Rimfire classic: The late, great and highly lamented Colt Woodsman.

A little over 30 years ago, Colt announced that it was dropping the Woodsman from production. A staple of the company lineup since its introduction in 1915, by 1977 it was a sales loser for Colt. It simply could not compete in cost against the Ruger Mk I.

One of the guys in our martial arts school had wanted a Woodsman since the first time he'd laid eyes on one. But he was at that time in our state's gray area: not old enough to buy from a dealer but old enough to buy from a private owner. So he asked me to buy it for him and he'd then buy it from me. (Before someone screams "straw purchase," it wasn't. A straw purchase is one where the final owner is prohibited by law from owning. Ron wasn't.)

I did insist on a condition: that I got to shoot it before he took possession. That was OK with him, so I ordered a Woodsman through the local gun shop, did the deal and then promptly went up north on vacation. There I spent two weeks shooting on the range. When I wasn't on the club range, I was scouring the local gunshops, gas stations and sporting good stores for more .22 Long Rifle ammo.

I went through more than a brick a day. Today we have many packaging options, but back then you bought a box of 50, a brick of 500 or a sleeve of 5,000. I spent the better part of two weeks shooting that Woodsman. I learned a number of things: that hip-shooting was a quickly perishing skill. Lay off for a couple of days and you have to learn it all over again. That .22 LR handguns can be very picky about ammo. With some brands (I bought whatever I could lay hands on), I could easily roll tin cans at 100 yards. With others, cans at 25 were safe. That loading that much .22 ammo into magazines builds calluses on your thumbs. And finally, that .22 powder residue is easy to clean off if you soak it right away. If you give it time to set up, it takes quite a lot of scrubbing to get things clean.

I also learned that it was easy to get others to shoot, even kids, with a .22. Accuracy and a lack of recoil go a long way as positive reinforcement. The best thing you can do to get your family interested in shooting is to invest in a good .22 handgun or rifle. Period, end of discussion.

This Ruger Mark III Hunter is typical of the many excellent .22 pistols available today.

That blast of shooting served me in good stead. I had just started shooting in the then-new competition of IPSC. I was still using a box-stock Ithaca-made 1911A1 (exactly as it had left the factory in 1943), and practicing with it was expensive. Yes, I shot a lot of .22 Long Rifle, but for the cost of the 6,000 or so rimfire rounds I shot, I probably could not have fired much more than 500 rounds of .45 ACP.

The absolute numbers are different now, but the relative numbers are the same. Unless you reload centerfire ammo (and you have to pay back the investment for the reloading gear first), you'll find .22 practice a lot less expensive. And those of you who might be prone to learning a flinch are much less likely to do so learning to shoot via a rimfire instead of jumping right in with a centerfire.

You can get a .22 handgun to shoot with for less than the cost of a reloading setup. Or those of you shooting a pistol can get a conversion upper for your existing handgun and not only practice cheaply but do it with the exact same trigger pull and grips you use in your centerfire handgun. Any practice is better than no practice. Anything that makes shooting more fun, less costly and less of a hassle will lure you into practicing more. I am now to the point where I shoot for a living. Despite being in a situation where I can buy more centerfire ammo for less money than ever before, I still shoot a lot of .22 Long Rifle. And when I take someone to the range to learn to shoot, I take one or more rimfires with me. Even to law enforcement classes. Yes, cops can learn a flinch, too. The best way to un-learn it is with no recoil and plenty of accuracy. Yes, some are almost insulted when the rimfire comes out, but after they almost throw it in the dirt with their flinch, ego usually goes out the window.

The lowly .22 Long Rifle has a lot to recommend it: low cost, low recoil, smart accuracy and, due to modern manufacturing quality standards, boring reliability. If you want to teach the family how to shoot, you must have a .22. If you don't have one, get one. That Woodsman of 1977? Ron, after all these years, you now have the full story on your Colt. Do you still have it?