By Greg Ray | Outdoor Solutions | August 2026
Almost everything we do in our long range classes runs through 6.5 Creedmoor. It is what most of our rifles are chambered in, and it is the caliber we use to teach the majority of our drills. But this week I wanted to do something we have never done on the channel before and talk specifically about practicing rifle fundamentals with a .22 LR.
Here is why it matters. If your hunting rifle is a 7 PRC, a 300 Win Mag, or a 28 Nosler, you are looking at two, three, even four dollars a round. That adds up fast if you are trying to get the repetition it takes to build real consistency. A .22 LR lets you build the exact same fundamentals for pennies on the dollar, with zero recoil, so you can focus entirely on technique instead of managing recoil and blast. In this article I am walking through the three fundamentals I focus on most: grip, cheek weld, and trigger control, plus a bonus tip on follow through.
For this session I am shooting a Savage bolt-action .22 LR. We have had several rimfire rifles sent to us to test, including guns from Ruger and Tikka, but I grabbed the Savage for this one because it has more of a hunting-style profile with some heft to it. It is suppressed with a Dead Air RXD and topped with a Zeiss LRP S3, a first focal plane optic that some of you might think is overkill on a .22, until you watch the top competitors in .22 rimfire precision matches. The S3's parallax adjusts down to 15 meters and out to infinity, which is exactly what you need for the closer distances a .22 LR is built for.
I am running CCI Standard Velocity, 40 grain, which clocked in right around 1,050 fps at the muzzle on our chronograph, a subsonic number that keeps the suppressor working the way it should. For hunters, I like a 50 yard zero on a .22 LR rather than the 30 or 35 yards a lot of precision shooters use, since it matches how most of us are actually going to use the rifle in the field. From there we stretch out to 100 yards and beyond.
Grip your .22 LR the same way you would any centerfire precision rifle. Take three fingers and wrap them around the wrist of the stock, with your trigger finger resting on the outside of the trigger guard until you are ready to fire.
The part most people get wrong is the thumb. A lot of us were taught as kids to just wrap the thumb over the top of the grip and hold on. That works fine for a single-shot shotgun, but on a precision rifle it forces your wrist out of line with the bore. Instead, run your thumb straight up along the top of the grip, in line with the barrel. Watch what your wrist does when you make that change: it falls right back in line with the rifle. That alignment lets you press the trigger straight back instead of at an angle, which is one of the biggest factors in a clean, consistent trigger break.
This is also where the .22 LR earns its keep. There is zero recoil, so a new shooter is not developing a flinch or anticipating a bang and a kick before they have even learned proper grip and trigger mechanics. Even a low-recoil round like 6.5 Creedmoor cannot compete with a .22 for teaching grip without bad habits creeping in.
Cheek weld is how you align your face on the stock and how you look through the scope, and it is one of the most common breakdowns we see in class. The mistake is working up to the rifle instead of the other way around: sitting too high, then hunching down and over to find the scope. That puts your head at an angle, introduces scope shadow, and makes it hard to find a consistent sight picture shot after shot.
What you want instead is to set your stool or position so that when you drop your cheek onto the stock, your head comes down straight, not sideways. Two things tell you it is right:
Once you are shooting the same rifle and the same optic regularly, your cheek should land in the exact same spot every time, which builds a repeatable eye box, or eye relief. Zeiss optics tend to be generous here, usually around 3 to 3.5 inches, though a first focal plane scope like the S3 sits a little closer than a second focal plane optic like the V4. If you find shadow creeping into your field of view, the fix is simple: adjust your position slightly forward or back until the full picture opens back up.
You will hear this called pulling the trigger, squeezing the trigger, or pressing the trigger. The terminology does not matter much, but I avoid the word "pull" with students because it implies moving the trigger off to one side instead of straight back.
Start from the grip and cheek weld fundamentals above: three fingers wrapped around the wrist, thumb in line with the barrel, trigger finger resting outside the guard until you are ready and the safety is off. Once you are on target, take up any slack in the trigger until you feel the wall, then apply steady, straight pressure until the shot breaks on its own. You should not be able to predict the exact instant it fires. If your sight picture jumps or shifts the moment before the shot, you are jerking the trigger instead of pressing it.
Use the pad of your index finger, not the tip and not so far in that you are past the first knuckle. Placement too far forward or too far back on the finger tends to pull shots left or right. And again, this is where a .22 LR shines: without a loud bang or recoil to anticipate, you can focus entirely on pressure and feel instead of bracing for an explosion.
This is one we see broken in almost every class we teach, especially with students shooting expensive optics at distance. They break the shot, then immediately lift their head off the stock to look downrange with their own eyes, trying to spot the hit. We call this "prairie dogging," since it looks like a prairie dog popping its head up out of a burrow.
The problem is your eyes cannot compete with a quality scope, and lifting off the gun means you never actually see your impact. Instead, keep the trigger pressed all the way back after the shot breaks, stay in your optic, and count "one, two" before you reset. Staying in the scope through follow through is what lets you watch your own impacts and start correcting in real time, which is one of the real advantages of practicing with a .22 LR: you can actually see where your rounds are landing.
None of these fundamentals are unique to a .22. They are the same grip, cheek weld, and trigger control principles that apply whether you are shooting a rimfire at 50 yards or a 7 PRC at 700. The difference is that a .22 LR lets you build them cheaply, quietly, and without the recoil that so often causes new shooters to develop bad habits before the good ones ever take hold.
If you have been putting off dry fire or range time because centerfire ammo costs are adding up, pick up a .22 LR and put these three fundamentals to work. The consistency you build here will show up the next time you are behind your hunting rifle.
We will be back with a follow-up video taking this same rifle out to the know your limits targets and stretching distance out past 100 yards, so keep an eye out for that one.
Greg Ray is the founder of Outdoor Solutions, based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. His team offers precision shooting instruction, guided hunts, field to table events and firearms training courses. Follow along on YouTube for weekly hunting and shooting content.
For more details on our long range schools Long Range Shooting Classes for Hunters | Outdoor SolutionsFor more details on our Field to Table events From Field To Table Events 2026 | Hunting AdventuresEmail: info@outdoorsolutionscorp.com | Call: 918-258-7817
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What are the most important rifle shooting fundamentals to practice?Grip, cheek weld (or stock weld), trigger control, and follow through are widely considered the core fundamentals of accurate rifle shooting, along with a stable position and natural point of aim. Getting these right consistently matters more than any single piece of gear. In this video and article, we break each one down individually using a low-cost .22 LR so the mechanics can be isolated and practiced without recoil getting in the way.
Why do shooters practice with a .22 LR instead of their hunting rifle?A .22 LR produces essentially no recoil and no muzzle blast, which removes the two biggest triggers for flinching. That means a shooter can repeat a drill dozens of times in a single session and focus purely on grip, cheek weld, and trigger technique, at a fraction of the cost of centerfire ammunition. Those same mechanics transfer directly to a centerfire hunting rifle once they are dialed in.
How do you fix a flinch when shooting a rifle?A flinch typically develops from anticipating recoil or noise, and the most effective fix is removing that stimulus while the shooter rebuilds proper trigger mechanics, which is exactly what dry fire and low-recoil practice with a .22 LR accomplish. Coaches also recommend having a shooter break trigger presses without knowing exactly when the shot will fire, since predictability is often what causes a shooter to flinch before the shot instead of after it.
What is proper cheek weld on a rifle?Proper cheek weld means the shooter's head comes down onto the stock in a natural, repeatable position rather than hunching sideways or up to meet the rifle, producing a full field of view through the scope with no shadowing at the edges. A consistent cheek weld, paired with the same optic setup every time, is what allows a shooter to find the same eye relief and sight picture shot after shot.
What does "follow through" mean when shooting a rifle?Follow through means maintaining position, sight picture, and trigger pressure through and after the shot breaks, rather than immediately moving to check the impact. Lifting off the gun to look downrange, sometimes called "prairie dogging," means the shooter misses seeing their own impact through the scope and can develop inconsistent habits at the moment that matters most.
