This gun was an unexpected joy. Though I’ve shot .22LR rifles for years, I’ve never had the opportunity to try the little round in a pistol. It’s worth a try. Besides being inexpensive to shoot and non-punishing, it is super accurate. For these reviews, I typically run my targets out to about 10 yards, a realistic distance for real-world encounters. Suspecting that this gun was more accurate, I ran the target out to the end of the range, 25 yards, and proceeded to print a 10 round group in 4 inches. Nice! I guess if you pay $500 for a .22, you should expect it to do something special, but this was a surprise.
The gun is typical of Ruger Mark IIs (of which there are many flavors) except for its massive 6 7/8” bull barrel. This probably accounts for much of its 42 ounce weight. Yes, believe it or not, this slim .22 weighs more than the S&W 686, though I wouldn’t have guessed it. The gun we shot had nice rubber grips and handled well despite its front-heaviness. The trigger is a short, single action.
My only complaints are the poor controls. The safety is a switch that looks like a button; it’s not readily apparent when the safety is on or off. Obviously, you shouldn’t rely on mechanical safeties, but it should be more user-friendly. The slide release button is too small and the magazine is held in by an odd, spring-loaded catch. There was one failure to feed, as well, that bent a cartridge. Probably a conspiracy between the tight tolerances of a target pistol and a bum round.
This is definitely not a tactical pistol, but what .22 is? It is an excellent target pistol, and the idea that you could spend an entire afternoon shooting tight groups at 25 yards (maybe further—it was an indoor range) for $10-15 in ammo puts a smile on my face. Though the blued version is discontinued, a stainless version goes for around $500.
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