Gun-a-Day 5: Remington/Baikal .22LR/.410, part 2 (CeeBee Time!)

Simple, spare, basic … There’s a potential for elegance in these qualities, and, for my time and money, the Remington/Baikal IZH94 has it, and it “jus’ plain shoots perty doggone good.”

The ejector is nothing flashy– no spring ejection, just a sliding bar that raises the cases on break-open. The flat-blade, square-notch rear sight (there is a groove for optic mounting, too) is about as simple as it gets with only a side-to-side dovetailing for adjustment. The matte black post front sight appears to be adjustable for elevation (never messed with it … don’t expect I’ll ever need to).

Plain and minimal … and amazingly accurate and useful. I was going to show shotgun results this time (could be fun for tomorrow), but my shot o’the day became immediately apparent when I fired one CeeBee .22 at yesterday’s box target (black dots mark the Super Colibri “shots by spotlight”).

I’m not concerned if it seems a bit naive to some that one single shot can somehow be “practice,” because my position is (and I’ll stand by it without hesitation) my own small measure of Gun Wisdom: any gun that can be picked up after weeks or months of storage and fired to the center ring on a first and only shot is a good gun.

I know full well that I won’t likely ever be mistaken for a match-level shooter, and my guns aren’t precision-tuned, and I don’t try to afford match-quality ammo.

I just try to do as well as I can with as little time as I get to practice with the tools/toys I have. This is noted to clarify the following points:

–>  25 yards is no big deal as a shooting distance

–>  CeeBee’s aren’t generally useful for accuracy testing

–>  Baikal rifles aren’t highly sought-after collector’s items or luxury guns (and the .22/.410 isn’t even still on market, is it?)

–>  I barely get time to shoot a few rounds at a time, and I have gone months at a time in the past few years without any real “range time”

So, none of my shots are anything important except as signs that I’m actually getting out and enjoying the outdoors and my firearms (one major reason for this online shooting diary, really).

And yet … when I walked up to this target and saw this 10-ring hit made with hand-in-sling-wrapped iron sighting, a mini-charge cartridge, and my discontinued-but-almost-no-one-noticed rifle, I still felt a great sense of satisfaction and got a big ol’smile on my face and shook my head in pleasant surprise.

And that’s the fun of shooting for me.

Gun-a-Day 4: Remington/Baikal IZH94, blue/wood .22LR/.410 over-under

There were a few fairly lemony moments of the day, though many blessings were in evidence, too. While I can’t claim to have made any meringue pie, I did manage to end up with some lemonade.

A major tech-glitch with my iPhone kept me at the office until after dark, so some creativity was necessary for getting my shooting in today. I found a way to throw some lead without any neighbor-stressing, after-dark, gunpowdered thunder by taking out the Remington-imported rifle-shotgun combo gun I bought a couple of years ago from a dealer on gunsamerica.com. The digital device had me stressed and distracted, but my analog shooter had me smilin’ and focused again pretty quickly.

I really enjoy/respect Baikal’s fit, finish, design, heft, feel, and function of this inexpensive, utilitarian piece of hardware. It’s my only break-open rifle (at this point, anyway), and I have to be careful of my fingers around the breech release, but it’s a great rifle to carry and shoot. At least that’s how I feel about the rimfire barrel. I haven’t yet had occasion to try out the shotgun barrel (tomorrow?).

The ammo was the key factor in noise-limitation, though. The primer-only Aguila Super Colibri .22LR (what I refer to in my tags as “.22SC”) rounds make less noise– when fired through a long-barreled rifle– than some air-powered pellet guns. No kidding. CeeBee’s are not as quiet, but they do hit a bit harder and run out a bit further.

I’ve had some occasional trouble with barrel jamming with some Super Colibri rounds (had to tap out a few bullet heads from the Savage a time or two), but they are typically reliable, and I’m routinely amazed at their accuracy potential.

The slugs are small, and the primers don’t pack enough punch to cycle a semi-auto, but I’ve taken several squirrels with them. One was a single hit drop from at least 75 feet– down a hill! And I was leaning out a porch window. Silly, really, but I loved making that shot.

The Aguila’s are very useful for near-silent, short-range practice and pest control.

For tonight’s session, I put a center-ring target on a Sportsman’s Guide box. 40-50 feet is a good range, but I went back to my 25-yard range anyway, set up a spotlight, and broke open the single-shot receiver.

After dinging the first round off a spinner set I leave out there, I used the very simple, flat slot and round post iron sights to send 9 more rounds down the line.

The design fits well with my (admittedly limited) understanding of the pragmatism and admirable, modest simplicity of the Russian working-class: make me a tool that does its job reliably and for a long time. Make it cheap and solid and very effective with little or no pretense of fancy luxury or gaudy refinement. Come to think of it, what working-class person doesn’t feel that way about his or her tools of the trade and daily-life appliances?

So, these are the shots o’the day: on the box if not on the rings. What’s so special? I think it’s cool (and very useful when hunting multiple squirrels at once) that the pop of the little slugs hitting cardboard is louder than the rimfire strike and ignition. These rounds are nearly self-silenced.

Tomorrow? I’m planning on making use of some daylight to get a bit of .410 action.

I’ll start off with grape juice and try to avoid citrus altogether.