He has so much fun that he sometimes haggles and makes deals on my behalf and then lets me know about them later. A case in point led to this post.
A mutual friend had a Cooper rifle in .22 Cooper Centerfire Magnum and had decided to sell it. My realtor buddy told him that if anybody else in town would want the thing, it had to be me. I looked at it and it was a beautiful little rifle. The wood is so perfectly checkered and the lines so crisp you first think the stock is plastic. It has three forward locking lugs and two extractors on the bolt. Its little but it is really built.
The Cooper was a neat little gun but far to pricy for my budget. I told my buddy that I really liked it but couldn't afford to spend the money. Being the kind of guy that he is, he said he'd hold it as long as I wanted. No handshake or down payment were necessary. It was on hold come hell or high water until I told him different.
Fast forward two or three years (years!) and I have some disposable income. The rifle was still there and my friend needed to pay property taxes and buy tags for three vehicles so I decided it was time to redeem the little gun and take it home.
Now I'm the proud owner of a fancy little rifle in .22 CCM, a few hundred empty cases, two sets of dies and I have no idea what to do with it. You see, the .22 CCM is sort of a center fire, reloadable 22 Winchester Magnum Rimfire. The picture below shows a 22 WMR on the left and a 22 CCM on the right. The CCM case is a tad longer. Sort of like comparing a 458 Win Mag. to a 458 Lott.
In reality, its performance puts it between the 22 WMR and the 22 Hornet. Like the .50 Beowulf, it seems to be the answer to a question that hardly anyone has asked. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. In fact, I kind of like it but what's it gonna be good for?
The .22 CCM will fire a 37 grain bullet at a muzzle velocity of about 2300 fps. That will do in anything from a marauding squirrel to a coyote so its not useless. Ought to be hell on turkey necks too. We do have coyotes in the neighborhood and the squirrels have gotten right brazen this year.
From the price I paid for it, I infer that the .22 CCM will kill squirrels five to ten times deader than a Marlin in .22 WMR kills them. I suppose that extra horsepower might be comforting when charged by a Leprous armadillo as well.
The little Cooper came with Leupold bases but no scope rings so I made a trip to Gander Mountain for those. I have a 1950's vintage Savage 99 that was wearing a late model Leupold scope and it just never looked right. I already had an old Weaver scope for the Savage and now seemed like the perfect time to put it on and put the Leupold on something more appropriate.
The Leupold came off the Savage and the Weaver took its place. Now the Savage looks like a rifle its age should look and the Weaver is bright and clear so it should do well in the woods. The Leupold went on the Cooper. I bore sighted it by sighting down the bore at the eagle emblem on the back of a 65 Chrysler Imperial and then adjusted the scope to match where the bore was pointed.
Having not loaded any ammo yet but still inspired, I scrounged up a Bushnell scope and a set of high rings and put that all on a Ruger M77 in 22 LR that also came to me through the realtor buddy. The Ruger looked like hell when I got it but the bore cleaned up nice. I bore sighted it the same way as I had the Cooper.
So I have Tuesday off, the weather is supposed to be clear and I have three rifles that need to be sighted in.
Hence the title.
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