Howdy all. So, as a bit of backstory, up until this year I'd never been much of a rimfire shooter. I spent a bunch of time and money rehabbing a Savage MKII FV last year, fired a few dozen rounds through it (half of them at groundhogs), was unimpressed by it's accuracy, and left it in the safe most of the time. That started to change this year when I picked up a CZ 455 trainer on a whim was surprised by how much cheap quiet fun I was having with it.

I brought the Savage out on a camping trip a couple weeks ago for a buddy who didn't have a .22, and he couldn't stop offering me money for it (I declined). I was wondering what he was all excited about so yesterday I decided to take it out to the range, shoot it from a bipod and rear bag, and really see what it was capable of.

All I can say is wow. I don't know what was wrong with me the last time I shot it, but it must have been bad, because once I adjusted the zero a bit this thing was printing tiny groups. I was using 1" shoot-and-see dots as targets, and my worst 5 shot group was about 1" center to center, and my best were less than half that. One was 25 or 30 (lost count) all inside the 1" dot without breaking the edges. I was pretty much blown away, particularly as I'm not the greatest shot. Wasn't able to get any pictures as the rain started coming down hard, but I shot about 200 rounds and this performance seemed easily repeatable. Ammo was CCI Standard and Fiocchi subsonic HPs, with a slight edge to the CCI.

After this, I'm very interested to see what this rifle and ammo combination can do at longer (>100 yards) ranges. I'm thinking I'll start with clay pigeons at 200 and depending on how that goes, work out further from there. Those of you who like to stretch the legs on your .22s, any suggestions? Am I being overly optimistic, or is 200 (or 250, 300) eminently doable? Any ammo recommendations? I would imagine I'd want to stick with subsonics to avoid trans Sonic wobble, but I'm not an expert.

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Rifle is a Savage MKII FV in a Boyd's Pro Varminter stock, wearing a Primary Arms 4-16x44 mil-dot scope in Vortex 30mm rings and knock off Harris bipod, plus Call of Duty-esque rattlecan stencil job.

ETA: ballistics calc (Strelok +)  indicates a drop of 51" at 200 with a 50 yard zero. Yikes!

I mean, if you can... you can. But I can go 100 all day long but you start finding large drops and wind deviation. That thing slows down and drops big time. I'd like to see 200, I sure as hell can't enjoy great accuracy that far. 100? More accurate than some of my ar's (relative)

You don't know until you try though

I regularly shoot mine out to 100 yards, but that's only because that's as far as my range goes. Accuracy is limited by ammo, wind, and the fact that my scope is set up to mimic my 3 gun scope, so it's not ultra precise.

I was reading yesterday that 22lr has (I think) about 40 inches of drop at maybe 200 yards. I forget the specifics. But eventually you will be dropping them on top of the targets not through them.

A few years ago I was at a friends gun club shooting at plates that they had out at 300 and 500 yards.  I was hitting them easily with my AR and Rem 700 PSS.  Then just for grins I decided to try hitting the 300 yard plate with my 10/22T.  I had to hold way over the target and I could see the rounds loosing speed and dropping like a rock.  It kind of reminded me of when I shot MK-19's when I was in the service.  When the rounds hit the plate you could hear a little ding to let you know they were just barely knocking into the target.  It was fun doing that.

I tried to hit the 200 yard gong but failed. Wind drop ect was enough to take the fun out of it. 100 is best I can do and it's still tough if there's wind.
Im sure some guys with the right set up push em pretty damn far though.

Yeah, I'd imagine you'd either need a spotter or be on a dead quiet range to know if you're hitting plates with a .22 that far off. That's why I'll probably start with clay pigeons as cheap reactive targets, or maybe get a 1/4" ar400 spinner or something.

100-120m into 20oz bottles all day with irons.

135 yards at a line of 12GA shotgun hulls this weekend with my 10/22 and a PA 4-14x scope.
I had a pretty darn good hit ratio when the wind wasn't kicking up to blow me off target.

guy above me is right 12 gauge shells at 150 yards with a nylon 66 and cheap scope, it get boring after a little while. our range is only 150 yrds

I would shoot my .22 at 200 yds on occasion but I haven’t shot it in a long time normally I would shoot 50-125yds. I need to get it out of the safe again.

My custom marlin 795ss, can’t wait to get my suppressor out of jail.

1000 yards..

Bullet drops 50 feet.

Check out rimfire central, there are guys putting 20 MOA mounts to shoot past 200 yards regularly with CCI standard velocity.   I have a Savage MK II FV with a 3-9 AO scope and it is pretty darn accurate at 135 yards, used to shoot swinging steel bowling pin head all the time.    A lot of good experience reading the wind can be gathered with 22 rimfire.   Sight alignment and trigger control are required whether centerfire or rimfire, ask the Olympic shooters.

300 is doable.  Gets challenging but it can be done,  I've tried for 500 and couldn't see any trace to anything to have any idea if I was even close

I shoot out to 300yds on a windless day at 10" steel plates with my Savage MKIIF and nothing too fancy ammo. I have used 6" plates but with non match ammo hit percentage was only like 50%.

I shoot out to 300yds with iron sights on 24" targets just messing around but it is easy to make standing offhand shots.

It is a lot of fun when it works out but if there is any wind or you use bulk pack ammo it can be very frustrating.

Under 50 yards.

My dads and I Ruger 10/22's. Hard to sneak up on the marmots / ground hogs.
So most shots are over 100 yards. But normally dont try to take a shot over 200.
I don't shoot this gun as much as I should (lower one in the photo) probably would.
Drop more marmots if I did. Scope is 4 x 12 Nikon with the bullet drop compensator.
Shooting Federal Auto Match

Mostly 50 yards, but I also shoot 100 when I get the chance.

I've hit a golf ball at 175 yards but was hitting with like 20% hit rate

340yds. i made a bell out of an old aluminum scuba bottle. cut the bottom off and set it on a piece of 1/2" pipe. shoot at something with a berm so you can see your impacts. it's tough, the bullet drops like 15'. it's fun when there's a pause on the firing line and you hear the ring of the bell. the chatter of other shooters is funny to hear with electronic earmuffs.

I have built a couple of rifles specifically for shooting to 300 yards. It's a hell of alot of fun.

I have a 40x repeater that we shoot out around 400 yds. My kids ring a 12" steel plate at 200yd easily, 300 isn't bad. First round hits further than that are challenging.

I used to take my 10/22 out to 200 yards regularly. Banging 4” gongs at that range is extremely satisfying. On a calm day I could hit with boring regularity but a little wind can make it challenging.

I only have a Burris FF3 on my Savage MKII, but I can hit a 12" plate @250, standing.
My Volquartsen 10/22, w/ 6-24 optics, can hit the 3" plate (@250) all day, on bags.

There is a 12” X 12” plate at 208 yds at the range, I can hit it until it gets boring with my Ruger American, just plug the data into a ballistic app for the come ups.

Ok, so I was able to weasel out of a baby shower (long story) and spend six hours at the range Saturday messing around with my .22 at range. Somehow my pictures didn't go through, so you'll just have to take my word for some of it.

After good success at 50 yards with my Savage MKII and CCI SV combo, I brought out a brick of ammo, some shoot-and-see targets, and a box of clays to the 200/250/300 yard lanes at my local range. I set up targets at 200 and 250 and divided 60 clays more or less evenly between the three distances. I input the suggestions from my ballistic calc (Strelok +) which called for 97 clicks up (PA 4-16x44 mil dot on an EGW 20 MOA rail). This got me on the 10" target, but I still needed about 10 clicks up and a few to the left to be more or less zeroed. I say "more or less" because at this point I'd already run into trouble: while my groups had reasonably tight and consistent windage (~2-2.5") I was getting a great deal of vertical dispersion, as much as 6". I rooted around in my range bag and found a box of CCI SV from a different lot, but I wasn't able to see much in the way of improvement. Didn't seem to be any consistency; a couple of rounds within the 2" center, then one would drop 4" low or 3" high. I'm assuming this has to do with less than consistent powder charges? I could see where a fraction of a grain of powder's difference might not show up at 50 but would become apparent at 200.

Gongs at 200 weren't a challenge, and I eventually worked my way through the 20-25 clays on the berm (I say "eventually" because my hit rate was south of 50%; I have the numbers in my range bag and I'll update when I get home) and moved on to 250. This required inputting another 50 or so clicks up and a couple more to the left. Once again on the paper target horizontal dispersion was reasonably consistent at maybe ~3-3.5" but the vertical stringing got worse. My hit rate on clays dropped to something like 20%. With some apprehension I tried to adjust out to 300, but bottomed out and had to be content with about a 12" holdover. At this range things were mostly futile; I could hit the 12" gong pretty consistently but hits on clays were pretty much pure luck. I went back to my range bag and found a bit of Federal Automatch rattling around and tried that; this raised my POI by about 18" and seemed to have less vertical stringing but my windage increased noticeably. I didn't have a paper target up at that range so no hard numbers. Eventually I killed all of the clays at 300, but zeroing groups aside it took about 250 rounds to kill 60 clays. Not my finest hour.

I know that CCI SV is just a half step above bulk ammo, but I'd had somewhat higher hopes. I think I'm going to repeat this experiment with some Federal HV Match 22 and see what happens.

I have fun with my suppressed Savage FVSR at 50 yards but I've stretched it out to 150 yards with a pretty substantial drop

It's fun hearing 3" steel plates ding at 150 yards after waiting a second or two for the round to get there

(I only use CCI SV anymore)

I generally shoot pistol at 25, rifle at 50.  But  I once hit a 12 inch plate at 100 yards with a Ruger MKII on the first shot.  Total dumb luck and did not try a second shot!!!!!

I usually do 100 yrds,  both irons and scoped (unertl or lyman)

I have rung a gong at 200 relatively easily once I figured out the hold over with an old beater Marlin 39a,

I have not tried 300 , yet,

FWIW,  most small bore matches are shot at 100,  and some back in the day were stretched to 200,

Before a storm lost my target, I regularly shot a 18"x18" steel plate at about 250 yards. I had to aim quite a bit higher and hits weren't too frequent. I used a 10/22 with Tech sites and a Marlin 25N with a cheap scope. The target was downhill over a ravine and there was always a lot of wind. Maybe it was coincidental, but standard velocity seemed to have less drop than high velocity.

Most of my 22 shooting is at 50 yards, but I occasionally take it out to 100 yards. I still group decently at that range, but it's definitely broader than the 2x the 50 yard groups. I chose the scope and base to be able to take the rifle (Savage Mark II FV-SR) out to 250, maybe 300 yards...just never got around to it...

Where the crosshairs go from thick to thin on my CZ-452 is the 200 yard mark using high velocity.  Only one groundhog at that distance though.  12" gong is a breeze.

I shoot at the gas cylinder on the 200m range.

200 yards at 12” plates. MP 15-22 with BSA Sweet 22 3-9. Once I get the Elevation/windage dial in get maybe 80% hits.