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Rex B wrote:That seems to be a common issue with the Sig. Lot of bad reviews out there.

The Buckmark appears to be at least the equal of the Ruger.
But it costs a little more, and there is much less aftermarket support for it.

On the flipside you can strip a browning without being so frustrated you take a hammer to your skull to make the throbbing go away from when you tried to re-assaemble the Ruger. Don't worry, your gun smith will eventually manage to re-assemble it.

I have heard good things about the cheap Smith and Wesson as well.

I have a Ruger 22/45 and it's great. Very accurate and I can buy any kind of ammo I want for it and it always works.

I will agree with a previous comment about dis-assembly being a chore.

Forget the Sig. I've read enough posts about bad results with that gun to never want one for myself.

On the advice of several other members, I bought a Ruger 22/45 Hunter with a 4.5" barrel at the Fort Worth gun show. It is an absolute tack driver, and I think I paid about $289 for it, NIB. I've never regretted buying it. If you own a 1911 pistol, the 22/45 will be instantly familiar to you, as it has been designed to replicate the 1911 grip angle, and all the controls are positioned where they would be on a 1911 — thus the model designation "22/45."

I also bought a second .22 pistol that day, a Smith & Wesson Model 22A with a 7" barrel. It's kind of an odd looking pistol, but it is extremely accurate — more accurate than the Ruger. The price on it was somewhere around $218. The one annoying thing about it is that the magazine release button is located on the front strap, facing forward. So if you're not paying attention, you'll unintentionally eject the magazine while shooting.

Both the Ruger and the S&W function very well. The S&W is very easy to take down and clean. The Ruger take down procedure is clunky, and the first time you try to put it back together, you'll swear that you're going to bring it to a gunsmith in a bag of parts and ask him to do it for you. But if you hold your tongue just so, and try one more time, it will go back together. With practice it gets easier.

At the height of the recent ammo shortages, I was always able to find .22LR, and we were still able to get in a lot of shooting.

The other, and to me even more important, value of a good shooting .22 semi-auto is its use in introducing new shooters to the shooting sports. We have used ours a number of times that way. We'll take someone to the range who has never even handled a pistol before, let alone shot one. We start him/her off on a .22 and get the fundamentals of good shooting down; and then over the course of a couple of hours move them up the caliber chart until, by the end of the day, they are shooting my .44 magnum with aplomb and grinning from ear to ear. I've even fairly recently converted an anti-gunner woman into a "how much was your wife's Glock, and will you help me to buy one?"

Buying a nice .22 pistol is one of the smartest gun buying decisions you'll ever make.

I have a Mosquito and dispite what the nay sayers tell you they are nice 22 semi's. They do require the CCI mini mags to be 100% reliable. This one is the second that I have owned, the first was bought as a training gun for my wife, once she mastered it I sold it so she would step up in caliber, to our dismay we both regretted selling it and purchased another. They are really fun guns and since we both oown Sig's it has the exact same feel and grip angle which amounts to inexpensive practice time with a quality gun. Neither had any issues when utilizing the suggested ammo. The cheap lead nosed bulk ammo will have some FTF issues, then again it could be good malfunction clearance practice for those inclined to do so. The thing about forums is that people tend to complain more on them, happy people typically do not go on forums and rave about their new guns because they function as expected. The Ruger Mark series is a great 22, just remember you need an engineering degree and lots of time to break them down to clean, if you want a good laugh go to Cabellas and look at a Mosquito and a Ruger, ask the salesman to show you how they come apart..... I am betting he will spend most of his shift trying to get the Ruger back together.

By the way I read about a gal's cousins. firends, step fathers son's class mates brother who had the industructable Glock blow up, therefore I will never own a Glock.... buyer beware............ ok, the true reason is that I hate the grip angle of Glocks...

We really like our Buckmark -- the only negative aspect is that you need to have an Allen wrench with you at the range in case you need to tighten the "strap" (can't figure out what else to call it) on top of the barrel. If the screw backs out, the firing pin won't hit the primer hard enough to fire the cartridge.

Ours takes a couple hundred rounds or more to loosen up that much.

My first gun was a Ruger Single-Six. Great fun for plinking, but of course less convenient than the semi-auto Buckmark.

marksiwel wrote:I'm going to need you to post some targets.

I'd be glad to post some targets although it will have to be after my next range trip as I don't usually keep them. I'm not sure what you want me to prove though? How badly I shoot? ;- )

Does anyone use red dot sites on their .22 pistol? I have hi-viz sites on my Buckmark that I like, but I've been seeing more and more .22's with red dots (not crimson). I haven't ever used one. Anybody?

Tregs wrote:Does anyone use red dot sites on their .22 pistol? I have hi-viz sites on my Buckmark that I like, but I've been seeing more and more .22's with red dots (not crimson). I haven't ever used one. Anybody?

My Ruger 22/45 came with one of those red fiberoptic front sights with a post type rear with a V notch. The sight picture looks like an "i" with a red dot and a white body. Is that what you meant?

I think they're called Red Dot Scopes. No magnification from what i understand, just a better sight line. It looks like a 180 radius piece of glass rather than a conventional tube shaped scope. Sometimes used in certain types of competitive .22 shooting.

Much like scopes, prices vary from $30 at Walmart to several hundred at highend retailers. Here's aa link to Optics Planet, which was the first site that popped up on google.

"http://www.opticsplanet.net/c-more-syst ... dt-35.html"

Tregs wrote:I think they're called Red Dot Scopes. No magnification from what i understand, just a better sight line. It looks like a 180 radius piece of glass rather than a conventional tube shaped scope. Sometimes used in certain types of competitive .22 shooting.

Much like scopes, prices vary from $30 at Walmart to several hundred at highend retailers. Here's aa link to Optics Planet, which was the first site that popped up on google.

"http://www.opticsplanet.net/c-more-syst ... dt-35.html"

OK. I wasn't sure what you meant. I have a red dot holographic sight made by ATN that I tried mounting on my Ruger. I didn't like it, so I took it off.

For the money, I agree with others above on the Ruger Mark III. Very reliable and accurate to boot.

I have a 5" Walther P22. It's no target pistol, but it is good for combat drills. as it is similar in operation to DA/SA guns (if you start with the hammer down) or SA guns (if you start with it cocked, though safety operation is reverse).

I will not buy Remington Golden Bullet. It started giving me a 15-20% rate of primers failing to ignite (even with double-strikes and hits on different locations on the rim) out of any gun I put it through last year, even from different boxes. It never felt consistent to me, either - I'd get some normal-feeling loads and some that felt and sounded severely under-powered. It's junk as far as I'm concerned, and I don't care if it's cheaper.

Winchester 555/333, on the other hand, has been quite good for me. It's my go-to plinking ammo. For subsonic shooting, I use CCI Standard Velocity 40grn LRN, and have never had one fail to ignite. I'm quite satisfied with the quality and price of that stuff.

If you want to play with hotter loads, you might try Aguila SuperMaximum. It's interesting in that it pushes a 30grn bullet at 1750fps, which is sufficient to keep it supersonic out to 100yd. This means that POI stays closer to close-range targets at longer ranges and accuracy doesn't suffer due to transition to subsonic speeds (which is the problem with using normal high-velocity loads out past about 60yd).

Next time I get out to the range, I'm going to clock and test several loads though a couple of guns - including the SuperMaximum and post it on the forum.

Mcongrunt,
I agree with you on the Remington rounds. I usually buy the cheap Federals at Academy without issue, but they were out so I bought some Remington green box at Walmart. Although my Buckmark eats them like candy, I never know what to expect when I pull the trigger. Some feel solid, some don't....almost mushy. It drives me nuts. I'm about halfway through the box. I hope to finish them off this week between the Buckmark and the 10/22.
I also noticed that my hands are filthy after loading a few mags of these.

I agree also with the Remington, have had several misfires. Had a good hit on the primer just no "bang". Also had one broken shell in my son's Marlin.

My Mosquito seems to be breaking in quite nicely. Ran 250 rounds through it today. 50 CCI and 200 Federal. No failures with the CCI and out of the Federal, I had 2 FTF and 1 dud.

This target is my last 40 of the day, 10 CCI and 30 Federal. My first 5 shots on each bullseye were 2" groups a little high but centered. The rest, well you can see.

This was at 7 yards.