Reccomend a .22 rifle

[Sean]

I brought up the idea of getting a .22 just to take to the hunting club or range. My .380 is too exspensive to shoot at the range to me. The wife said she get me one for my birthday thats in October, for her sake Id like to keep it under $200. I checked out the Remington 597 .22L the other day at Bass Pro shop. I liked it alot. Any others I should check out?

[quietguy]

Do you have an action preference?

[Sean]

Semi-auto for more "fun"

[JPS]

It's more expensive, but my son has a .22 Henry lever-action that is really a lot of fun to shoot.

[mikegideon]

The Ruger 10/22 is the most popular, and for good reasons. I have one. Not sure if it's over your budget, but it's what most folks buy. There's huge aftermarket support, so you can upgrade it as much as you want.

[Sean]

What about a Marlin 60SN? Its around $160

[mikegideon]

I don't think you'll go wrong with a Marlin, or the Remington either. It's just that most pick the 10/22. I like removable magazines, and ruger has the best.

[Sean]

Which Ruger?

[mikegideon]

There are several models at several different prices, depending on features. The cheapest one is fine...

Ruger® 10/22® Autoloading Rifles

[quietguy]

I wouldn't overlook the Savage either.

As has been said, the Ruger 10/22 is really tough to beat. At least around here, they can be found in your price range. I believe that Dick's has them for $189, but I could be wrong (just as my wife). The aftermarket options for the 10/22 are just amazing, especially compared to the competition.

[Dolomite_supafly]

It depends on whether you are a tinkerer or not.

If you like to tinker and modify your rifles then without a doubt buy a 10/22. They aren't the most accurate or have the nicest trigger out of the box but you can change all of that. Another thing is you can build it to suit your wants and needs whether it be a high end match gun or a tactical plinker. It is all possible with the 10/22 because every part is available for a 10/22 in the aftermarket world.

Now if you do not like to tinker and generally leave things alone then there are a lot of different guns that are better than the 10/22 out of the box.

Marlin, Savage, Mossberg and Remington are going to shoot better than the 10/22 out of the box. There is also limited aftermarket support for them. If I had to pin it down to a few I would say either the Marlin model 60 or the Remington 597. The model 60 has a tube magazine while the Remington uses a detachable magazine. High capacity mags are also available for the Remington 597 as well. Aftermarket stocks are available for both.

Dolomite

[babelt]

I have a Remington 597 with the BSA 22 scope. It's a sweet shooter. One thing I do recommend is get the aftermarket hammer. I'm not sure of the company name right now but it smooths them out quite nicely and they are really good shooters.

[graycrait]

Semi Auto .22 short review:

Most Versatile: 10/22, huge aftermarket, entire websites practically dedicated to the gun: rimfirecentral.com. I have had a dozen or so, in various forms with aftermarket up the ying yang. Best money to be spent on a 10/22 is a barrel and bolt job by: Connecticut Precision Chambering - Ruger 10/22

Most fun stock semi-auto: Remington 552: that gun will shoot virtually any .22 ammo except Aguilla Colibras or Super Colibras. It will even shoot Aguilla 60 grain SSS. You can load a tube full of shorts, longs, long rifles, standard velocity, hyper velocity, etc., and watch them string vertically. Find an older ADL model. The new ones only come in the pretty expensive BDL variant.

Cheapest best: Marlin 60. Keep it clean and don't take it too far apart. Use gunscrubber, dental picks and stiff Birchwood Casey cleaning doubled ended brushes. They can be finicky as to what ammo they like.

Remington 597: Yawn...It works.

Bolt .22s: This is a more difficult subject. Mag feds generally limit you to .22LR while bolt or pump action tube feds allow S,L,LRs. Why is this important in today's market where so many decent .22LR cartridges abound in such a wide variety of bullet weights and velocity? 20 grain Aguilla Colibras are very quiet out of a rifle and most pumps and bolt action tube feds will allow at least Super Colibras to clear the bore and many will allow the Colibras. Colibras are about 375fps and Super Colibras around 500fps.

Best bang for the buck: Marlin. Marlin has now come out in both tube and mag fed bolt .22 with their XT-22 models with the Pro-Fire trigger. These guns are very reasonably priced and I should be getting my new tube fed XT-22 this week. The Pro-Fire is similar to the Accu-Trigger by Savage. Why not just get a Savage? I like the price of the Marlins, as well as Marlin barrels and the fact I can get a tube fed to cycle Colibras. I have a feeling that the new Marlin XT-22 will shoot way beyond its sale price. Marlin Model XT-22

Coolest and cost more:

Savage. Savage has two mag feds on the same action with Accu-triggers. One is a fluted bull barrel affair on target stock and the other is a neat little 16" threaded barrel on a light synthetic stock. Mark II FV-SR Mark II TRR-SR

S&W M&P 22: This is an AR-like .22 that is really neat and instead of trying to make a 10/22 into a tacti-cool rifle just buy the S&W. M&P15-22<br>.22 LR - Smith & Wesson

Best shooting in a practical price range: CZ 452 American with a Yo-Dave trigger kit. Trigger Kit Installation Instructions - Yodave Products

From here you start climbing the price curve pretty steeply.

Edited August 15, 2011 by graycrait
wrong mdl number

[Guest nicemac]

I still regularly shoot my old Marlin model 60 I got when I was a young lad back in '74. Thousands and thousands of rounds thorough that gun. Cleaned only occasionally until a few years ago, now cleaned after every time out. Replaced the trigger spring four or five years ago. Performs flawlessly.

[Jonnin]

Kel tec SU-22 for something different. Or the Mossberg tatical 22. I have the 10-22 just like everyone else, only upgrade was 2 30 round mags and a 4x scope. I think the used 10-22 was like $250 or so, and that may have included tax and fees.... shop around if you want a low price.

[Raoul]

If you have an AR buy a .22 bolt adapter. I've seen them advertised lately for 149.00. They are just too much fun.

[DaveTN]

I had a 597. It was supposed to be the one with a factory scope but Bass Pro ran out of them. So they sold me one with their brand (Red Head) for the same price.

The Good: It was so accurate out of the box it was boring. Dime size groups at 25 yards (indoor range) continually. It’s closer to a full size rifle than most other .22’s. It’s cheap, but accuracy wise, I would put it up against any production .22 rifles I have used.

The bad: Unless Remington has changed something you have to put 500 rounds through one before it will function reliably. Prior to break-in mine did the best with CCI Mini-Mag HP’s. Most anything else didn’t work well at all. After break-in I didn’t have any problems, but I knew what to watch for on assembly after cleaning, and I didn’t use anything but CCI Mini-Mags.

If you just want cheap trigger time; I don’t think there is anything in the $200 range that can touch it.

If you want to buy something for the base on which you will build a rifle I would start with a base Ruger 10/22.

[Guest reaper1880]

ruger 10/22 all the way imo

[1gewehr]

EVERY semi-auto .22 is picky about ammo. It's the nature of the beast when you use some of the energy of a low-powered cartridge to operate the action. Add in environmental factors such as dirt, weather, dust, temperature, etc, and you get a firearm that is amazing that they ever work somewhat reliably.

If you want an accurate, reliable .22, that will work with the cheapest stuff on the shelf at WallyWorld, get one that is manually-operated. There are a lot of good bolt-actions, as well as pump and lever-actions. An added benefit is that .22 shorts are air-rifle quiet when shot from a rifle. It's fun to reduce the tree-rat population without having the neighbors notice.

I've got a pump-action Remington 21 from the 1920's that is still as accurate and reliable as the day it was sold. Good ones can still be found for about $200-250. The Marlin 39 is regarded as the Rolls Royce of lever .22s. Avoid the ones with a cross-bolt safety. Prices are somewhat high at $350-500 for a good used one, but it's a rifle that your grand-kids will pass on to their kids.

[Capbyrd]

MOST semi-auto .22 is picky about ammo. It's the nature of the beast when you use some of the energy of a low-powered cartridge to operate the action. Add in environmental factors such as dirt, weather, dust, temperature, etc, and you get a firearm that is amazing that they ever work somewhat reliably.

FTFY

[Jonnin]

EVERY semi-auto .22 is picky about ammo. It's the nature of the beast when you use some of the energy of a low-powered cartridge to operate the action. Add in environmental factors such as dirt, weather, dust, temperature, etc, and you get a firearm that is amazing that they ever work somewhat reliably.If you want an accurate, reliable .22, that will work with the cheapest stuff on the shelf at WallyWorld, get one that is manually-operated. There are a lot of good bolt-actions, as well as pump and lever-actions. An added benefit is that .22 shorts are air-rifle quiet when shot from a rifle. It's fun to reduce the tree-rat population without having the neighbors notice.I've got a pump-action Remington 21 from the 1920's that is still as accurate and reliable as the day it was sold. Good ones can still be found for about $200-250. The Marlin 39 is regarded as the Rolls Royce of lever .22s. Avoid the ones with a cross-bolt safety. Prices are somewhat high at $350-500 for a good used one, but it's a rifle that your grand-kids will pass on to their kids.

I have a half dozen .22 autos (and a number of bolts, levers, and whatnot), both pistols and rifles. A few are very, very picky, but most of them are flawles with bulk junk ammo from walmart, the stuff that is 500+ rounds for a few dollars. They are also accurate, the rifles are good to 100+ yards and the pistols give or take out to 50. I am not sure what guns you have, but if it is not working, its due to either a poor quality gun or a lack of cleaning (and, by that, I mean one cleaning per bulk pack of ammo, or 500 rounds or so). Off the top of my head, the one .22 that I have that is super picky is my .22 S&W escort, which is a mousegun semi that holds 5 rounds and the whole design was never very good, they only made it for like 1 year before giving up on that design. I tried for 2 months last year to get it working and it will with hot cci ammo, but not with anything else. The ones that work 100% with anything include a mark2, 2 buckmarks, 22a, 10/22, browning belgium made tube fed that I can't remember the model of, another tube fed that I cannot remember the brand or model of lol (some 60s era cheapo), and I have often shot and observed it being shot a walther p22 (inaccurate, but never fails to fire) and a phoneix arms .22 (sorta accuate at short ranges and 100% reliable). Nothing against the manual guns (I have a number of those too, and love them) but there is nothing wrong with the major brands of automatics, indeed, many of the cheap major brand guns are extremely accurate on top of reliable, with that long barreled buckmark being able to pop a dime at 50 yards (bench rest FTW).

[bajabuc]

as a general statement...a 10 22 will do what you want...and they're cheap in pawnshops. The recoil spring is built into the bolt...Henry's recoil spring is a million miles long and if it gets bent you'll have to buy another spring...the spring is cheap though.

Edited August 15, 2011 by bajabuc
big fingers

[Guest GunTroll]

All the new stuff is crap in my opinion. I really like classic 22RF's of yesterday. I probably have 10 (if not more) different 22 RF's. Not a single 10-22 in the lot FWIW. I even have a brand new never shot but owned for three years now REM 597. It was a gift to my 4 year old. He's still learning the basics with a Henry youth bolt gun 22 and will not see a semi till he masters the bolt and gets safe operating drilled into his mind.

Anyways, look on Gunbroker and get a classic if the local shops don't have one already. Heck some are becoming collectors real fast and could prove to become an investment of sorts. Many are already and require a premium and are out of a $200 budget. Go classic!

[Raoul]

All the new stuff is crap in my opinion. I really like classic 22RF's of yesterday. I probably have 10 (if not more) different 22 RF's. Not a single 10-22 in the lot FWIW. I even have a brand new never shot but owned for three years now REM 597. It was a gift to my 4 year old. He's still learning the basics with a Henry youth bolt gun 22 and will not see a semi till he masters the bolt and gets safe operating drilled into his mind.

Anyways, look on Gunbroker and get a classic if the local shops don't have one already. Heck some are becoming collectors real fast and could prove to become an investment of sorts. Many are already and require a premium and are out of a $200 budget. Go classic!

You should try the Cz's.

[Guest nicemac]

I have 10-22. It is fine. However, I wouldn't trade my Marlin model 60 for two of them…

People like the 10-22 because they can buy a bunch of stuff to make it look like an AR. Gun shops like the 10-22 because they can sell a bunch of stuff to people who want to make it look like an AR.