My first .22 SR22

[Tommyb]

Hello everyone,
I just got a brand new SR22 on Gunbroker and can't wait until I get it, it probably will get here Saturday. This is going to be my first.22 pistol so did little research and chose SR. I have heard about the take down leveler problems but decided to give it a try. Originally I wanted to get a P22 since I have couple other Walthers at home but after reading reviews full of problems I decided I cross over to Ruger. SR looks like a great little pistol and I can't wait to take it to the range. I think this is going to be a great starter pistol for my son.
Tom

 

[Erich]

Welcome to the forum and enjoy your neat new pistol. If this is your first .22 LR pistol, be aware that different .22 guns prefer different ammo - even guns that are the exact same model (go figure). You might need to try out a variety of .22 LR ammo to find one that your gun really likes - fortunately, the stuff is inexpensive. Have fun!

 

[WIL TERRY]

LISTEN to Erich-the-Alquaberque-Kid above and you'll do just fine with what is one ot the finest of the new style modern 22 sporting pistols.
Mine shoots like a dream and is at 1800 rounds without a stoppage. Tomorrow morning it'll get another few hundred through it. It'd be a LOT more were there not six other guns needing shooting also.

 

[Iowa Fox]

Welcome to the group. You are really going to like your SR22. Take a few minutes to read the instuction manual at least twice and then totally enjoy that little pistol. Don't worry about anything on a Ruger. By some remote chance if something might come about Ruger will take care of it including prepaid return shipping.

 

[eagleguy]

The SR22 loves federal ammo!

 

[WIL TERRY]

AS OF THIS MORNING , My SR22 now has 2500 rounds though it nary a bobble or malf of any kind. A deeelightful little 22 pistol that shoots to beat the band, guys.
AND Judy put 500 rounds through her MKIII PAC-LIE 6" 22 pistol also with out a single malf of any kind. She can pick the buttons off your shirt at 50 yards with it and I am not Whistling DIXIE at you either.

 

[BogieDog]

Tommyb.

Welcome aboard. I think you'll absolutely love your SR22 as much as I love mine - sweet!!!

Glad to have you with us.

 

[Tommyb]

Thank you for guys,
I plan on reading the manual together with my son, I’m getting him into shooting and want to make sure that he starts it right. I plan on picking up my SR on Saturday so we can clean it together and take it to the range on Sunday. I have some rounds left over from the last session with a rental Mark III, Winchester white box hollow point and Remington lead ball, I will start with that and see how it goes. Will post again after the range trip.

 

[Erich]

Wil Terry's endorsement might be what it takes to get me off the stick to actually buy one of those neat little plinkers. I look forward to seeing your follow-up posts on the shooting, Tommy.

 

[rfieb]

Bought my daughter in law the SR22. She says it will eat anything that she puts in it.

 

[GeorgeP]

You'll love your SR22 but here's a hint to maybe improve your enjoyment. Spend a few extra bucks on some quality ammo before trying the cheap stuff. Break the gun in with 1000 rounds of CCI Blazer (boxed brick, not loose pack), Remington Golden Bullets (use the 100 packs, not the loose pack), or Winchester Red box, but make sure they are all 40 grain. After break in you can likely shoot just about anything, including the loose pack bulk stuff. The only thing it absolutely refuses to shoot are American Eagles.

One other thing to watch for... with some lighter loaded ammo the slide can travel back far enough to extract/eject the spent shell but not quite far enough to scrape the next round into the chamber. If you see much of this happening check the brand and make note NOT to buy it again.

 

[Bruiser]

Confused. eagleguy said SR22's loved Federal, but GeorgeP said it won't shoot American Eagle, which I thought was Federal ammo. Does it just depend on the specific gun?

 

[Erich]

My (reasonable amount of) experience suggests that all .22 rimfire handguns are individuals when it comes to what they like.

Okay, I owe Will Terry a beverage of some sort (well, yet another beverage, I should say, as he's just a fountain of helpfulness) because I bought an SR22 pistol this morning and I had a great time shooting it this afternoon. Can't wait to go back out with it, in fact . . . and I was amazed at how easy it was to clean up.

Just for kicks, I have a whole bunch of chrono data that some of you might find of interest. These were all shot today at 5950' above sea level, at 65 degrees Fahrenheit and c.15% humidity. (I ran a check with a known gun/ammo type, and the chrono was on.) All from the SR22 . . .

CCI Minimag 40-gr RN plated: M 977.9 fps/ES 103.1/SD 30.77
Aguila Super Extra Alta Velocidad 40-gr RN plated: M 1009/ES 21.55/SD 9.43
Aguila Interceptor 40-gr RN plated: M 1098/ES 96.26/SD 39.82
CCI Velocitor 40-gr plated HP: M 994.2/ES 135.7/SD 57.93
CCI Minimag 36-gr plated HP: M 976.3/ES 65.62/SD 26.07
CCI SGB 40-gr lead flat nose: M 971.8/ES 48.04/SD 20.80
Federal Automatch 40-gr RNL: M 995.7/ES 40.92/SD 16.24
(same): M 996.6/ES 10.67/SD 4.69
Winchester Super-X 40-gr RN plated: M 931.0/ES 132.7/SD 59.36
Aguila SSS 60-gr RNL: M 831.4/ES 9.45/SD 3.87
CCI Stinger 32-gr plated HP: M 1127/ES 208.5/SD 90.71
CCI Quik-Shok 32-gr segmented plated HP: M 1159/ES 56.05/SD 24.06
CCI Blazer 40-gr RNL: M 979.0/ES 75.54/SD 29.00

Now. The Federal Automatch had failures to load rounds into the chamber; despite the decent velocities given, the recoil impulse wasn't enough to render this ammo reliable. The Aguila SSS was (surprisingly) completely reliable in function and not bad in accuracy. Everything but the Automatch was utterly reliable in function.

Big fun at the range with this little gun - thanks for the recommendation, guys.

 

[GeorgeP]

Confused. eagleguy said SR22's loved Federal, but GeorgeP said it won't shoot American Eagle, which I thought was Federal ammo. Does it just depend on the specific gun?

American Eagle is made by Federal but this I think this is "gun specific" issues. It shoots fine in my Ruger MKiii 22/45, Browning Buckmark and Beretta NEOS. Never shot well in my Taurus P22 or Beretta Bobcat. Got rid of the P22, Bobcat and NEOs several months back. Have now added the Ruger SR22 and Bersa Thunder 22. In "MY" SR22 the American Eagle is hit and miss. I can actually feel and hear power differences between rounds. In the BT22 they are about 80% FTE. American Eagle seems to have a quality control problem and is on lower end of the quality scale for Federal... IMHO.

 

[Bruiser]

Is the quality issue just the .22 or all of them? I've never had issues with it in my 9mm.

 

[Erich]

 

[Shinytop]

Got mine today, have cleaned and lubed. Hope to get to the range in the next couple of days. LGS had mags so I picked up two more. As I was changing out the plates one of the pieces flew across the room but I got lucky and found it quickly.

 

[Tommyb]

I came back from the range with a huge grin! Well after reading the reviews, no surprise here, the pistol shoots like a champ. Both my son and I had a blast shooting it, very nice pistol.
We shot 450 rounds between 2 of us with not a one malfunction. We used 350 rounds of Winchester white box hollow points which shot very dirty but accurate enough and 100 rounds of Remington lead ball which performed way better than Winchester. The pistol was shooting about 1” low straight out of the box, so after adjusting the sights we were able to keep nice groups.
The trigger; didn’t care for a double action, long hard trigger pull, but SA worked really nice. Light pull and nice break made it a joy to shoot SA. The reset is little bit longer than my other pistols but not bad at all. I like the sights too, small dots but easy to keep on the target. Overall a great quality pistol for the price.
The safety was little bit hard to operate, especially for my son, but after an hour of shooting it got smooth and he felt comfortable operating it, figure, it needed some breaking in. All other functions worked flawlessly and we didn’t encounter any problems. The recoil was almost nonexistent which makes it a perfect first pistol for him. We tried both grips and settled on the bigger one with a pinky extension, it just worked best for us.
Overall a great little shooter, accurate and fun to shoot. We had so much fun at the range that we stayed longer than planed and missed all those forced fumbles in the first half. My son already asking when we are going back. The best part is that we stayed more than 2 hours on the range and spent less than $20 in ammo. It looks like we are going to have a lot of fun with our SR22.
On the next trip I plan to get some different type of ammo just too make sure, but I don’t think I will encounter any issues, it looks like this thing will eat anything.

 

[GeorgeP]

Is the quality issue just the .22 or all of them? I've never had issues with it in my 9mm.

I should have mentioned I had issues with 380 but not 9mm or 45 acp.

 

[Tommyb]

Anyone can tell me what is the purpose of that paper dot on the left side of the frame???

 

[Erich]

Internal factory control.

 

[Tommyb]

Internal factory control.

Got it, thank you, looks much better without it :lol:

 

[Shinytop]

First range trip with the SR22. Four hundred rounds of CCI 36 grain HP's and fifty rounds of CCI Stingers. No failures of any kind. Very smooth. Accuracy is at least as good as I am with my 64 year old eyes.

 

[Erich]

Right on!

 

[oldgungal]

A friend got a bulk box of American Eagle and that stuff is the only ammo my Ruger SR22 won't cycle. I ordered CCI Blazer on line cheap. It works great in all my 22s even the sometimes finicky little taurus PLY22. BTW...the Sr22 is a great little pistol. Works as good as my Mark III Hunter but not quite as accurate.

 

[Tommyb]

1000 round update and it is all peachy, no failures related to the pistol. I had a couple failures to fire, but it was caused by a bad Federal round. So far I have tried Winchester white box, Remington Thunder, Federal all in 40gr no problems at all. Out of these 3 I noticed that Winchester is the most dirty round and Remington is the most accurate. I also giave a try to CCI quiet 780 fps but it did not work for me. The round was powerful enough to eject but not powerful enough to move the slide all the way back, so the next round would not feed. So no quiet shooting for me unless I work the slide manually every single time, but no biggy, I can live with regular ammo. So 1000 rounds into the SR22 experiment and I could not be happier.

 

[Saralach]

CCI makes subsonic/standard velocity ammo too. Shot a box of it in the 10/22 but not the sr22. Have to get another box and see how that works. So far, my sr22 likes federal champion. Thunderbolts and cyclones (hollow point) have been around a long time, for good reason. I found a box of thunderbolts in the kitchen that had been there a few years. Shot em out of a Marlin 22 with no problems.

 

[GeorgeP]

Internal factory control.

Got it, thank you, looks much better without it :lol:

Yep, as Erich said, some sort of internal factory thing... I bought two LC9s at the same time from the same dealer. The Serial #s were about 300 apart, one had a red dot sticker and the other did not....????? May have only been a coincidence but the one with red dot had a terrible gritty trigger that we never got right and the other was pretty good.

 

[lslockridge]

I just got my new SR22 today, but it only came with one grip. Are the newer models only coming with 1 grip instead of the "skinny" and "fat" grips?

 

[Erich]

Got mine a month ago with both. You ought to consider calling Ruger.