AAR Intermediate Rimfire Rifle, ECCL Nov 15&16, 2025
Shooters spent two wonderful days at Erie County Conservation League (ECCL), Milan, Ohio on November 15&16, 2025 working with their .22lr’s at distances out to 200 yds. Welcomes and check-in started in the main clubhouse Saturday morning followed by a welcome from one of our ED’s, Yates, who came over from western PA to lead us for the weekend. Yates then went through a fact filled introduction to shooting .22’s at distances past the normal 25yds at our basic events. He shared details on the three challenges of the rifleman (target detection, range and making the shot) followed by information on expected drops at various distances that we can expect. He also reviewed wind calls and related sight adjustments which came in handy given we had gusty winds most of the weekend. Scope details were reviewed and approaches to navigating the weekend were discussed. Once the classroom work was complete, we moved to the range.
Rifles were brought to the 125yd line and we prepared a mag with a single shot to shoot Morgan’s shingle. Only one shooter (the old guy with a bolt action CZ, bad eyes and open sights) hit the shingle. That would be Corvette. We then moved to the 50yd line to start our sighting work. We shot several sighter groups, made sight adjustments and took notes on the changes made and then shot the stage for score. This process was repeated at 100yds, 150yds and 200yds. So at the completion of this process, we had come-ups/sight settings for all four distances and we had completed our first qualifier.
A second qualifier was shot on Saturday afternoon and the day ended with everyone tired from the wind and temps. A gusty wind from quartering from behind us blew all day. In fact, it blew till mid-afternoon on Sunday. Several shooter had qualifying scores on Saturday.
Sunday morning started in the clubhouse as there is no shooting at ECCL before 10AM on Sundays. The time was used to go over in detail how to use your sighting system to estimate range along with a couple of joint exercises to practice. We then moved to the range, used several sighting tools to confirm the sizes of items in our scope reticles (or the front sight width for the open sight guy). Once we had these measurements, we used them to range several items placed in select spots on the range. By the time this was done, it was 10am and time to send some rounds down range.
Two more qualifiers were shot with three more folks shooting a qualifying score. Early in the afternoon, shooters were given the chance to shoot at 300yds. Come ups were calculated and many of the shooters ran out of elevation adjustments and had to estimate a hold-over that would get them on target. We had more hits than I expected, well done to all.
The range was then broken down and goodbyes were shared as everyone headed for home having spent a great weekend with their favorite .22lr.