Backyard quiet wars.

[North Country Gal]

I've been working hard to find a way to shoot our rimfires in the backyard and still be as quiet as possible for the sake of our neighbors. Oh, it's perfectly legal for us to shoot rimfires in our backyard as long as we are safe and we have that covered by using 22 cal rated steel bullet traps. It's just that we have one neighbor who has abused his shooting rights by shooting big bore rifles and handguns at all hours of the night and our non-shooting neighbors are pretty upset. Not good. Anyway, we get along great with all our neighbors and want to stay that way. When we want to shoot the big guns we just load up the car and drive 10 minutes to our club range.

We do love shooting our rimfres, though, so I've been trying all sorts of quiet, low noise rimfire ammo options for backyard shooting, hoping to find ammo that would keep up with the accuracy we get with our air guns at 30 and 50 yards. As for rimfire ammo, I've tried CCI Quiet, several brands of 22 LR subsonic, as well as CB 22 Shorts. So far, the only rimfire ammo that can compete with our airguns for accuracy has been the 22 LR subsonic loads, but those are just as loud as SV 22 LR ammo, so they don't pass the quiet test. The CCI Quiet and CBs are quiet enough, but accuracy-wise, only plinking grade stuff and that's at 30 yards. Waste of time shooting that stuff at 50.


This week, I did find some CCI CB 22 Long to try. The idea, here, is that with the Longs, I wouldn't get a crud ring in the chamber of my good 22 rifles, so maybe that would help with accuracy. For a rifle, I chose my 1885 Low Wall. Shot several groups of the CB Longs at 30 yards with the single shot and ... ended up holding my nose with accuracy. Pretty bleak. In fact, worst ammo, yet.


Not ready to give up, so I decided to try another rifle, our CZ 453 V in 22 LR. This is a proven sub inch shooter at 100 yards, so I had high hopes for better accuracy in this one with the CB Longs. If this rifle couldn't shoot the CB Longs with accuracy, no rifle would.


Still no go. Groups at 30 were still in inches. Out of frustration, went back to the house and grabbed one of my favorite spring piston air rifles, my HW50 in 20 cal. Figured I would use it as a control, just in case it was me having a bad shooting day and not the ammo. This one has a factory moderator, which helps to reduce noise. It's still not as quiet as shooting CBs in the rimfires, but plenty quiet enough.


One group with the HW50 air rifle was all I needed to know it was the CB Long ammo that had the accuracy problem, not me. By the way, just so you know, this is an average group at 30 yards for all my HW and FWB springers. Our PCP air rifles shoot even smaller groups at 30 yards.


Bottom line, then, is that our airguns win the backyard quiet shooting war and it's not even a contest. Our rimfire rifles deserve proper ammo, so we'll be taking them to the range to shoot with proper ammo, from now on.

[daytime dave]

It's too bad on guy ruined a nice past time. It figures though. There's always one, as they say.

It's really nice to be considerate to your neighbors.

Nice springer shooting too.

[RanchRoper]

Maybe invite your neighbors over for coffee and some rimfire shooting. they might get hooked.

[North Country Gal]

Hi RR

I have invited a couple over for some air gun shooting, but no takers, yet. Might have to try rimfire. Good idea.

[Sir Henry]

Sorry you couldn’t find a quiet and accurate round. I’ve found SV to be quiet enough for where I’m at. So far everyone that knows I have a range has encouraged me to shoot. Having a berm that collects the rounds sure impresses people. Here people are more concerned about safety than noise.

That’s some mighty fine airgun shooting.

[North Country Gal]

Thanks, Gene. You sure did choose well the you bought that place.

As for the springers, learning how to shoot springers with consistent accuracy takes a lot of time and work, not to mention a lot of pellets, but it is so worth it in the long run. Springers still can't compete in head to head competition with PCPs as far as accuracy, but I can get close enough with the springers, now, that I shoot the springers far more than the PCPs. Springers have that same kind of convenience you get with rimfires. Just grab a gun and some ammo and go shoot. No worries about filling them, how much air you have left and so on.

[Hatchdog]

Sorry you weren’t able to accomplish your goal with the rimfire’s but it has been an interesting read following along with with your process.

[markiver54]

It's always nice to hear the positive comments regarding the springers after my latest acquisition. Good info on the rimfires as well! Thankfully,
I don't have to worry about noise up here at the cabin. I was shooting my SGC a few days ago at my spinning targets from about 30 yards while standing. to my surprise, I only missed a couple times but only shot about two dozen rounds. I do love that little carbine.

[North Country Gal]

Glad you got away for some shooting, Mark. Good for you. Always nice to be able to shoot right out your door, no matter what you are shooting.

[rickhem]

I had a few sleeves of the CB Caps back a long time ago. These were the ones that were advertised in magazines along side a popped kernel of popcorn, saying that the CB round was quieter. I think it was Remington that sold them. I didn't do exhaustive testing on them, but they grouped well for me back then. I was shooting a lot of Bullseye Pistol back then, and those rounds grouped in the same place at 25 yards that CCI Standard Velocity did from my Smith 41, but they wouldn't cycle it. I also used that ammo to dispatch a couple rats that would congregate under our bird feeders, and from a single shot rifle barrel, they really are quiet. But if you can't get them to group, then I agree, they're useless. That was Stingers for me, I could never find anything that shot them well.

And that is some really good shooting with a springer at that distance. They are notoriously unforgiving of seemingly small variations in hold and follow-through. You sure have that down.