Having been a marksman on .22 and 7.62 weapons, and having fired 9mm and .303 on many occasions, it is much easier to be consistent with the smaller calibre, as you don’t have to re-position after the recoil of each shot.
The aircrew issue 9mm Browning was/is pretty useless at actually hitting anything beyond a 10 yard range, it makes a great noise and scares people, but that is the extent of it’s abilities (if it actually fires that is…)
My favourite competition rifle was a .22 Kalishnikov, I could put 5 rounds down 25 yards with only 2 holes in the target….(well once anyway… 😀 )
The .22 could (apparently) kill at 1 mile, but couldn’t penetrate any hard material, such as brick, whereas the 7.62 SLR could easily penetrate brick/breeze block, car doors, etc.
On an ATC summer camp at Binbrook in ’83 a cadet decided to hold the 7.62 SLR stock an inch from his shoulder (air resistance to absorb the recoil!!) not only did he dislocate his shoulder, he fired over the range and hit a Policwoman in the leg 5 miles away….
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