Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns 22lr field pistols

the browning 1911-22 is flat and light.....

Joel, you stole that one.

Nice grab.

Forgot about those. Buddy has that little "browning miniture sized 1911 in .380" and it is a peach. That same thing in 22 would be cool.

The Beretta is about as good of a field .22 as I can imagine. Most need a little attention to the trigger, but other than that they're fantastic.

I think Glock really missed the boat with the G44.

They should have made it the size of the G42 or G43.

I would have bought half a dozen.

Good deal there Joel. I bought mine new when I was in high school. Seems it was when they just came out. Amazingly I still have the box and paperwork.

This. The older classics would be too expensive to make today and have a chance of competing with a plastic gun. Ruger and the Browning Buckmark series seem to be the only holdouts.

Speaking of Browning, I'm not seeing any mention of the original Challenger or the Nomad. Both made in Belgium up to a point, both machined steel and both are basically the same except the Nomad doesn't have a slide stop. Both come in 4" and 6" versions and the barrels are interchangeable. Triggers are pretty nice from the factory and accuracy is on par with any comparable pistol.

Of course, you can't put a rail on them or red dot sights which is probably one reason you can still find specimens in great shape in the $600 range.

Growing up, my bunny hunting buddy had a 4" Nomad...it was wicked accurate. That's where I learned you don't hold a auto with your thumb over your shooting hand. I tried to stop him, I was just 1/2 second too late. He was taking fine aim (from the car) on a bunny, and dropped his thumb over his shooting hand. I hadn't been taught about auto pistols at that age (12), but I quickly connected the dots and realized that slide was going to come back and smack his thumb... it didn't, it sliced. He ended up with 4 stitches on that thumb, and still missed the bunny.

I'm not really into "new" guns, but that one is one of the most interesting .22's made today. Like you said, flat and light. And the one I shot was completely reliable with everything I put in it, and shot very straight.

Ditto.

My friend in high school had a Nomad and later on I bought a Challenger ($75 in 1969). He learned muy pronto how not to hold it. Fortunately he didn't require stitches but did have a nice little scar across his thumb as a reminder.


I sometimes do duty as a Range Safety Officer at our club range during sight in days. I've learned to never offer unasked for advice to anyone no matter how much ammo they're wasting but will definitely stop and correct a noob holding a semi-auto pistol with the thumb wrapped over top of the shooting hand.

We have really enjoyed out m&p compact 22.

Thanks Greg!

That's a nice gun for a nice price. Congrats.

I'm torn local shop has one of the Smith "classic" K22s and several Ruger Mk series. I think im going to grab one of the Mk IV target guns with the 5.5 inch bbls but maybe ill grab the Smith as well...decisions decisons

I bought a Model 17-9 "Classic" a few months ago.

If you just think of it as a shooter and don't try to compare it with its predecessors, it's not bad. Trigger on mine is okay, about 4 1/2 pound let off in SA. Accuracy was okay but nothing to write home about, it gets 1 1/2" groups at 25 yards using the only two types of ammo I have on hand, Winchester Super-X and CCI AR Tactical. And that was using a 2X pistol scope which is easy to mount since the top strap is already drilled and tapped for mounts.

If you do compare it with it's predecessors from the 80's, 70's and before, it's disappointing. The older ones made a solid, steel "click" sound when dry fired, the new one makes this weeny little "tink tink" noise. The barrel isn't straight on mine, it points every so slightly to the right. Not nearly as bad as the four Ruger SP101's I dealt with last year, but it's there. It was sent back to S&W who returned it after two months with nothing done to it. Now I know the noise it makes when dry fired isn't a real criterion for usability and some folks will say that the new ones are built better then they ever have been. I've just owned too many of the older ones and am decidedly prejudiced.


OTOH, the Ruger MK IV I bought had a consistently horrible trigger pull, and I mean Horrible. Long, gritty, mushy, it embodied every derogatory remark one can say about a trigger. The online reviews of others seem to indicate that this is very common to the MK IV's. The good news is that a Volquartsen kit takes 20-25 minutes to install, is so easy that even I can do it, and completely removes the only downside to the current series. This one is still as accurate as all the earlier ones I've owned - meaning it shoots rings around the Model 17 - and is a LOT more convenient to clean. And you can still install a red dot or scope if you want.

JMO based on a sample of one each. Fwiw, the Model 17-9 resides in its original box these days while the Mk IV Standard gets taken out and shot fairly often.

Ya know, after writing the above, I'm really thinking hard about those Browning Challengers on gunbroker...

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the Colt Match Target. It's one of my top three between it and the S&W M34 and K22. I have two older Ruger semi auto's one is a target model I bought new in 81. The other is a std version with a 4 inch barrel that was my dads but I have never shot it.

Lately, I have been getting along with a Marvel 22 conversion upper on a 1911 frame.

These things shoot extremely well and are as good as "your 1911's trigger."

On an aluminum frame, it is surprisingly lightweight.

Those are nice, but that's an awful lot of gun for a .22. Somehow, it doesn't seem right to put a .22 in a frame suitable for the .41 Colt.

Agree that many are too heavy for “packin’ pistols”. I have a 3” M63 that’s just about perfect, but not legal here for small game. Hope to find a 4 or 5” someday. My Victory is a bit large, but would do in a pinch, and it has a red dot for my old eyes.