I'm kind of surprised that no one said the Marlin 60 yet. It usually gets mentioned in these threads. It was my first .22, not because that's what I really wanted, but because I could afford it. (I really wanted a Remington 541-S, but could have settled for a Ruger 10/22 Deluxe.)
I ended up selling the Marlin and getting a 10/22 later. Main reasons were that when you have a jam- and you will sooner or later with rimfire ammo- sometimes you end up reaching up by the muzzle (with a loaded gun), to loosen the magazine tube to dump the ammo to clear the jam.
The 10/22, simple push of the button, drop the magazine, and you're good to work on it. And if throwing a lot of rounds down range is your thing, you can preload extra magazines.
Finally, like everyone says, you have so many modifications available to you with a 10/22, so it's easy to build one to your liking.
