22 ammo acting up?
 

I went to shoot some gophers yesterday. My Remington semiauto is super accurate at about 30-40 yards - I’m usually that far when I’m hunting grouse. I can hit the birds head from that distance easily.
Yesterday I was taking some shots that are 70-120 yards and the rifle was shooting way higher than I expected. I was actually aiming about 6-8” higher and couldn’t even see the bullet hitting the dirt! I started to aim -6” lower and bullseye!
Any idea why it was happening? I was using the same ammo as before, nothing changed.

Have you test shot out that far to see by it does? My standard velocity ammo has a 6.73 MOA drop from a 25 yards zero shooting to 100 yards. Using CCI Mini Mag, I'm 5.5 MOA give or take a few tenths. I like my Remington as well but expect maybe 4" groupings with it out that far.

Are you using the exact same load that the rifle was sighted in with? How did it shoot at 100 yards with that load when you sighted it in?

that happened to me once too. And believe it or not all it needed was a good cleaning. I mean a GOOOOD cleaning. Use your bristle brush until no more dust or powder comes out of the end... then give her a good oil down and keep repeating that till the cloth comes out clean. I clean my guns pretty good... but for some reason kinda neglect my .22. Its still a gun after all right. I guess when you just mostly target shoot, its not super important. But ever since that time... I clean it like I do all my other guns now lol.

Hope this helps

Scope got bumped? Try a few shots at 30 yards and see where it's hitting.

Colin

Yep, exactly the same ammo, same box. I didn’t sight the rifle at 100 yards since it wasn’t my active range.

Exactly what I thought so I did take a few shots at 40 yards and they all went into a loonie size target.

If you are going to shoot live animals at over 100 yards as you posted, it would be a good idea to at least test the load at 100 yards on a target for a reference. Without doing that, you really don't know where it will shoot at 100 yards, let alone 120 yards.I sight my 22lr in at 50 yards, but I shoot them at 100 yards to verify the point of impact.

Remember, 22LR trajectory is like a rainbow. :) If you're zeroed @ such a short distance for grouse, it only stands to reason that your "zero" won't be the same @ 100+ of course. My suggestion would be to give the gun a seriously good cleaning, make sure the scope is cinched down, then zero the gun @ 50 yards.

Next step would be to put your target @ 35 yards (your grouse distance) and see where the POI is. Then put the target @ 75 yards, and then 100 yards...noting the POI change. Really, the only way to have a sense of what's going on. Probably worth asking~does your scope have an adjustable objective, or side focus? If not, what's the scope's parallax setting? Most cheap 3-9X hunting scopes have a parallax setting of 100 yards+, most rimfire scopes 50-65 yards+. One could expect some wonky results if (say) you're using a scope with a parallax setting of 100 yards, but you're shooting it @ 35.

A scope problem ALONE could cause the issue you described, but assuming it's not that...try ^ this plan. Probably also worth mentioning how badly such a lumpy, relatively heavy, non aerodynamic 22LR bullets perform when distance and wind are at play. Those tend to explain windage problems of course (the bigger variable) but it's usually too MUCH drop at play.

Sounds like a "getting to know you" session is in order! :)

Thank you for that, I will definetly try doing what you said in the above post. Just have to wait for another gopher day off, lol!

Trajectory...the bullet crosses the line of sight twice. once going up. once coming down.... at 25 yards your bullet is going UP at 100 yards or greater your bullet will be coming DOWN (depending on caliber, velocity etc. ) that is the only time your bullet will truly be "ON Target" the rest of the time it is higher or lower then the line of sight seen through your scope.

Just going to throw my two cents in.

Nothing wrong with your scope. If your cheek weld is consistent, parallax is not that big of a deal. Also, there is lots of info on the net about changing the parallax setting on some scopes to make them more suitable for typical rimfire ranges. Might be worth looking into.

I shoot a 3-9x32 on my gopher rig. It's a Weaver RV9 and is a fantastic hunting scope. It has an AO, but I rarely touch it. I set it at 60 yds and only adjust it when a gopher shows up at very close range and the image gets fuzzy. I don't find it worthwhile to continually adjust the objective. Like I said, I generally set it and forget it. When I'm at the range I'll adjust the AO to match the distance.

Next, I have the magnification set at about 6.5. Here's why.
I have my gun sighted in at 50yds. At 100yds, with the magnification set to 6.5, I can use the top of the thick section of the reticle as my aiming point. With a bit of practice, the two aiming points make it fairly straight forward to fudge in your aiming point on gophers that are in close and on those that are out to 100yds. Different scopes and/or different ammo might require a different magnification setting.

Trying to diagnose this over the interweb is like trying to figure out your aunt Sally’s latest malady from post’s on the web.

Get somebody else who knows something to try the rifle.