Ahhh, .22 pistols, the best handgun combination ever concocted!!

There are a lot of really good .22's, but my favorite and the ones I have now are the Ruger MKII's. I do not have much bad to say about alot of .22 pistols, but do have these as favorites.

First, the why...

My little .22/.32 Kit Gun was a dandy, except it and my old 18 both developed a lot of wear {endshake, peened-over cylinder stop notches, side-to-side play} from range work and I sold them. I am not a big revolver fan anyway, or I should say I was for many years but am not anymore. But that Kit Gun was very nice to carry and I shot a lot of critters with it. The 18 was too bulky to carry for a 6-shot .22 IMO, but was a quality pistol.

I will not buy a handgun with a key lock. That eliminates the new crop of pistols being made today. I consider them unsafe.

Here's what I like and why:

Ruger MKII fixed-sight tapered barrel. Mine are blue but I am not too dogmatic about that. I just prefer blue. I am not a competitive target shooter. I shoot Remington cheap HP's because they are cheap and in my gun actually quite accurate and do everything I need them to do, which is; plink/practise, shoot trapped critters, snowshoe hares and mostly ground squirrels. I shoot dozens of ground squirrels with a handgun every year {season should get going here in about a month if the snow melts.

} I zero the guns {I have two} to the ammo so I do not need adjustable sights.

I like the MKII Rugers for the following reasons:

* Both feel very good in the hand, are accurate, reliable {see below...} and holster well. I have both a 4 and 6 inch barrel gun. The 4" carries well, 6" gains a little velocity.

* Both guns have magazines that are inexpensive and readily available {not so for some pistols}. I have no interest in a pistol with an expensive mag or one that is hard to find. I carry a pistol all the time and I do not care for rare or troublesome mags.

* I don't think a fellow can wear one out.

* Best of all, most Ruger MKII's I have found have a significant advantage over some other factory .22's. That is this: Straight from the factory, they WILL NOT feed many different types of ammo! Why is this an advantage? Because frequently the guns can be got in NIB condition for really cheap, and the fix is so easy it is laughable. Remember the fault when you buy a nice used gun! It'll save you a hundred bucks or more!

The gun is stripped, a few grits of wet/dry sandpaper are wrapped on a pencil eraser and the feed ramp is polished. Can be done during the commercials in a "Rockford Files" rerun. Once the obvious tool marks are gone, the gun will swallow anything, even the supposedly-crappy Remington bulk ammo. Same fix works on MKI's. Mint MKII's can be had for really cheap and I think this is the reason. After polishing, mine are dead reliable.