.22 range plinker question

N

NJgunowner

New member
Before we begin, I FULLY understand that I should handle as many types as possible to find one that fits me. That's how I ended up with my BE .40, which I LOVE. Fits my hand perfectly :D

What I want to know, since I'm going to buy a .22 (preferably .22 lr, don't like shorties) is which ones to STAY AWAY from! Safety issues being my biggest concern, and reliability would be major plus.

I'm heavily leaning towards a revolver, but I wouldn't say no to a decent semi-auto.

So, any to avoid at all costs?

And yes, I'll take recommendations as well :D but I'm trying keep the costs down.
 
Well... I'm typically a revolver guy... BUT today I went and bought a 22 LR semi auto. I can't give you any experiences yet becaue I only got it about 2 hrs ago. But the interesting thing is how cheap it was. It is a S&W 22A with a 5.5" barrel. It cost $270 brand new in the box. I have always had great results with S&W handguns and was surprised you could buy anything like it for less than $300.
 
Ones to stay away from?

Try to stay away from the zinc cheapies, ie Bryco, Jennings, Jimenez, Lorcin, Phoenix Arms, etc.

They tend to have extreme reliability issues, if not safety issues. Some people have good experiences with theirs, but they tend to be the exception rather than the rule.

The Browning Buckmark and Ruger's .22's are fairly well regarded semiautomatics.
 
As far as revolvers, when it comes to SA only, you can't beat a Ruger Single Six. They come with two cylinders, one for .22LR's and one for .22WMR's for those times when you need a little extra kick. Why use mimi-mags when you load a full mag in your gun? NIB you can probably expect to pay around $400.00.

Models to avoid? Heritage makes a .22 SA revolver called The Rough Rider, but at about $150.00, I wouldn't be too rough with it!

.22 pistol? The only one I have is a Beretta Neos. They are a lot of fun and a great value for the price. I paid right about $300 for the model with and Inox (stainless steel) slide, but the non-Inox version is even less than that. It comes with your choice of a 4.5 or 6" barrel. The great thing is that you can get the other barrel for it. Removing the barrel is simply a matter of a single thumb wheel so field stripping is a breeze with these guns as well.

Scott
 
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So, any to avoid at all costs?
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Ruger Single Six.
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I think the OP meant what to stay away from, unless you've had a bad experience with the Ruger.

FWIW I had really bad feeding issues with a MkIII 22/45. Anything other than round nose bullets would jam into the ramp. I'm not alone, it crops up on boards every so often.
 
If it's any help at all, I had a decent-sized thread about trying to choose a .22lr autoloader.

I did go out and try to handle as many .22s as I could. The Beretta Neos has a really... weird... grip. Narrow, odd angle - just felt off. My wife was with me when I tried that one, and she took an immediate dislike to it as well. The Ruger is not bad, we tried the Mk III and Mk III .22/45. The .22/45's grip felt terrible to me, like holding a deck of cards. I hear you can get great aftermarket accessories for the Rugers, though, to make them almost a custom gun. We handled a S&W Model 41, and though it was considerably heavier I really liked it, but the price was impossible to justify. My wife thought it was decent. The Sig Mosquito felt terrible, and I understand the older ones had serious quality issues.

Alone, on another occasion, I tried on various Walthers, Sigs chambered in .22lr, and a S&W 22a. The Sigs weren't attractive to me, because I don't really want to pay more for a .22 that I could some day pay yet more for and turn it into a larger caliber gun - I'd much rather buy a more inexpensive dedicated .22. The Walthers didn't feel very good in my hand, I think the grips were too large for me. I've heard mixed reviews of the S&W 21, so it got eliminated.

The one pistol both the little lady and myself thought fit perfectly was the Browning Buck Mark with the UDX grips (which are wood). The URX grips (rubber) are too large for our hands, which are identical in size. Thankfully, the Buck Mark Plus (which is an attractive gun with fiber-optic sights) comes with the UDX grips and is pretty reasonably-priced. Looks like the only place by here that has them in charges around $425-440, which is not too bad at all.

I'm hoping to pick one up on Friday or Saturday, and once I get a chance to take it out to the range (I'm hoping Saturday or Sunday) I'll post a report and let everyone know what I think.

Jamey
 
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I like my Beretta Neos (INOX). Easy to field strip and clean, mags are cheap, shoots straight, and isn't picky about ammo. Only complaint is that the trigger isn't exactly amazing, but that's generally what you get on a cheap .22LR plinker.
 
Recommendations are fine :) , it's always good to know what's available. I'm putting in for a new pistol permit next week, which will take about 2 weeks for approval (Go NJ) and then the shopping begins.
 
The Taurus 94 double-action revolver gets mixed reviews. Factory quality control seems irregular; many owners are very happy with theirs, but others have all sorts of problems with them. Taurus products have a lifetime warranty, but Taurus customer service gets generally poor reviews, and they're notorious for taking an excessively long time to service warranty returns.

Same goes for the Charter Arms Pathfinder. The company was reformed a few years ago after the previous company went belly up, and the new company has a reputation for flaky service.

Last one I'll mention is the SIG Mosquito. SIG Sauer centerfire products have a sparkling reputation, but the cheaper Mosquito's design has little in common with them, and many Mosquito owners have all sorts of problems with the gun. A quick search of TFL will return plenty of horror stories. OTOH unlike the above companies, SIG's customer service is supposedly quite good.

IIRC many of the negative reviews of the S&W 22A are due to some problems with the recoil buffer that were resolved soon after the gun was introduced. The plastic recoil buffer still needs to be changed at regular intervals (every 5,000 rounds IIRC), but AFAIK the gun comes with several spares, and S&W will send you a bagful of 5-10 more for free if you simply call them and ask. :)

OTOH probably the #1 criticism of the 22A is the odd magazine release; it's a pushbutton on the front face of the grip underneath where your middle finger goes. On the plus side, it's ambidextrous; on the minus side, it's highly nonintuitive to anyone who's not familiar with the 22A, some shooters find it awkward to use, and it's not friendly to women with long sculpted fingernails. :(
 
I am all for the Buckmark. Mine has thousands of round thru it and has always been reliable. It is super accurate and has a great trigger.

The S&W / Walther 22 looks neat, but I have no experience w/ it.
 
For me, non accurate guns are boring. For that reason, I'd stay away from the Single Six, unless you want to shoot 22 WMR exclusively. The bore is sized for the 22WMR, and oversized for 22RF which leads to degraded accuracy.

However, the Ruger MKII and MKIII are excellent choices and highly accurate. With an easy to self install Volquartsen trigger and sear, they're competition ready. I like the hunter model because the receiver is already tapped for a scope or other optical site mount, but it comes with excellent iron sites right from Ruger.

I've also hear bad things about the SIG Mosquito, but no firsthand experience their.

If a revolver is what you want, look for a SW K22, or model 37 if you want the smaller J frame.
 
If a revolver is what you want, look for a SW K22, or model 37 if you want the smaller J frame.
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+1, but I think you meant the Model 34, because the Model 37 is .38Spl. :)

The K-22 is also known as the Model 17 (6" or 8-3/8" barrel, although some 80s-90s production was 4"), Model 18 (4" barrel), or Model 617 (stainless, 4" or 6", new ones are 10-shot).

J frames include the Model 34 (blue or nickel, 2" or 4" most common), Model 43 (lightweight M34), Model 63 (stainless M34, new ones are 8-shot), or Model 317 (super-lightweight, 2" or 3", 8-shot).

J frames are smaller and therefore handier, but the short trigger-grip length can make them awkward to use for people with larger hands, and the mainspring design makes the trigger pull less smooth than the larger K frame K-22s. The main problem with all of the S&W revolvers is the price; new ones cost $700+, almost 3 times the price of some of the semi-autos being discussed, and recent price appreciation of the used guns has made it doubtful that's you'll find a reasonably attractive and functional shooter for <$350. :( The J frames used to be considered less desirable and could be had for $250ish, but their prices have now marched north of $450 for a nice example. OTOH the S&Ws are truly fine firearms that you will be proud to own and hand down to your children, and if you buy a used one, it will probably never be worth less than what you can buy it for today. :) I have a Model 18 that I bought for ~$500, and it's a contender for my favorite handgun. :cool:

Actually, in terms of guns to avoid, I'd recommend against the S&W M317 for casual plinking and target shooting. The combination of SUPER light weight (~12 oz. loaded!), a long and heavy DA trigger, and short sight radius make it very challenging for most people to achieve a high degree of accuracy. YMMV. :)
 
I took my new S&W auto out last night to shoot it. That was just a couple hours after I bought it. I didn't clean it or anything, just went straight to the hills and started shooting. The accuracy was fine. I shot 5 groups of 10 shots at 50' and they were all right around 2". No doubt it will get better as I get used to the trigger and sights. The only negative about it was that in each magazine I ran through it, I got either 1 or 2 misfires or feed failures. I'm guessing that I really should have given it a thorough cleaning before I went out and shot it the first time. There were about 3 times out of those 50 rounds that the spent shell didn't get ejected fully. And then there were 3 instances where the round simply didn't go off. I could see an indent on the shell, but it simply didn't fire. I'm hoping that will be cured by trying a different brand of ammo. Overall though, I was impressed by the accuracy. The trigger didn't impress me much, but like I said I am used to firing single action revolvers only, so maybe I just don't have a good feel for what it's supposed to be like.
 
It is much easier to name the .22's that we know for sure are good than those to avoid.

Double Action .22 revolvers tend to be very expensive. Currently only S&W makes ones that most people like. With all the other gun makers having a bunch of people who are unhappy with them for one reason or another.

Single action opens up quite a few more options. Ruger, either the single six or Bearcat, is the most popular.

Semi-autos are generally the least expensive for the amount of quality they deliver. Ruger, Browning, S&W, and Beretta all have popular models. The Sig Mosquito has had some bad reviews.

If you buy used, your options increase a lot.

My choices would be a member of the S&W K22 family for a double action, a Colt New Frontier for a single action, and a Ruger Mk II for a semi.
 
I don't really like a 22lr revolver in single action... just too dern hard to load those idy biddy bullets. I presume a double action would be somewhat easier... but still....

My favorite is a Ruger MKIII... standard model not the 22/45.
 
S&w 422/622

I have a S&W 422 that I really like. Its a light gun for its size and the way its made the 6" barreled gun is the size of a normal 4" gun. Mine looks like this one only blued:
http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.asp?Item=130559575

You don't hear about them too much its always Ruger this Ruger that:D but they are a nice alternative. I use my for plinking and its my hiking/camping fun gun. You can find them for a good price. I think I got mine used in the box with 3 mags for $225 a few years ago.

In a Wheel gun I think a S&W K17 is tough to beat for the best all around 22 wheelgun out there. They are so fun a accurate and usually have very nice triggers like most k frames.

Stay away from the pot metal guns they will not last and may become dangerous in the long haul. Remember you get what you pay for.
 
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