I have been looking at S&W 22A and Rugar along with many others. I have been thinking about some type of "reddot" sight also. I would like to see your comments. Thank You.
Welcome to FTF. The s&w is a great shooter. I use a bsa reflex sight on mine and can shoot dime sized groups at 25 yards benched.
The 22a is a nice little gun very accurate. The ruger is a better built just as accurate gun. But the 22a is the budget smith and wesson and the model 41 is the top of the line version and the ruger falls behind it.The model 41 is pricey though and hard to find less than 900 bucks. I have two of them. The 22a comes with a large picatinny on top and is easy to mount red dots on and I plan to buy one for my wife for plinking. There are people who use them with great success in competition also so they are not a el cheapo gun just not the all steel highly refined model 41 you pay lots more for. They are easy to change barrels on and you can buy longer or shorter barrels for them just like for a model 41.
I have a 22a but it worries me because after 2000 rounds the frame cracked! S&W took a couple months to get me a replacement. just FYI
i have a Ruger Mark III 22/45 Target model. well over 2000 rounds through it so far. pretty accurate and shoots well with not one problem other than a few rounds that didn't fire, but also didn't when tried in M60 either. ammo fault not the pistol. next modification will be a scope in either 1-4 or 2-7 power.
Spend some time looking into how the pistol's field stripping is done. I wish I had. From what I could afford there were Ruger (MkIIIs) that shot anything, but is a PITA to field strip; and pistols that are easy to field strip, but were picky about what they would cycle. I don't know about the expensive high end pistols. If you want to go with a Ruger, there is a modification for the the field strip. I just had it put on my MkIII 22/45 and it works great. It was another expense and I still need to whack the barrel with a mallet or something to get it off.
I'd go with the Ruger MKIII, if you're going to scope it. The Nambu-style slide makes mounting a scope behind the chamber easy.
Yes, the Rugers are a pain to field strip. People say it gets easier but it never gets easy! It's not hard to take apart but is difficult to get back together again because it requires a lot of alignment, and recalling the steps. The upper has to be aligned juuuust right with the lower, then there's that pain in the butt bolt stop pin that you swear is a round peg going into a square hole when trying to insert it back through the receiver and upper. Then you struggle and struggle trying to pop the mainspring back into the rear of the grip only to find the stupid bolt stop pin popping back out! Arrrrrrgh! Then you finally breathe a sight of relief thinking you've got it reassembled again only to discover you can't cock the bolt back because you forgot to have that annoying mainspring latch flipped over in the right direction! Arrrrrrrgh! There are lots of good vids on Youtube which show you tricks on making reassembly easier but it's never as easy as something like a Glock. On the other hand if you don't mind spending time cleaning and reassembly then it's a minor thing since you won't be doing a complete field strip every time you shoot the pistol. Or just think of the cleaning of a Ruger Mk as a hobby in itself because it's like a Rubik's Cube! Aside from the reassembly issue, Ruger Mk series are really fun to shoot and easy to shoot because of its light single action trigger. I would also consider the Sig Sauer P226 .22 Classic. You can always convert it later to a higher caliber by buying a conversion kit.
Ruger MK's field strip easy once someone with experience shows you how to do it. Reading and videos will work but will take hours longer Han a friend with experience after 15 min. Just installed Volquartsen Trigger, hammer and sear in 20 min. If try to do on own with no breakdown training your dead.
