Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Rimfires AMT Lightning rifle--what is it? any good?

I came across an AMT Lightning rifle at the local shop, which appears to be a Ruger 10/22 copy.

I think the action was actual stainless, with a heavy barrel and a Monte Carlo black stock with cheekpiece.

Were these any good? Anything special about them?
Would the heavy barrel be original?
Was the stock actual synthetic?
What are they worth?

i like mine. the action is stainless, not alloy, and it has an integeral 3/8" dovetail rail on the action.

IIRC, Ruger sued for patent infringment and forced AMT to quit making these.

mine is the short barreled rifle with the folder (came new that way). the SS pistol with red dot scope is also an AMT Lightning.

Do you know if they ever came with a factory heavy barrel with no sights and a monte carlo black stock?

How does your AMT pistol compare to the Ruger pistol?

The AMT Lightning 25/22 action is stainless. A 10/22 clone. If memory serves there were two different barrels. Mine started as the full stocked heavier barrel version but wasn't what you'd call heavy. Now it wears a threaded Ron Pence barrel with match chamber. Works perfectly just like a Ruger, and is very accurate.

The stainless Lightning AMT-Ruger clone pistol was also good. For years I shot ihmsa smallbore with one. The bore was rougher than you could imagine and looked terrible, but the gun shot extremely well. A friend had one and his was also very accurate.

i'd call the AMT almost as good as Rugers. the pistol also has a built-in 3/8" dovetail scope base built in, and the sides of the action are slabbed.

i've seen pics of some heavier barreled AMT rifles on the internet over the years, but i don't remember the details.

"AMT's manufacturing of the 'Lightning' pistol and the 10/22 rifle was not in violation of any patent but Bill Ruger did not like the situation so he sued. The suit was settled and in return for no longer manufacturing and marketing the AMT Lightning pistol Ruger would not object to AMT stainless steel copies of the 10/22."

This quote came from the co-owner of the AMT Custom Shop.

He also told me that there were 2 versions of the AMT rifle, the 25/22 and the Target!

Also he told me that they actually bought bolts for the Custom Shop 'Challenge Edition' rifles directly from Ruger and he stated "believe it or not we actually had a pretty good relationship with them"!

I owned an AMT Hardballer in .45 and the rifling/bore looked like it was done with a dull drill bit. Unbelievable it shot as good as it did. Same dude musta rifled the Lightning barrels

HTH

Respectfully,
Dennis

I've owned both the 'Target' and side folding stock version of the AMT 25/22. The light barrel folding stock version was more accurate and consistent than the MonteCarlo plastic stocked version with the bull barrel.

Once I filled the flimsy plastic stock cavities with hot glue filled with steel grit, and fire lapped the barrel, it would shoot groups in the zeros with TenEx at 25 yards. For about 10 shots, then the sloppy and rough bolt would build up crud. I never got the other gun to shoot well, the best was in the 2's out of a machine rest indoors at 25 yards. Of course it started out shooting in the 2's, that's 2" at 25 yards before tuning and fire lapping. The bore in a bore scope looked like it had been chewed by gophers. After lapping it looked like a mirror that had been chewed by gophers.

The Lightning copy of the Mark II was the single most accurate 22lr semi-auto pistol I've ever owned. I stupidly sold it, as I was too young to know what I had.

More accurate than the MK1 target I had but I have had some galling issues.