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The Perfect .22 Pistol? By Joshua Maloley. The year was 1999. I was young and inexperienced, and had only been old enough to buy new handguns for a bit over a year. Owing to the fact that I was both young and inexperienced, I was a kid in a candy store. I didn't know what kind of guns that I wanted, but I knew that I wanted to have them all. I wasn't like most of my friends who were dazzled by those wizz-bang autoloaders that we grew up watching on the tube. No, to me revolvers just seemed sounder in principal. My first handgun was a used Ruger Super Redhawk with 7½" bbl, and a Tasco Pro Point scope - it was the biggest thing on the used gun rack and Freud be damned, I just had to have it. Now mind you the only handguns that I'd shot to this point were .22's, and .38/.357's. Was this .44 Magnum the best gun for a beginner? NO. Was I young and inexperienced? YES. The grip was huge, I never really was able to get a good purchase on it, but it was also well padded, and made a lot of painless shooting possible. OK, it didn't hurt my hand to fire .44 Mags out of a 4lb gun, but did it help my shooting? NO WAY! I developed one heck of a flinch trying to learn how to tame that fire breathing beast. But I kept it around for a while anyway. My next handgun purchase was brand new - heck, I even had to special order it. It wasn't a kid in the candy store impulse purchase like the SRH. No, I researched this one - how carefully? I can't remember. But the purchase was good, and I was happy. That second handgun purchase was a model 60 S&W in .38 Spl. The salesman tried to tell me to get it in .357, that way I could shoot either caliber, but the .357 had the extra finger groove (longer) grip, and was only available with 2 1/8" bbl or longer. But I wanted the trimmest, most concealable gun that I could get, so I placed my order for the .38 Spl with 1 7/8" bbl. Sadly, this configuration is no longer offered. Now, was this the best gun for a beginner? Most would say no, but I was too young and inexperienced to know that - so it worked out great for me. I shot a couple of boxes through the gun, and brought it to my gunsmith, and told him that I shot low and to the right. I asked him to turn the bbl, and file the sight for me. Fortunately he knew better, and there was an experienced shooter in the shop (other than Burt the gunsmith). Burt asked him to give me a few pointers. He worked with me for about 30 mins, and gave me a few things to try. I paid attention and did what he told me. And do you know what? When I went shooting the next day after work - the gun shot to point of aim for me. Unlike the SRH, the snubby was easy to shoot and shoot well. I put a lot of ammo down range to get rid if the flinch that the big 'ol .44 gave me. But with practice, I could shoot this snubby right next to my friends with their 6" bbls, and usually outshoot them, or at least we'd call it a draw. (But we all know that a 1 7/8"bbl shooting as well as a 6" bbl isn't really a draw, is it?) But I digress - like the title says, this is about a .22. So like I was saying the year was 1999. I was young and inexperienced. And little did I know that I was about to buy the handgun that would ruin me for all other .22 calber handguns. I had no interest in autoloaders, but there it was on the shelf standing out for some reason. It was perfect - it fit my hand very well, and just felt right. It seemed as natural as the double actions that I had been shooting, but of course this as no double action revolver, it was a semi auto! It was a Ruger MKII anniversary model. It was trim and compact with it's 4 5/8" tapered bbl, it had nice lines. I also liked the red eagle medallions on the grips and magazines over the standard black ones, and I preferred the stainless bolt over the standard blued one. (I guess that some people just have to be different) It balanced right, and the controls felt natural - everything in easy reach. But mostly I think that it was the 1949-1999 rollmark on the receiver that made this gun stand out when no other auto could catch my eye.
I don't think that I handled it for more than a minute or two before I told him that I'd take it, and that he would have to hold it for me until Friday. And I don't think that it was five minutes later that someone else came in and told Joel (the salesman) that he'd take it. Well, long story short, I was asked politely, and I refused - he had to wait a few days for the next one - I got the one that spoke to me. I picked the gun up that Friday, along with two boxes of everything that he had in .22LR, about twelve flavors if I recall. I also got some bulk Winchester and Remington elsewhere locally. I shot that gun a lot over the next couple of weeks, mostly bulk ammo at first to try to break the gun in. It did have occasional jams that were starting to feel like "I told you so's" coming from the little revolver guy on my left shoulder. I shot about a thousand rounds through it (enough to make sure that this wasn't a break in issue), and took it to Burt. He wanted to know exactly what kind of malfunctions that I'd been having - of course I was young and inexperienced - so I had no clue. I told him that it jams. He wanted to know if it wasn't extracting, or ejecting, or feeding, or what? Was it magazine related? Did it only happen with one magazine or the other? Of course, I was young and inexperienced... Fortunately I was a friend of a friend, so Burt took some extra time out again to share some experience with me. I got out a box of bulk ammo, and started shooting, at every malfunction, I would come back inside, he would examine the gun, and give it back to me to shoot some more. Finally he was satisfied that it was an extractor problem. We disassembled the gun, he recut the angle of the extractor face to give it a bit more bite on the rim. He reassembled the gun and gave it back to me to shoot some more, and do you know what? Problem solved. Now with nothing more to distract me, I was able to get down to the business of finding this guns favorite ammo, and seeing if it had the accuracy potential that I knew it had. I'd read what Elmer Keith had to say about shooting handguns, and I'd read the Army Marksmanship Unit manual, and I drew heavily on their advise, and shot, and shot, and shot. As far as ammo goes this gun doesn't group well with any hollow point that I've tried. Remingtons had too many misfires to put up with, and Winchesters didn't group worth a darn. Now for the interesting part, every match, and sub-sonic ammo that I tried also printed larger groups than normal standard and high veloicity stuff. The best were the CCI Mini Mags. Until I found and tried the CCI Mini Mag Silhouette ammo. I don't know what the difference is, but the silhouette consistently groups 1/8" better at 25 yards than the standard Mini Mags do out of my gun. Is an extra 1/8" worth the extra 1¢ a round? It is to me. About the time that I was getting good enough groups to appreciate the accuracy of this gun, I had one complaint - it shot too high (I find that most guns shoot too high for me). Also I like guns to be sighted in for point of aim, not a six-'o-clock hold. I also found that as my eyes became fatigued during long strings of shooting the sights were hard to distinguish from the black Bullseye on the 50' targets. Back to Burt's. We ordered an MMC adjustable sight that fit into the factory dovetail - some will disagree, but I got the white outline because it really improves visibility once my eyes start to feel fatigued from staring across the sights at the 50' bull. Shot the gun - still high with the adjustable sight all the way down. Back to Burt's. I spent some time digging through catalogs not finding what I was looking for. I showed him my targets, and asked him to make me a taller front sight with an orange insert. He did, and it works great!
Now I'm quite happy with my gun, so it's a finished project, right? Well you would think so, and so did I, until Burt and one of his old bullseye league buddies (a licensed class III manufacture) came up with some trigger mods that used nothing but the factory Ruger parts. The modified trigger has an overtravel screw, no extra rebound (just enough for the sear to reset), and as light a trigger pull as you want. It turned a trigger that was a good factory trigger, into a trigger that rivals the aftermarket setups that cost nearly as much as the gun does new.
My trigger pull is 1 7/8 Lbs. That's right! A sub 2# trigger pull, and this is still a small game hunting gun as far as I'm concerned. "You can't have a trigger pull that light on anything but a target gun - it just isn't safe!" Yea, yea, I hear it all the time - but only from people who haven't shot it yet. Shoot it and see - it just feels right - come over and try it anytime. OK Josh, now you finally have the perfect .22. So it's done. Right? Well, I thought so, but I did always like the feel the the laminated thumb-rest target grips that Ruger puts on their competition model. I recently ordered a set from Brownell's, and was told that they have been factory discontinued. What exactly does that mean? I don't know for sure, but I didn't like the sound of it, so I was pleased to find that not only did Letts Grips have them available, but they were substantially less money than Ruger or Brownell's was asking. When they arrived, I was pleasantly surprised to find that they had red eagle medallions - now how did they know to do that? By the way every modification that was made to this gun is reversible, I still have all of the factory parts in the original box, so if this does ever become a collector's piece, all that I have done to hurt it's value was shoot it a lot. I hope to hurt it's value a lot more over the coming years. No matter what else can be said for all of this, I have gotten a bit older, and gained a bit more experience from this perfect .22. Perfect? So it's done. Right? Well...........................................
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