22 cal. for practice

[GlockmanGG]

Hey Everybody,

My questions : how many of you practice with a 22 cal pistol .
What kind do you shoot,How many rounds .
Has shooting one helped you with the larger center fired pistols .

I'll thank you now for the info.

GlockmanGG

[bloomautomatic]

Practicing with a .22 will help you with a centerfire. Based on you name, I'm gonna take a wild guess and say your main handgun is a Glock. Best practice for that would be to get a .22 conversion kit for the glock. that way the grip, trigger, size, feel, etc will be the same.

Vince

[Jailkeeper]

Hey Everybody,

My questions : how many of you practice with a 22 cal pistol .
What kind do you shoot,How many rounds .
Has shooting one helped you with the larger center fired pistols .

I'll thank you now for the info.

GlockmanGG

I practice with a .22 quite a bit. It's MUCH cheaper than shooting center fire ammo. I have an Advantage Arms .22 conversion kit for my G31 and it works very well.

Was at the range (Hollidaysburg) 2 days ago. Shot approx. 100 center fire rounds and 150 .22 rounds. It's much less expensive to shoot a .22!

[TaurusGuy]

I bought a Ruger MKIII a few months ago because I wanted to be able to practice more and at a cheaper cost than 9mm and .38...I use this gun quite often and I will say for sure that it has helped me get better with the bigger guns.

[Average Baer]

I shoot a lot of 22 for practice. I toyed with the idea of a conversion unit, but thankfully the folks at Ruger make the 22/45, which mimicks the angles and ergonomics of the 1911. The conversion I wanted, the Marvel U2 practical was $309. The Ruger was $250 OTD at my local gunshop. It was a no brainer.
I shoot at least 50rds of 22 before I even consider taking out a 45. It helps get me centered and focused on my fundemantals. If I aint gettin it done with the 22, a bigger, more exen$ive bullet isn't gonna change things. I stick with the 22 until things level out. If they don't, it's a head problem, not a gun problem and that can be fixed in the car on the way home.

I also do some training. With new shooters, the 22 offers a cheap and friendly way to get them started. There is almost no recoil and no loud barking, which might scare them off.

All in all, it's the best $250 I ever spent on my fundamentals.

[40sw]

I use a Ruger MKIII, S&W Model 41, and a Sig Mosquito.
I also do alot of dryfiring with centerfire pistols using dummy rounds
Using a .22LR pistol is an economical way to reinforce muscle memory and confidence. In conjunction with dryfiring, its an excellent way to improve yourself. You simply cannot beat the confidence that is reinforced with the minimum recoil that .22LR chambered pistols offer.
I go through a minimum of 400 rds of .22LR per month.
I dryfire at least 50 dummy rds/week.

[greener]

You folks have about said it all about .22's: inexpensive, great for training. I'd add darned accurate and fun. I alternate caliber's on range trips, .45 one trip, .38/357 on one and 9mm on one. I always take a couple of .22's along. Start with a .22 to warm up and finish up with a .22. I shoot around 1500 rounds of .22/month. You can buy decent .22 ammo for about the price of primers for centerfire.

If it weren't for .22's, I'd probably not shoot nearly as often.

[Philadelphia]

Hey Everybody,

My questions : how many of you practice with a 22 cal pistol .

Yup, I have a couple different .22 pistols and intend to buy at least one more.

What kind do you shoot,How many rounds .

Lately in .22 I've mostly been shooting a Walther P22. I usually go through about 200 rounds of .22 lr per range trip. If you plan on only getting only one .22 or for your first one, it's hard to go wrong with the Ruger. I've also got a Ruger MKIII 22/45 and it's a tack driver.

Has shooting one helped you with the larger center fired pistols .

Yup. The only material difference between the .22 and my larger caliber pistols is, of course, the amount of recoil. You can practice everything with a .22 except for avoiding flinch and good recoil management. One way to get the most out of it is bring your larger caliber pistols with you too. Alternate the larger calibers with the .22 and make sure when you are shooting with the .22 you don't allow your technique to become too relaxed or sloppy.

I also shoot a pellet gun pistol quite a bit (almost every day). Anything that requires target acquisition, sight picture, sight alignment, trigger control, follow through and trigger reset will train you in most of what you need to do for the shooting part of shooting. It's also a lot more fun than just dry fire. Again, just make sure your technique doesn't get sloppy and you start to pick up bad recoil management habits with the smaller guns.

[noofus]

I have a Sig Mosquito. Though its been villified by many online, mine functions pretty well considering its design.

It looks and feels like a regular semi-auto (Its a clone of a Sig 226 I believe) and forces you to work with it like you would something bigger. Limp-wristing it will cause a FTFeed - so it helps reinforce good wrist control habits.

The Mosquito is great for practice since I can buy 500 rounds for $20.

Of course, I would love to get one of the big goofy-looking .22 pistols also since they have the edge in accuracy and reliability - but the Mosquito is an excellent "larger gun" simulator thats cheap to shoot.

[dgg9]

My questions : how many of you practice with a 22 cal pistol .
What kind do you shoot,How many rounds .
Has shooting one helped you with the larger center fired pistols .

I have an Advantage Arms .22LR slide for my G19. Strictly speaking, I don't "need" to shoot .22 since 9mm is mild enough, but I got into it simply from rising ammo costs.

At the range, I start with the .22, and do "pure marksmanship" drills with it. After about 100 rds, I get bored with shooting .22 and also tired of loading the AA magazine. Then I finish off with 1 or 2 boxes of regular ammo -- you need to do this since 100 rds of .22 completely deprograms your recoil control.

I would advocate this setup for someone starting out, and then would advise shooting nothing but .22 for a few months.