So, I recently had the pleasure of attending “Plinkapalooza” at Range Ready in Robert, LA; you might recognize this as the home range of the Gun Talk crew. “Plinkapalooza” was designed to be a celebration of everything rimfire; we had handguns, carbines and rifles in everything from .17 HMR through .22 Mag., with a heavy emphasis on .22 LR. Events were tailored around showcasing the abilities of these firearms and ammunition, but the most important thing was for it to be fun.
Folks, when I’m telling you it was a LOT of fun, I’m not exaggerating. I’m probably understating it.
Sometimes we get caught up in the very serious nature of firearms to the exclusion of that fun factor, and it’s good to be reminded that shooting is fun. Obviously, no matter your reason for hitting the range, safety is paramount; beyond that, though, it’s a good thing to take a moment to actually enjoy going to the range. Yes, working with your concealed-carry rig is important for self-defense, training with your rifle keeps perishable long-range skills sharp and practicing with your shotgun keeps your wingshooting fresh. But, let’s be frank—none of these is as fun as plinking informal targets with a .22 rifle.
Events at Plinkapalooza included such things as a shooting gallery, with clays, bottles, golf balls, and chalk as targets (the bottles were the self-sealing variety, not glass, so no worries there). Most of the targets were supplied by Caldwell (obviously not the clays or the chalk, of course), and the greatest compliment I can bestow is that nothing stands out—everything just plain worked. Nothing broke, nothing failed to function as it was supposed to; everything did exactly what it was supposed to do. We ran the course against fellow attendees in both head-to-head shoot-offs as well as timed runs. There was an NRL 22-style match with targets out to 100 yards. We ran several times with .22 LR and .22 Mag. rifles—until someone suggested handguns. Fun? Oh heck yes! Hitting steel targets at 100 yards with a Smith & Wesson M&P22X pistol was one of the highlights of the event.
We shot Pez candy—those tiny bits of sugar—at 7 yards with handguns. It’s instructive just how accurate you can be with a rimfire handgun when you really focus on the basics, and the soft recoil of a 30-something ounce handgun shooting .22 LR really helps that concentration. The worst part of it for me was realizing that I can, in fact, be accurate when I apply the fundamentals. Guess I have to work on my centerfire handguns skills more. Even when the shooting is for fun, you can still be learning.
Equally challenging was the “playing card” challenge—we were tasked with splitting a playing card in half at 7 yards. Hitting a target you can’t see is pretty darn challenging, indeed. If that wasn’t enough, we also had to drop a certain mint into a certain carbonated beverage bottle to result in a fizz. I think you know what we’re talking about. This wasn’t just hitting steel at 15 yards or plinking clays at 10; we had some mighty tough “opportunities” as one of the participants insisted on calling the events.
Of course, there was a dizzying array of steel targets ranging from bowling pins, prairie dogs, small 4-inch squares all the way through near-life-size deer and pig on the 100-yard berm. Again, when you strip away the fear of recoil and concentrate on the basics, it’s downright astounding what kind of success you can have. One extremely challenging course was curiously called “making art” – there were those tiny paint-by-numbers plastic cups of paint glued to a cardboard backing, and we were hitting them with .22 LR out of an extraordinarily accurate Savage 110 RF Elite Precision rifle. It’s a sub-MOA target, which means that hits required perfect form and follow through. And yes, we “made art.”
Hands down, though, for me the most fun was going head-head-to head with fellow gun writers and editors on the 100-yard range with targets that had Firebird Targets reactive flare-style exploding targets. Hits on these devices resulted in an audible “boom,” a puff of smoke and a flash of light—there’s absolutely no question when you hit your mark. Even just clearing the field of reactive targets at a leisurely pace was a crazy amount of fun.
And … there was the “Plinko” board. Since it was “Plinkapalooza,” the staff at Range Ready felt it imperative to have a “Plinko” board—clay pigeons released one-by-one over a series of posts that resulted in an erratic, unpredictable path from the top to the ground. Hitting six targets, all on the move, was incredibly challenging. My best was four; several other shooters cleared all six. I think we went through at least two boxes of clay pigeons, possibly three.
In the end, there were two big takeaways. First, while I’ve always known this, shooting is fun, and it’s most fun with a quality rimfire firearm. The low recoil and minimal cost allow both mental and physical relaxation: You’re less concerned with the replacement cost of a box of bulk .22 LR than with the same amount of 9 mm or .308 Win., and the toll on the body is significantly less as well. I personally fired many hundreds of rounds through handguns and rifles over two days; had that been 9 mm and even .223 Rem. I’d have been feeling it much more.
Second, even when you’re just shooting for fun, when it’s properly executed you can absolutely be learning. Range Ready Director of Training Chris Cerino put together an impressive course of fire, with challenges designed to test our skill and knowledge of fundamentals. It’s tempting to think of .22 LR as a “beginner” or “youth” round, since it’s often used in that role; however, there’s a lot more to it than just an inexpensive day at the range or a soft-recoiling round with which to introduce new shooters. In the proper context, it is a powerful instructional tool, and I came away realizing that I still have a lot to learn.
And I intend to start including more rimfire practice in that learning process.
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