Inexpensive 22 handgun: GSG Firefly or Walther P22

Just throwing this out there, as a general piece of advice:

With centerfire autos, you have a very nice, very big selection of pistols that "just work."

With rimfire pistols, there are many big-name options that are likely to be disappointing, for one reason or another. You are well-advised to buy only the best reputation. It took me ~20 years (and roughly 10 attempts) to get my hands on a .22 pistol that was perfect for my shooting needs and also happens to have broad-spectrum ammo reliability.

They are a delight when you find a good one, but there is far less you can take for granted in your search. Good luck.
 
Re: the Kadet kit, I strongly considered getting the one for the P07. When it comes down to it, though, the two reasons I'm buying are for cheaper practice and for teaching new shooters. For the first use the Kadet makes sense, but for new shooters I prefer to have a separate pistol so I don't have to mess with the conversion kit. If I was just buying for me, I'd already have a Kadet kit, but I introduce people to shooting pretty often.

Re: the SR22, I haven't ruled it out. Really, the main thing I don't like is the fact the safety is reversed from what most centerfire handguns use.
 
OP, I see you have gone with a M&P, I own one, .45c, and I love it.
I've had the opportunity to shoot the P22, did not like it at all. Feels cheap, was not impressed at all with accuracy. It cycled and fired fine with Minimags, not so much with other ammo. The mag's feel cheap and loose when loading them. My American Arms CX is a better gun than the P22 in my opinion, and that's not saying much....

Good luck with your M&P, should be a fun gun.
 
Glad

I almost bought a P-22 to go with my G-22. Glad I did not.

My G-22 is one of my favorites, not a great trigger but it has many other qualities I enjoy. Everybody wants to shoot it when I bring it along.

It eats most anything, and has been very reliable. No fun to tear down and detail clean tho, but it's a .22 so it don't need that too often.

I just swapped scopes between my wife's Ruger and my G-22. The big scope kinda dwarfed the Ruger, if it were mine I would have been happy with irons, my bride insisted on a 3-9 scope. The Walther had an older Bushnell on it and now it sports a Nikon. Please don't tell her I swapped the scopes....

Gotta go the range and dial em both in.
 
Let's see.

Browning Buckmark - Great pistol, no issues, accurate.
Ruger MkIII 22/45 - I have three of these and they are great.
Ruger MkII Target - I have two of these, no problems, very accurate.
Ruger SR22 - Nice small pistol, fun to plink with.
Sig Mosquito - Had feeding problems until I ironed the chamber and started lightly lubricating the ammunition. For most folks I'd say you should stay away.

The MkIII's will be getting very cheap now that the MkIV's have come out. They are trickier to clean but there are lots of Youtube videos if you can't figure it out.

I have a bunch of other 22lr handguns but these seem to somewhat match your requirements.
 
I live in Illinois, and have a 5" P-22 I'd gladly sell for $100; but you'll have to sign a disclaimer acknowledging that it most likely will NEVER work for ten rounds straight, with any ammo, any tweaking, any work.

I'd sell it, but I'd feel bad selling it to anyone-



Larry
 
Not sure if its near your budget, as its been a little while since i picked mine up, but since you mentioned gsg, how about the gsg 1911-22? Absolutely love mine, is a tac driver and pretty darn reliable. The few ftfs ive had im pretty sure are ammo related. Was just shooting cheap stuff. Plus it is like 80% parts capability with 45 acp 1911s.. just a thought! Happy shooting with whatever you choose!
 
I've thought about one of the GSG 1911 22's, but I don't have a 45 ACP 1911, so having a 22 and not a 45 just feels wrong, haha.
 
Well, the suppressor ready model of the M&P went on sale for 269 at Palmetto States Armory, so guess who has one on the way! :D

I did have to order a thread protector to replace the suppressor adaptor with, though. I'd rather not have to remove the adaptor every time I have to field strip it.
 
Just to repeat what everyone else is saying.

I have a Buck Mark, my shooting buddy has a Ruger Mark II, my other shooting buddy also has a Buck Mark.

I have shot a lot of other semi-automatic 22 pistols. None of them were as good as the ones mentioned above. I got my Buck Mark gently used for $300.
 
I have a S&W 22a that is a great starting gun but it's discontinued. If you can find one it will be under $200. I got mine new for $50 after being a range officer at a large match that Smith sponsored.

I have a Mark III 22/45 that I love. Can't go wrong with it.

The M&P is a great gun. You should have lots of fun with it. If you want to upgrade it with a decent trigger try APEX TACTICAL. I do love the feel and reliability of the M&P. Good choice.

Now that you have the gun shoot it often and try a match or two. Steel Challenge is a great match. Takes just over 200 rounds to run the match. More if you are missing the targets, but in no time you will see yourself improve.

I love shooting steel because I get instant feedback on how I'm doing. Bang/Ding and then move on to the next target.
 
Have read this board many times, but just finally joined. Been shooting nearly 50 years, have many toys, and have owned many more no longer in my possession, including many 22s. Had a few thoughts.

First, I just picked up a GSG Firefly recently. I never owned the Mosquito, I read the bad reviews, but when they essentially re-launched the same gun w/out the Sig brand for over $100 less, the equation changed for me. It cost me $210 new, all in, with a threaded barrel no less, which is less than all the other choices.

I generally agree that the SR22s use better slide materials and cycle more reliably than the other choices on average, and compares favorably to the P22 by a wide margin. I have owned both. I personally like the Buckmarks & more classic Ruger 22 pistols (my first was the original Standard), but they are a little heavy & harder to clean, and they generally cost more, so the SR22 is a good choice.

That being said, I've now put a few hundred rounds through my Firefly without a failure, and it is fairly accurate. I've run standard and high velocity, CCI, Remington Golden, Federal, and Agulla ammo. No hyper vel yet. The one thing they all had in common was 40 grain, which may be better than lighter weight bullets in this gun. On the downside, the trigger is not great, the decocker and safety are flimsy, and I'm not a fan of zinc alloy used in the Walther and the Firefly/Mosquito, though it is probably adequate for 22 pressures. Not a big fan of plastic frames either, which are widely accepted. I'm not sure if I just got lucky, got a good one, or GSG made improvements before re-launching, but for $210, my Firefly seems to have been a great value so far, and costs less than the others. I really like the look & feel (still Sig-like).

On a side note, I realize this string is about combat style 22 practice pistols, but I feel compelled to point out if you just want a trail gun, plinker, or small game hunter, the revolver choices run circles around all of these. In a centerfire, there is lively debate between the advantages and disadvantages of revolvers versus pistols. Revolvers offer better reliability, more bullet configs (no feeding), some more powerful rounds (357), differing aesthetics & ergonomics (subjective), but give up a lot on capacity vs a double stack 9 (less so on singe stacks). Many centerfire pistols feed fairly well though.

This is all well known and widely debated, but when it comes to rimfires, the revolver reliability advantage is 10X as large (since rimfires do not feed as well), and the pistol capacity advantage pretty much goes away (most semis are 10 rd single stack & revolvers come in 6, 8, 9, & 12 round capacity).

Revolvers generally cost more, Smith Kit Guns, Ruger's 22 SP101, GP100, Single Ten, even their new LCRx 8 round 22 is in the $400s. That said, you can find a used Taurus 94 in the $200s (9rds), same for the Rossi version, and some older 9 round H&Rs can be bought in the $100s. Something to think about.


Hope my first post wasn't too wordy or far off topic :-)
 
BTW, I also had an older Smith 422 which was nice & light, and fed fairly reliability, also with a threaded barrel. Sort of funky looking & harder to find than the others, but a solid plinker.
 
I am a revolver guy. Both of my Ruger Single Sixes have been outstanding.

But I haven't had as good luck with double-action 22's. On most of the ones I've owned or shot, the double-action trigger was stiff. Finally I got a S&W K22 Masterpiece. It is a truly fine revolver, equally as accurate as my Buck Mark.
 
I learned on an old 3 screw Single Six. Will always be one of my favorite revolvers. Re: DA revolver triggers, having learned on a SA, I shoot them more in single action, so the triggers are good. However, some of them do have heavy double action triggers. The Taurus 94 are very heavy in DA. That said, the do re-load a lot easier/quicker and some have more capacity than the SAs, so I like both SA & DA 22 revolvers. K22 was a great pick up. Not cheap, but they are beauties. BTW, the new LCRx 22, which I also recently picked up, has a very good SA & DA trigger. The LCR/LCRx is known for it's smooth trigger.

Update on the Firefly. I had several toys at the range this morning, including the Firefly, my second outing with it. I ran around 150 through it, had 3 failures this time (none the first time). 2 were with Stingers interestingly, a lighter faster round, and one was late in the session & I think it was just dirty from over 100 Aguila High vel 40 grain. Still of the opinion it was a great buy for $210 new. May not be as good as the SR22, but for the price, seems to be a good value.
 
I have the Walther PPQ M2 22. It's basically a clone of their PPQ M2 in 22lr caliber.

It is rather ammo sensitive, and you have to keep your thumb off the slide or it can interfere with fully cycling (but I've experienced this with other 22lr semi-autos too--they just don't have much power to cycle the action). I've found Federal 22lr ammo to be inexpensive and very reliable in it so far, and it's a great training aid.

It's made me start to want the real PPQ in 9mm too :) I got it on sale at Cabela's for about $300 and it's been good.
 
I've owned both Walther P22 and Ruger SR22. I liked the SR22 better. Thought it was the superior gun.

That said, I much prefer all my Ruger MKIIs over at of these "tactic-cool" .22 guns.
 
I just won an auction for a Walther P22 Q. The one I had before was an earlier version, and did not cycle all that well, was ammo picky, but was nice otherwise. The newer Q version supposedly made a number of improvements, so I'm curious how much better it is now.

The slide is thicker and more square, the feed ramp and magazine have changed, the grip texture is modified, they eliminated the internal lock, and the lettering seems more bold. Not sure what else changed.
 
I would also nominate the Smith MP 22 in either full size or compact. $ 300 dollars or less for a suppressor ready pistol that is a great little gun equals awesome in my book.
 
Brownells has some very good coupons and sale price on the m&p 22 compact. I just ordered mine on sunday and paid $250 shipped. I picked it up wednesday at my FFL I plan to shoot it this weekend. So far very impressed for $260 after ffl!
 
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