying to find the right amount. I found this is especially true for archery. I had my bow right next to my back door and would try to shoot a 5 shot group every day at 40 yards, the max I could do in my backyard. This was in the months before archery deer season. 5 shots at 40 every day or close to every day was very helpful. If I did more, I didn’t see any benefit. When I would go to the archery range and shot the 3D course, it felt like it was very helpful and I found I could keep going and didn’t make sloppy errors because it felt a little more interesting not just shooting at small foam dots. If I could shoot paper every day and no other targets, I would, but not a ton just a small amount.

I only use paper to get zero, and check zero. I practice lots with the Savage bolt gun in .223, 25 gn. of CFE under a 73 gn. ELDM bullet, and if I`m doing my math correctly, a pound produces 280 rounds. As far as targets, last year we had a very bad summer storm that uprooted a large tract of forest 5 miles from the house. Logers went in and cleaned up the mess, but the blown over trees brought rocks up in their root systems. These exposed rocks are super targets, and any misses on my part, are cought in dirt still clinging to the roots. Shooting siting off my bi-pod, I have targets anywhere from 50 out to 550 yrds. I`ve expended a few rounds there.

Rocks are a lot of fun. The smaller the better. I make sure I’m not shooting at a softball sized rock or anything too big, usually .75 MOA sized +or- so I can hopefully get better and better over time. At the range I go to, there are berms at 200-500 yards. At the berms, you can scan and find small, golf ball sized rocks at random. When you hit one square, it sounds so cool, it’s an unmistakable sound. It also throws up a cloud of dust a different color than the dirt. I sometimes set the rocks up when snow is covering the ground or to speed up finding them in the scope. I also have a steel plate that’s 6" round. I take it to 500 yards, hang it on a T-post and have fun with it. Most of that shooting is done with my 223 bolt and a few gas/Varminter rifles because of cost and volume of rounds per month. I usually take 2-3 different rifles out there because I switch off after 10 rounds to keep the temperature down and allows me to practice with different ones and not get bored. The 338-06 and .270 is a lot of fun with those small rocks.

I use paper when doing load development, zeroing and diagnosing issues (rifle, load or me). The majority of my practice is on steel from field positions. Luckily my backyard range goes out to 760yds. Pictured is my M357MSP (Mobile Shooting Platform) cause the chiggers & ticks just suck in KS.






In prep for hunting season I'll set up a CoF, so we can practice from field positions. Not the best picture, but you'll get the idea:



200yd off-hand going out to 540yds.

IF the size of the plate is too large, it's very easy to makes a stencil for what ever size "bullseye" you're looking for. Then, at least with the larger plate, you'll also be able to see the misses, like the TGT on the left:

Here's another:

IMG_2992 by .com/photos/61286670N08/]Sharps Man, on [bleep]

When i went through sniper school one instructor had us dry fire our rifle for hours with snap caps chambered. The traget was about the size of the tip of pencil eraser. The drill could be done across a room or out to about 25 yards. it was excellant and allowed you work on breaking the trigger and not inducing movement in the reticle. I used that drill throughout my time as a sniper. Cheap, but productive.

You gotta be JeffO dumb to lose sight picture with a .223AI and then come on here giving shooting advise as if you know wtf you are talking about.

Seriously.

Because spotting bullet strikes from a .223 is easy at longer ranges. Got it. 🙄

It’s a 20” mountain profile barrel. She jumps pretty good. The brake I made works great and makes it nice & easy to see the strikes. Facts.

Your thoughts?

Kimber Montana .223AI out to 1,350 and can easily spot hits and misses on steel with good technique behind the rifle and a bit of thought put into setting up targets.

Brake on a .223? TFF

I was actually kidding.

IDGAF about your thoughts.

Please tell the readers of the 24HCF about forming .223AI brass again.

I was really surprised how hard the 75 AMAX smacked steel the first time I shot at ~1000 yards with a 22" .223. I was shooting a 22" 7mm-08 with 162 AMAX at the time and the difference was much less than I expected.

I'm like Higgi and make sure that I position targets carefully, regardless of cartridges being fired in order to get as much feedback as possible.

Back on topic...

I reload, and the prices on store ammo is ridiculous.

My recent rebarrel was a 6 x 45, with plenty of 6mm bullets around here...

70 to 90 grain bullets have the ability to reach out there significantly, even when using powders like Blue Dot.

So far with the right scope on top, and 70 gr Speer TNTs, and Blue Dot loads I've worked up.. been hitting Steel out to 500 meters...15.5 grains of powder per shot...

with Benchmark, H 322 and W 748, max charges are between 25 to 29 grains depending on bullet weights, per shot.

If push comes to shove in this nation under the DemocRats or against the attacking our country, 300 to 500 yds is going to be a lot more than you need.

Good post, and thanks for getting this thread back on topic. For fu cks sake, some of the dumb schidt you read here.