Getting Started in NRL-22 Matches pt. 1 of 3 [VIDEO]
Mark Stevens: Hey guys, it's Mark and Baron with Arnzen Arms. Looks like you've got a project going on.
Baron Juhl: We do, we're going to dive head first in the NRL-22, see what I can do with that.
Mark Stevens: I've been super curious about this, but I haven't pulled the trigger, ha-ha.
Baron Juhl: Shooting puns.
Mark Stevens: I've been curious about the sport cause it's like the barrier to entry seems pretty low, especially compared to other action shooting sports, right?
Baron Juhl: Absolutely.
Mark Stevens: In this case it's a little more gear intensive than say a pistol match, but once you're in it's pretty cheap. First of all, let's set this up. So, Forest Lakes Sportsmen's club here in Minnesota has got the first regular NRL-22 match, and the one we're going to go to is on December 21st. That's just a couple of weeks away for us for now. By the time you see this, it'll probably be 10 days out, maybe a week. So come out and join us. I just talked to their match director and they are going to run them all winter.
Baron Juhl: Awesome.
Mark Stevens: So they're going to be NRL-22 matches monthly, year-round, at that club.
Baron Juhl: So if you're really Minnesota brave?
Mark Stevens: Yeah, and you can get all the information on that on the Forest Lake calendar, that's flscmn.com or forestlakesportsmansclub.com. Go to the calendar, you'll see the NRL-22 matches there, and there're some blogs there and some pretty lightweight stuff. I need to talk to the guy who does the blogging. Okay, and then the other resource probably to mention right up front is a nrl22.org, which is where we got a lot of our information from. Plus, we just have a lot of friends.
Mark Stevens: What'd you find out about the game? What division? I don't even know enough about it to speak intelligently.
Baron Juhl: So, the way the sport is broken down, it is very oriented toward your person that wants to get into just shooting competitions, particularly rifle. The starting class is called "base class" and it's just based off of MSRP of the rifle and the scope. So, it is absolutely set up for the dude that has his 10/22 from 40 years ago sitting in the closet with an old loop hold on it can absolutely show up and compete. He's not going to be on the level of guys that have dedicated the money to it, but you're not going to be totally dead in the water trying to show up with something like that.
Mark Stevens: That base price has got to be sub $1050, right?.
Baron Juhl: Yes, $1050, and that's just rifle and optical. That doesn't include mount, sling, bipods, pressure, any of that stuff. And then from there above that, you just go straight into open class and then you're looking at guys with Vudoos and Anschutz and all sorts of crazy stuff like that.
Mark Stevens: Super goofy guns that no one's got. Okay, cool. Our goal here was to just do this in the sub $1050 category, right? So we went and looked around at some different stuff, and we wanted to select a package that was reasonably affordable, but still going to give you a good result. What did you decide on ultimately?
Baron Juhl: So the Ruger Precision Rimfire is kind of perfect for this game. MSRP on this is?
Mark Stevens: We've got it at, was that $400, is that right? Yeah, $400.
Baron Juhl: Yeah, $400 is our shelf price I think $450 is MSRP.
Mark Stevens: Rifle: $400, and what does that get you over a 10/22.
Baron Juhl: So, I'm a little biased because I have shot these before and I was blown away with how accurate they are. I've got a number of friends that have these, all of them shoot better than I could explain a 22 can on camera. I mean I've shot one of these guns out 200 yards on steel, which feels pretty crazy with a Rimfire.
Mark Stevens: So, so it's a bolt action platform. You've got a free float barrel.
Baron Juhl: Yep, analog CamGuard on here, you've got this super adjustable stock. So you just undo the clip here and you can adjust the length of pull and the cheek risers, super easy. That's another nice thing about this gun, if you want to do this competition with your kids, on the range you can pop this, collapse it down, they can run the stage, pop it open again, extend it back for you.
Mark Stevens: Yeah, just throw some witness marks on there and you can switch it back and forth, really cool.
Baron Juhl: The other great thing, everybody loves 10/22 magazines. It comes with the 15, but you can use the 10s or the 25s.
Mark Stevens: What's that trigger?
Baron Juhl: I forget what they called their version of that.
Mark Stevens: Yeah, it's like an "accurized" trigger.
Baron Juhl: Accu-trigger.
Mark Stevens: Cool!
Baron Juhl: Yep, and it's run in this AR style, thumb safety here, and that's the lever.
Mark Stevens: And also you could also suppress it.
Baron Juhl: It's threaded, yeah. It's a great gun for this type of program.
Mark Stevens: All right, so that's $400, and then we paired that with?
Baron Juhl: The Diamondback Tactical First Focal Plane from Vortex. This has their EBR-2C Reticle in it. So you've got that full, Christmas tree, Horus-esque type reticle, where you've got elevation and windage holds.
Mark Stevens: Is it daylight bright?
Baron Juhl: Right? It's not even illuminated. The scope, Vortex made to do a lot of different sports. In particular, it goes down to 15 yards for Parallax, that's where it's marked to, which would be your 22 competitions. This is the 6 to 24 they also make a 4 to 16. I figured, looking at some targets that some of these matches have, I wanted more magnification, I think.
Mark Stevens: To give you some idea the ranges are out to potentially 200 yards. Potentially, but the targetry is what gets you. You could have a 50 yard, one-inch circle or a hundred yards, one-inch. If it's one MOA it's the size of your Reticle tip. They're a little tiny targets. So you went with a higher magnification, which I think is a smart move. That unit is $250.
Baron Juhl: $250 or $350?
Mark Stevens: Is it $250, yeah it says right there.
Baron Juhl: $250. Oh, that's the wrong box.
Mark Stevens: That's the 4/12? Oh, I got the wrong box. So, it's $350?
Baron Juhl: $350 on that one.
Mark Stevens: All right,
Mark Stevens: let me double check that while you talk some action.
Baron Juhl: It has the exposed turrets so you can dial with that. Parallax adjustment. First Focal Plane, so you have true measurement through your Reticle at all magnifications. Obviously your diopter, focus adjustment, things like that on here. Again, this was influenced by other people I know that have this rifle and do some of the NRL-22 stuff. Some of them have this identical setup that we're going to show you here. There's a reason we came to this. Paired with that, for the mount I grabbed one of the Vortex mounts that we have here.
Baron Juhl: I don't get too bent around the axle about what mount we're going to use. If you buy a decent mount, it's a good mount. We've had good luck with the Vortexes. We have a lot of the Warren products here. If I was just buying mounts in the mid price range, that's where I would default to. This Vortex Pro Series Mount will work just as well as the Warrens do. And I don't see any reason in this case the use to jump up to like a Nightforce. Don't really need a titanium mount. I'm not too worried about weight on this set up.
Mark Stevens: All right, the Diamondback Tacticle I just verified is $400, but you could do the 4 to 12 at $250, to get you in the game.
Mark Stevens: And then at $400, we're at $800 total right now for the package we're putting together.
Baron Juhl: I'll have to look up MSRP again and maybe we can post that in the notes.
Mark Stevens: Yeah. Well look, this is everyday prices circa, snapshot time 2019. We're retail, so we're not scraping the nickels off the bottom of the things and we're not gouging anybody. So this is actually pretty good. This is what you'd expect to find price-wise. We're at $800 and then those rings you selected were $140 so $940 is the bare minimum of what you need.
Baron Juhl: Then you've got set up, put together, you can show up and shoot.
Mark Stevens: Yeah, you're all good to go. Cool. There are however some shooting positions that you have to deal with.
Mark Stevens: And things like a sling or a bipod were the next upgrades that we could talk about, and obviously having some artificial stabilization to your gun is good for accuracy.
Baron Juhl: Totally. Starting out, we picked the Magpul, it looks cool, it also is a good design, it's very lightweight, it fits very well with a rifle. You could do Harris and spend another $10, $20 or whatever. These guys are $110 and another $9 for the rail sections here. $120 for that. The other option you might want to look at...we just grabbed simple stuff, you can go up or down in price on all this...this is the Magpul QD Sling. The rifles got the QD rear socket, so you'd need a $65 for this and about $25 for a front socket. Can you lock it into that rail section?
Baron Juhl: No, there's no [crosstalk 00:09:03] in here, but you've got it on the back at least.
Mark Stevens: You're at, let's say another $90 for this. You've got $200 worth of first round toys to add on, and then ammo.
Baron Juhl: So I talked to a lot of people that shoot these guns. Talked to a lot of different people that just shoot things like small boar. Precision work with Rimfire guns. The consistent answer I got from a lot, for the balance of price and performance the CCI standards are where it's at, and that was an almost unanimous opinion it seems.
Mark Stevens: And these are $9 per hundred. We don't have exact accurate round count. It says anywhere from 70 to 140 for a match, right? So, let's just say bring 200 pounds to the match. Especially at this price, if any of you have done any other action shooting you know that's nothing. You've got $16 worth of ammo and a $15 match fee.
Baron Juhl: That's a cheap match.
Mark Stevens: You're going home with 50 or 60 rounds for...solving any problems you had at the last match for the next match. I think it's pretty reasonable. So it's $30 to shoot the match, you're going to shoot the four or five stages, hang out with the guys all day and the gals, and just have a great time.
Baron Juhl: Cool.
Mark Stevens: Well, let's go put the sucker together and then we'll wrap this all up.
Baron Juhl: Yep, cool.
Mark Stevens: All right, cool. Well, did you get everything you wanted for Christmas?
Baron Juhl: I did.
Mark Stevens: Cool. Just run down the gun real quick and what are your thoughts on this?
Baron Juhl: So we've got, starting at the muzzle here, put on the medical bipod right out at the front here. I've used these bipods before. I'm really fond of them.
Baron Juhl: There's a little more play in them than your Harris or obviously your Atlas, but if you're good about pre-loading the bipod, these work awesome.
Mark Stevens: Right on. They look good too. It's everything you need, nothing you don't and they look appropriate, and they're light.
Baron Juhl: And they're cheaper than all of their competition without getting into your actual cheap bipods.
Mark Stevens: Because the Harris is $120 to start, and then you've got to buy whatever fixture you want so you're at $140, $150. So save $50 there, easy.
Baron Juhl: Then obviously we got the Diamondback First Focal Plane on the top here. I am going [inaudible 00:11:21] of angle on this one not MRAD. They do make both. I plan on going MRAD in the future, but I don't know it well enough now that I want to just go run out and shoot a competition with it.
Baron Juhl: From there it's just going to be getting this adjusted and going from zero.
Mark Stevens: All right, so cool. The whole package you're looking at right here is $940 if you paid retail for it. And for those of you that are watching that are interested in this, this gun, as you see it right here, is going to get a couple hundred rounds through it, and then it's going to go up for sale as a complete package, lightly used. We will take great care of it. You'll see the gun getting pretty much every shot it takes, you'll probably see on camera. And then if you're interested in getting to this game or you just want a highly accurate 22 for well under $1000, there's your gun. All right, cool. We'll see you guys on the range. We're going to go out and test drive this thing in 21st and see what kind of result you get.
