New to shooting rifles, what do I need?

MrBitey

MrBitey

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Well, I finally got my invitation to join DPRC (!) and I'm excited to soon be able to shoot outdoors and at distances beyond 25 yards. I've only ever shot at an indoor range, and that's been mostly pistols. I have a TCR22 rifle and an AR-15 (BG Defense with 16" barrel), but I've only shot them at the indoor range at 15-25 yards with red dots. What should I be looking at for shooting at DPRC? I'm guessing I should get some kind of scope to start with, assuming I can get by with the rifles I have. Thanks in advance for suggestions!
 
Depends on what you want to shoot. DPRC has many different ranges with different lengths. If you want to punch small groups at 300 yds, you will need optics. If you just want to hit man sized targets at 100, you should be able to do that now.

I bet there are members at DPRC who only shoot pistols too.
 
New to rifles myself.

I only have a simple red dot which for me works well for 25 to 50 yards.

Extra mags and lots of ammo is helpful. If going to a range a gun bag would be helpful too.
 
Since you're new to rifles, take time to learn proper marksmanship. Don't spend all your time bagged up on the table. Learn to shoot offhand, sitting, kneeling, prone. Learn Natural Point of Aim, breath control, trigger control. Sight picture/sight alignment is another subject. Check around at the club and see if anyone is a NRA certified Rifle Instructor.
 
Thanks for the suggestions! I'll definitely look into lessons and some sort of rests/sandbags. I can see how I could get by shooting steel targets at distances beyond 25 yards without optics (just listening for the hit), but for paper targets it seems like I'd need magnification. What's the right place to start? LPVO and a spotting scope? Something else?
 
As climberman suggest, first figure out what you're wanting to accomplish and then buy the equipment for that goal. For example an LPVO is not a exactly a precision optic, but generally, neither is that rifle. But, that combo may perfectly address your specific needs, once you figure out what those are.
 
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Range bag. Hauling all that gear and ammo needs a a good bag. I like tool bags that have a padded handle which I use as my substitute for buying bags. The tool bag keeps all your stuff permanently together. Look at Home Depot’s Huskey bags with hanndles.
 
Welcome to DPRC, hope to see you out there. I like to shoot steel at 100 and 200 with the red dot, it’s very doable to hit 8” plates off a rest. There are other ranges besides the long-range rifle there that have intermediate distances like 50-80 or so yards with larger steel plates, and I like to practice off hand, moving and shooting, reloads, etc. at those distances.

If you want to see how tight you can get your groups, you can really go crazy spending money. I would say just enjoy the club, keep shooting pistol, get a feel for what you enjoy about shooting and what skills you want to work on and go from there.

Hope to see you out there!

Colby
 
Concentrate on learning shooting what you have. Learn to hit the steel out to 300 yards with it.
200 yard hits from a bench with a dot should be pretty easy, as @surgicaltool mentions. Guys do it with iron sights.
Get a good 200 yard zero, and learn what that really means, and with some work on technique you'll realize just how incredibly effective and AR-15 with a red dot can be! Standing offhand shots at that distance are totally doable.

But if you must spend money, and we can always be counted on to help you with that, a good place to start for learning rifles is a decent bolt .22 with a decent scope. Or get a scope for the TCR.
The rimfire rifle range is pretty sweet at DPRC. Hope you enjoy it!
 
Get a decent spotting scope so you can see where your shots are going on paper and can zero your rifle. Then ring those plates. Just about any caliber is fun for me , good old .22 will give you more bang for the buck.
 
Ill just repeat whats above, ammo and training. As you use the rifle for more than just shooting off a bench you will learn what you like and make changes to reflect that.

Don't get stuck into the hole of just shooting from static fixed positions.
 
@MrBitey once we get some good weather let’s meet out there. I’m no pro, but I have some bags and bipods you can check out. Plus a few different set ups and styles. I do a little bit of everything out there, but the rimfire range is a great place to start. Open sights, scopes, doesn’t matter. Paper and plenty of steel.
 
Just go shoot what you already own and have fun. You’ll learn along the way what you need to have along with what would be nice to have and of course you’ll buy stuff that’s a waste of money along the way too.
 
MrBitey said:
Well, I finally got my invitation to join DPRC (!) and I'm excited to soon be able to shoot outdoors and at distances beyond 25 yards. I've only ever shot at an indoor range, and that's been mostly pistols. I have a TCR22 rifle and an AR-15 (BG Defense with 16" barrel), but I've only shot them at the indoor range at 15-25 yards with red dots. What should I be looking at for shooting at DPRC? I'm guessing I should get some kind of scope to start with, assuming I can get by with the rifles I have. Thanks in advance for suggestions!
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Ranges 0, 1, and 7 will be places you can spend a lot of time and ammo-budget.

But that TC can also help YOU have a lot of fun at the monthly rimfire challenge events ... where the dot you have may be ideal.
Hope you'll consider signing up.

Also, see about attending an Appleseed at Ramseur.
It's a terrific program and we are VERY lucky to have the national home range at RWVA right in our backyard.
 
I am a member there as well, personally I mostly use the action pits for shorter ranges and plinking fun. If you want to get into more serious longer range shooting at the 300 yard range I'd say a decent scope would be needed, sight it in at the sighting in 25 yard box at said range and work your way out from 100 to 200 to 300.
 
A set of shooting bags
A target stand
A rilfe scope good enough to see your bullet holes, and or a spotting scope.
A chamber flag big enough for a rifle.... however a large bright colored zip tie or weed eater string will work.

Take a class or participate in some rifle matches, explain to the match director and participants that you are completely green, I'm sure lots of people will give you a hand.
 
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Chuckman said:
Learn to shoot standing, on a knee, prone. A bench or table will make you lazy. A bench is great for some things, but if you do it too often then it's all you can do.

Take some classes, buy ammo. After time you'll figure out what you like and don't like.
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Good advice. Bench to sight in a shoot a group or two then mix it up. With an Eotech a buddy of mine was hitting steal effortlessly at 100 in 5 minutes. I’ve got to work on some kneeling shots.
 
CZfool68 said:
@MrBitey once we get some good weather let’s meet out there. I’m no pro, but I have some bags and bipods you can check out. Plus a few different set ups and styles. I do a little bit of everything out there, but the rimfire range is a great place to start. Open sights, scopes, doesn’t matter. Paper and plenty of steel.
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@CZfool68 that would be great! Let me know when you'd like to meet.

surgicaltool said:
Hope to see you out there!
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@surgicaltool Hope to meet you as well! Also, it's nice to see someone else from Chapel Hill on the forum!
 
MrBitey said:
@CZfool68 that would be great! Let me know when you'd like to meet.


@surgicaltool Hope to meet you as well! Also, it's nice to see someone else from Chapel Hill on the forum!
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Likewise - not many people of the gun in Chapel Hill, at least per capita. Hope to see you out there - I kinda suck at shooting but always have a great time haha
 
surgicaltool said:
Likewise - not many people of the gun in Chapel Hill, at least per capita. Hope to see you out there - I kinda suck at shooting but always have a great time haha
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Yeah, I'm not as good a shooter as I imagined I would be. :)

ps. You've given me the courage to update my profile location from 'Triangle' to 'Chapel Hill'. Thought I was the only one here.
 
Do you have an old worn out pair of pants? Blue jeans are ideal. Cut the legs off to make tubes about two feet long. Get some cat liter, fill up the tubes, and tie the ends with strong string. Three or four of those make good range rests. Do not rest your rifle on a hard object to shoot. Doing so may throw off your shots.
 
My advice would be to buy a quality .22 like a CZ457 or Tikka or similar. Put a 20 or 30 MOA rail on it and a decent scope (MOA or MRAD - your choice) with tactical turrets and a reticle to match. You can get by relatively cheap with an Athlon Argos or Vortex Viper. Then, add a decent bipod, like a Harris or even a decent Caldwell. With this setup and a rear bag, you can exploit the entire range across an entire spectrum of activities. You can work on cutting playing cards in half at 25 yards. You can practice until you shoot one-ragged-hole groups at 50. You can shoot the monthly CFF rimfire challenge targets and compete with others here for bragging rights. You can really work on your rifle fundamentals by shooting groups at 100. And due to the similarity in drop and windage between .22LR at 300 and .308 at 1000, you can "practice" or mimic shooting long range by shooting your .22 at 300 yards. A good quality .22 rifle just might be the most versatile and fun range toy there is.

That's just my 2 cents worth, of course.
 
If shooting small calibers at distance a good spotting scope is an absolute necessity. You’ve got to be able to see the target in order to verify your hits and make sight adjustments. Walking back and forth to check a target gets old in a hurry. Plus the savings in ammo will eventually pay for it.
 
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MrBitey said:
@surgicaltool Hope to meet you as well! Also, it's nice to see someone else from Chapel Hill on the forum!
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surgicaltool said:
Likewise - not many people of the gun in Chapel Hill, at least per capita. Hope to see you out there - I kinda suck at shooting but always have a great time haha
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Lots of peeps from CH here. I was living there a few years ago. In my buddy's neighborhood literally everyone in his area were shooters. We all went to matches together.

The annoying/obnoxious green haired slow-driving dorks may have a slight majority in that area, but all the reasonable people in CH are well armed, lol.
 
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Not a member there but went there several times a few years ago before my host moved away. I was really just wanting to get a 200 and 300yd zero for my benchrest gun and DPRC was ideal for doing that. Hate those benches thow. I found my own card board target backer, targets and some spring loaded clamps from Home Depot came in very handy on the 100/200/300 range.
 
baltimoreed said:
If shooting small calibers at distance a good spotting scope is an absolute necessity. You’ve got to be able to see the target in order to verify your hits and make sight adjustments. Walking back and forth to check a target gets old in a hurry. Plus the savings in ammo will eventually pay for it.
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I really like the idea of target cameras as long as we’re talking about someone else's money.
 
baltimoreed said:
If shooting small calibers at distance a good spotting scope is an absolute necessity. You’ve got to be able to see the target in order to verify your hits and make sight adjustments. Walking back and forth to check a target gets old in a hurry. Plus the savings in ammo will eventually pay for it.
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I always forget to bring the low end spotting scope. :( I keep a cheap pair of palm sized binoculars in the rifle case side pocket.
 
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Button Pusher said:
I always forget to bring the low end spotting scope. :( I keep a cheap pair of palm sized binoculars in the rifle case side pocket.
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This is why quality glass is so important, even on a 22. I have a Gen 2 Vortex Viper on my CZ455 currently, and I can easily spot my hits and misses out to 300/350 yards in reasonable conditions. And in really good conditions, I can still spot my misses out to 500, provided it is dry enough to get a puff of dust off the impact (though I cannot usually see the exact impact points on the plates beyond 350 unless the plates are perfectly clean). I had a Vortex Diamondback on there for a while, and when the mirage came up, it just couldn't hold up optically. It was fine for what it was in ideal conditions, but the window of "ideal" conditions was just so much narrower than I could get with the Athlon Helos or the Vortex Viper.
 
You don't need optics to shoot a rifle. Welcome to DPRC by the way! I've been a member since 2007, and its a great club.

To shoot a rifle, I recommend getting yourself a sandbag or front rest if you want to shoot from the bench. Otherwise, get yourself a quality sling, and lots of ammo. Work on the basics before going all in on upgrades.
 
Money...lots and lots of money. I kid...well partially. Best bet would be ammo and a class from a QUALITY instructor. Not sure if Vickers or Hackathorn are still doing classes but they both run a great one. The one I regret never finding time to take was a Kyle Lamb class. I hear Pat Mac as well as Redback One (Jason Falla) run great courses as well
 
baltimoreed said:
If shooting small calibers at distance a good spotting scope is an absolute necessity. You’ve got to be able to see the target in order to verify your hits and make sight adjustments. Walking back and forth to check a target gets old in a hurry. Plus the savings in ammo will eventually pay for it.
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I just upgraded, yes I'm a poor, to this spotting scope. Does well out to the 100 yards i have access to and didn't break the bank for myself which is also just now trying rifle shooting pretty much. Had to have it since I'm using irons on everything. Nothing fancy, but it gets the job done. Packs up small as well. Not trying to hijack the thread, but I wanted to share with other rifle newbs.

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