Over in IMHO, Anaamika started a thread requesting help from firearms owners, yes, fellow gun-people, we should rejoice, as 'Mika is now one of us 
…one of us…one of us… 
anyway, as she’s an owner of a new Marlin 795 semiauto .22, i figured it’d be fun to have a thread where we could discuss that wonderful little cartridge and the guns that eat it, the humble .22 caliber rimfire…
I have a small, but functional collection of firearms, the collection was a bit bigger about a year ago, but I’ve slowly been consolidating and simplifying for various unimportant reasons, I’ve now gotten it to the point where I have no more “frivolous” range-toys, mainly because I’m a minimalist at heart, I’ve trimmed down my caliber footprint to .22 rimfire (Short, Long Rifle, and Magnum), 12-gauge, 20 gauge (for training new shotgunners, 20 is a little softer shooting) .30-30, and .45 ACP, and i handload (reload) for 20 gauge, .30-30 and .45 ACP.
Out of those guns, the ones that see the most trigger time are my passel (bundle, stable, flock, what is the term for a bunch of .22 firearms anyway ) of .22 caliber guns.
There are many reasons, .22 ammo is dirt cheap (around $20 for a “brick” of 500 or a bulkpack box of 525-550), has very little noise, zero recoil, and practice with a .22 directly translates over to the bigger guns, especially when the .22 and centerfire rifle are the same action design (Marlin 336 .30-30 and Marlin Model 39A lever actions, for example), but the biggest reason, .22’s are just plain FUN!
Also, since I have a 25 yard outdoor backyard range, and our neighbors aren’t too close by, I can simply grab one of my .22’s and plink away at my spinner targets (and I’m thinking of getting a .22 caliber dueling tree target as well) any time I want, and because I’m a considerate neighbor, I tend to use ultra-quiet rounds like CCI’s CB series and Remington’s CBees, out of any of my rifles, the CCI CB’s are dead silent, all you hear is the click of the firing pin and the THWACK, or PING! of the bullet hitting the target, the CBees are a tad louder out of my Marlin .22’s, but out of my CZ-452 Ultra Lux, the CBees are practically silent as well
If I want to go longer than 25 yards, or shoot my bigger stuff, I have to go to my local gun range, about 10-15 minutes down the road, so for sheer backyard convenience, the .22’s win by default.
It also allows me to share the fun of backyard plinking with my nephew, 9 years old, and a dead-eye shot already, his absolute favorite .22 of my collection? my Marlin Model 39A lever, closely followed by my CZ-452 Ultralux, he’s also amazingly safety conscious, any time he has his hands on the gun, the muzzle is safely pointed downrange, and he always puts the safety on whenever he has a pause in his shooting, it’s automatic with him, I made sure he understands the importance of gun safety, and he has taken it fully to heart 100%
anyway, back on topic…
On my backyard range, I have a couple spinner targets set up, a foam archery block to which I thumbtack paper targets, and I use tennis balls as kinetic “bounce around” moving targets, and since my preferred Remington CBees are such low powered, they completely disintegrate when hitting a spinner plate, and the tennis ball catches the bullet inside it’s hollow cavity, the tennis balls are retired after a good dozen or more shots, so my backstop is overkill, but I’d rather have too much backstop rather than not enough.
even in a worst case scenario, the CB’s and CBees are pretty much out of usable energy beyond 100 yards, and at that distance, you’re lobbing them more like a grenade or a mortar shell anyway, these things have a massive “rainbow” trajectory, heck, if the light is right in the afternoon, and I’m shooting my CZ at a paper plate target, I can actually see the bullet fly towards the target in the scope…
needless to say, I burn through a lot of .22 ammo, even without Logan helping me out
as far as recommendations to new shooters go, here’s a few that have served me well
1; your first .22 rifle should be some form of manual-action rifle, be it a break-barrel single shot like the H&R/New England Firearms single shots, a bolt action (my personal recommendation as a great starting point), a lever action (expensive, but oh so worth it, lever .22’s are just plain cool, and they have that unmistakable mystique and aura of the old “cowboy days” or the rare, but very fun slide (pump) action.
The reason for going with a manual-action gun as opposed to a semi? well?
First, it teaches you shot conservation, make every shot count, with a semiauto, there’s always the temptation to do a “Mag-Dump” (pull the trigger as fast as possible to empty the mag as quickly as possible, basically “rapid firing” the gun, and when you do that, accuracy invariably suffers (your target looks like you were shooting it with a shotgun).
secondly, it can feed a wider variety of specialty cartridges (.22 Short, Long, and Long Rifle, and power levels from airgun-level ultraquiets to the hottest, fastest hypervelocity cartridges, semiautos have a much narrower range of cartridges that will work in them, sure, I could shoot a Remington CBee ultraquiet in Mika’s Marlin 795, and it would fire and the bullet would leave the barrel, but the cartridge would not have enough power to cycle the bolt and eject the empty shell, you’d have to work the bolt manually after each shot, also, most semiauto manufacturers
Marlin and Ruger especially, caution you to not use the hot-loaded “Hyper” velocity cartridges in their semiautos as the ejection forces are too hard on the internal components, and can prematurely wear or break the internals (theoretically), a bolt, lever, pump, or single shot gun won’t care if you’re shooting ultraquiets, standards, or even hypers, as the bolt is locked until you open it to eject the spent shell and cycle a new one in
Thirdly, and 'Mika can speak from experience here, semiautos can be very fussy and prone to jamming, misfeeding and general unreliable operation for any number of reasons, a bad magazine, bad ammo, or just the gun being a fussy little prima-donna and not liking the ammo you’re feeding it, yes, .22’s can be fussy, and it’s not limited to different models within the manufacturer’s line, Mika’s 795 may happen to like, let’s say, CCI Blazers (speaking theoretically here) but it’s entirely possible the gun built before hers and after hers may hate them, and they may like Remington Golden Bulets and hate CCI Blazers, or one may only like the really expensive stuff like Eley Match Target, each gun has it’s own “personality” and part of the fun is finding out what it likes to eat
To elaborate on that last point, whenever you get a new (or used, just new-to-you) gun, don’t blindly buy the biggest, cheapest box of ammo you can find, what happens if your gun HATES it?, no, buy a few different 50 or 100-round boxes of a bunch of different ammo types, brands and designs, and find out what your gun likes, you’ll find it may hate one type but love another, or be completely unfussy, or only want the expensive stuff.
Once you find what your gun likes, stock up on it, ammo is not perishable, and doesn’t go bad sitting unused for months/years/decades at a time, plus, ammo prices are constantly in an upward spiral, that brick of ammo you passed on for $20 today probably sold for $15 a few years ago, and may sell for $22-25+ a few days/weeks/months from now, heck, I remember when I was growing up as a kid when I could get a 500 round brick of Federal American Eagle (they come in 400 round bricks now) for $9.95, that 400 round brick now is around $22-24.00 depending on where I look…
Fourthly, you WILL end up with more than one .22 firearm, it’s inevitable, Resistance is Futile… you already have a nice lightweight, totable plinker*, but you don’t have a nice bolt action with a scope, or a revolver, or a semiauto handgun, how about a Marlin Papoose, a 795 that has a removable barrel and a neat little storage case to fit it all into, perfect for backpacking, hiking, and camping in the wilderness, or how about the legendary Marlin Model 39A (look for a good condition, clean used one made before they put the safety on, the old ones were built better) the 39A has been in production for more than 100 years and is the oldest continually produced rifle in America, it’s a piece of americana and a piece of history, and it was Annie Oakley’s favorite gun…
heck, I have four really nice .22’s that I will never sell, and I still have to fight off my “Wantanothergun-itis”
Fifthly, when you do finally succumb to the siren call of another .22 (it WILL happen, I guarantee it, it’s only a matter of time, it’s a when not an “if”), don’t be afraid to look at used guns, most used guns have been well cared for by caring owners, many of the used guns you see on the market right now have probably been sold by people needing to pay bills or put food on the table, or generally keep the family finances above board, due to the crappy economy, and the guns that haven’t been cared for, well, those will be obvious, banged up stocks, rust, gummy actions, missing parts, anything that looks physically abused, avoid those unless you really want a tinkering project, stay with a good condition used gun and the risks are minimal
Sixthly, don’t fall for the mindset that a .22 is just a kids/starter/cheap throwaway gun, as I said at the beginning of the thread, I have a decent amount of “better” guns in bigger, “manlier” calibers, but I spend far more trigger time on my .22’s i easily put 5,000+ rounds a year through these guns, and I’m not shooting every day, I probably have put about 50-60 rounds through my .30-30, and a couple hundred through the 12 and 20 gauge shotguns, I find the .22’s far more pleasant to shoot, so I shoot them more
That said, since it’s going to probably be the caliber you shoot the most, why not spend the money and get a nice .22, Mika, the next time you’re in the gun shop, pick up a Marlin bolt action .22, a Savage bolt action .22 and work the actions, shoulder the gun, feel the balance, see how they feel to you, then, if the shop carries them, do the same to a Marlin Model 39A Lever action and/or any CZ-452 or 455 bolt action, you’ll notice a definite difference in the higher-quality gun
Another thing to think about, another advantage of a “nicer” (more expensive than the 795) gun is that it holds it’s value better, if, Og forbid, for some reason you had to sell the 795 and you were selling it back to the gun shop, you’d be lucky to get more than $50-$75 for it, not that the 795 isn’t good, it is, an exceptionally good gun, but it is also a mass-produced, bare bones, entry level gun, if for some horrible reason, I had to sell either my Marlin 39A or my CZ 452, I could probably get around $400 each for them from a gun shop, and considering I bought the Marlin 39A used for around $475 (actually I traded a few guns towards it, total out of pocket was closer to $30 ) I wouldn’t take too much of a loss
Finally, when it does come time for your next .22 (remember, Resistance is Futile ) take your time, shoulder a bunch of guns, when you find “The One”, you’ll know it, it’ll feel natural, balanced, it’ll just feel right
Sorry to be so long and rambly, fellow .22 fans, post away
*the 795 is a great under-rated gun, those things shoot far more accurately then they have any right to at that price point, the 795 is truly a real sleeper of a deal
