zero for squirrels

[berettadouble]

Hey guys-
I have tried to slow life down a little bit and have returned to hunting squirrels with my favorite .22. Having a blast but its been a long time since I've messed with a 22, silly me.

What distance do you squirrel hunters zero for a 22LR?

[GoodOlBoy]

Dunno. I don't use a scope for squirrel.

I practice at 25 and 50 for them.

GoodOlBoy

[Ridge Runner]

dead on at 50 for me. the 17 rimfires are +1/2" at 50.
RR

[Catfish]

I try to zero my squirrel rifle for what I think is the distance most of my shots will be. I don`t think there is any best best yardage for everyone to use.

[Gil Martin]

Where I hunt, I sight in my .22 l.r. rifles to be an inch high at 50 yards. All the best...
Gil

[Swift]

I sight in my squirrel 22s at 35yds.

[jmarriott]

Sight in with a scope and high rings at 30 yards. You will be 1/5 an inch high at 20 yards and a 1/5 inch low at 50 yards. this is kind of unique in guns and most tree rats at 50 yard high in trees arn't a real visable shot anyway.

[TKO]

25 yards works well for me.

[dovehunter]

Like someone else here, I would prefer to sight in at 35 yds. thinking that is probably the optimum range. However my club only has 25 & 50-yd ranges and our rules require that you shoot only from the bench and at targets only on the backstop. I therefore sight all my .22s in at 50-yds. I use exclusively 1" diameter big game type scopes which are parallax-adjusted to 100-yds. This can occasionally cause a problem on close-in shots if I don't make a conscious effort to mount my gun so as to look directly through the center of the scope. However, as long as a do my part, it appears that the 50-yd zero is okay.

[8X56MS]

I sight my .22 Squirrel rifles to be dead center at 35 yards.

[popplecop]

I also use the 25 yd. zero then shoot it at 50 to see where my particular 22 round is hitting. I do think the 35 yd, one is closer to ideal.

[GoodOlBoy]

I dunno most squirrels I shoot are within 80 feet. So thinking about it I don't really NEED a zero further out than that.

GoodOlBoy

[Rapier]

This subject comes up now and again and I always go to a person that has done extensive reserch on the very subject.

"For tree squirrels, I would move the zero range back to 50 yards. That would give you virtually no rise at mid range, and your drop at 75 yards would be less than 2 inches. Lethal hits on tree squirrels beyond 75 yards are pretty "iffy" at best."
Larry Lachuck
Gun Digest Book of the .22 Rimfire
published 1978

Best,
Ed

[22.sniper]

25 yards works well for me.
25 yards works great for me too.