Info on Rimfire Open gear, part 1 - Guns

[Roamer]

First - Yes, I searched. I went through the first 15 pages of the SC forum and read almost everything. After 15 pages a lot of it seemed outdated - I'll read most of it eventually but I wanted to post this.

I want to do a series of topics on Steel Challenge gear as general requests for info, and maybe, if the mods like the info we gather, turn them into stickies for the forum. I can't find a webpage that talks about SC gear anywhere else, and non-stickied forum posts get outdated. If we can clean up the info and sticky it, we can make a real resource for people looking for information.

Of course, I also want to know because I'm planning on building an Open rimfire gun myself, and I'm trying to figure out the best stuff. The only things specific to me are that I'm trying to spend less than $1500 on the gun+any gunsmithing, and that I'm left-handed. Happily I don't need to mess with the safety in rimfire.

So-Here's a list of the rimfire guns listed in the SC forum that are available new:

1911/2011 - TacSol Conversion

Beretta - 87T

Browning - Buckmark

Hammerli - Xesse

Ruger - 22/45 and Mark III

S&W Model 41

Volquartsen pistols

I'm only listing the guns that are currently available that people mentioned in here, so - for example - Bob Marvel's kit from Nightforce isn't there. Which pistols am I missing? Why did you go with a Buckmark over a Ruger? Which model? Why is a 4.5" TacSol barrel better than a 6" one? Can you be competitive using a 1911 conversion if your last name isn't Norris? Don't just say it is, explain. Please feel free to blab at length about your testing 5 different brands of ammo with three aftermarket uppers in 20 degree weather. If there's interest, I'm planning on doing topics on guns, optics, ammo, triggers, other parts, training, and anything else that seems important enough.

Forums are a great place to share information, maybe the best one we have, so let's use it. No flame wars, no arguments - let's have a discussion about what we like and dislike about what we use.

[scottlep]

I shoot a lot of Steel matches every year. From my experience you are mostly going to see Rugers and Buckmarks that might have upgraded triggers, red dots and maybe some other mods such as TacSol uppers, etc. You see a few full custom guns here and there, but again in my experience, the ones I usually see have issues running reliably. I know a few people that have spend well over $1500 building custom .22 steel guns based on a 1911/2011 frame with a conversion top end, and those people usually regret spending the money and go back to a Ruger or Buckmark. I personally run a Ruger 22/45 lite with full Volquartsen internals, a TandemKross comp and c-more railway sight. I bought the 22/45 barely used with all the Volquartsen mods and 5 mags for $300, then slapped on a c-more I had and the comp. It runs flawlessly as long as I keep it clean. Before the Ruger I shot a Smith and Wesson 22A for Steel Challenge. I easily put 25,000 rounds through that gun with never an issue except for crappy ammo. As far as ammo goes, I only shoot CCI 40 grain mini-mags for matches (yes, I am fortunate to have a large inventory of them on hand). I have shot almost every other brand of .22LR with not many issues. The only .22LR ammo I will NEVER buy again is the Winchester 555 in the red and white box. I went through two boxes of it just for practice and plinking and at least one out of every ten rounds were duds. I can say with all certainty they were duds, because both of the guns I mentioned above will reliably run any other ammo I put in them no matter how hot or cold it is here in SE PA.

[bradhe]

Seems like the first problem you have to solve is reliability. I see lots of open rimfire guns bobble even at major matches. My own experiences:

- High standard with LSP barrel...this can be made reliable but the magazines must be tuned to the individual gun and babied. Good trigger, a good shooter

- Browning... made one of these for my son, tricked out with all the Tacsol parts, alchin mount etc. ran well for about 8k rounds and then started to flake. Very light for a junior though. You can use up a lot of ammo trying to solve a 1/100 malfunction.

- S&W 41... I think this is the ticket. We are running two of these now, one with the new Bully barrel copy, the other with a similar barrel that I made out of a stock one. Using C-mores but I think we will go to aimpoints soon. Otherwise stock but for herrets grips. These guns run a close to 100% with CCI SV as you are going to get in this world at about 10k rounds each. The first one, when new, ran 1600 rounds until a malfunction without cleaning (though with lots of lube). I just wanted to see how long it would go.

[ZackJones]

Great timing as I, too, am in the market for a 22 LR pistol and I'm debating between the Buckmark and the Ruger 22/45. I have experience with the Buckmark as our club has 3 of them for our junior steel challenge program. I've equipped one with a cheap red dot and so far it's working very well. From the research I've done so far it seems the Ruger 22/45 has a lot more aftermarket support. I wonder what you guys would consider must-have or must-do upgrades to either a Buckmark or Ruger 22/45. Ammo wise I have 4 - 5 boxes of Federal 325 bulk ammo. So far it runs well in the Buckmark. Does anyone have any experience with that ammo in a Ruger 22/45? As far as missing 22's from the list I've seen a few people shoot S&W M&P 22's.

[jdphotoguy]

I had a Ruger 22/45 Mark III, believe it was the Target model, bull barrel and lower with non replaceable grips. Only thing I did to it was remove the magazie disconnect and add a Burris FastFire III. The thing ran great on Federal Target Grade Performance ammo and Aguila SuperExtra ammo.

Because of some surgery to my trigger finger I had to fire the gun with my weak hand, because the trigger pull was to heavy and long. Could have replaced the stock Ruger internals with Volquartsen's and that would have improved the trigger, thus allowing me to shoot it strong hand, but I got a deal on a Volquartsen lower, so I sold the Ruger to offset the cost.

A few months back bought a Volquartsen 1911 style lower, Tac Sol Pac-Lite barrel 4.5", TandemKross comp and Leupold Deltapoint. It too has run fine on the Federal and Aguila ammo.

Recently I replaced the Tac Sol barrel with a Volquartsen LLV barrel and comp. Have yet to shoot it, but will shake it out this weekend and then use it at our Steel match in two weeks.

Edited September 16, 2014 by jdphotoguy

[Onepocket]

22/45 triangle delta point. Change out extracter with a KIDD. Trigger job.

[Tom E]

Ruger 22/45 Lite. Great starting point. Lots of aftermarket parts available and barrel is threaded for a comp and short enough (4 1/2") to have gas pressure/volume for the comp to work.

[Hatchet]

http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=197089&hl=

Several nice builds from this thread that I started in June. Definitely not outdated. I love my RFO pistol. Enjoy.

[Nimitz]

Browning Buckmark:

Easy to take apart and maintain

Anyone can do the trigger job by themselves

Tons of after market stuff to make it whatever you want

Extremely reliable

[Roamer]

Great, this is all good info...I'll update the first post with this and the stuff from the topic Hatchet started (great nickname!). Anyone else? Also, can anyone comment on how common the guns are besides the Buckmark and the Rugers? I'm going to break out the list by how common each is - the more common a gun is the more likely you are to be able to get help, or a chance to test one - but I need more info.

If I had the cash to burn, I'd also do a non-optic gun - A Sig P210 with the .22 conversion kit would be awesome. But the gun is expensive, the conversion kit is stupid rare and almost as bad, and spare mags are unobtanium.

Edited September 19, 2014 by Roamer

[Roamer]

Okay, apparently I can't edit a first post. So here's the updated post:

UPDATE I - Added pistols to list, added sections for parts sources and recommended ammo

GEAR LISTING:

PISTOLS:

Common:

Browning Buckmark

Ruger 22/45

Ruger Mark II/III

Uncommon:

S&W Model 41

TacSol conversion 1911/2011

Volquartsen pistols

Rare:

Beretta 87T

Hammerli Xesse

Hi-Standard (Model unknown)

S&W Model 22A

S&W M&P 22

PARTS SOURCES:

Allchin - Browning, Ruger

CW Accessories - 1911

EWK - S&W

Herrett - 1911, High Standard, Ruger, S&W

Kidd - Ruger

LSP - High Standard, Ruger, S&W

Maddmacs - Ruger

Majestic Arms - Ruger

Tactical Solutions - Browning, Ruger, 1911 conversion kit

Tandemkross - Ruger

Volquartsen - Browning and Ruger

OPTICS:

Aimpoint H1

Burris FastFire III

C-More Slide Ride

Leupold Deltapoint

AMMO:

Aguila SuperExtra

CCI Mini-mags

Federal Target Grade

Edited September 19, 2014 by Roamer

[Onepocket]

I use a 22/45 with a delta point mounted to a

Rail. This gun with federal high velocity ammo has been super reliable for me. I shoot mostly USPSA now due to the .22 ammo shortage. However at my peak I was shooting well over 5000 rounds a month of .22. I was getting it for $200. A case a couple of years ago. (The good old days) At one point I was shooting a tac solutions barrel but I shot it so much I smushed melted ???? The breach face if the barrel. TS was nice enough to rebarrel it for me but it never was 100% as before. So I switched to a stock 22/45 little trigger work, KIDD EXTRACTOR. I still have three stages with sub two seconds strings and a big part of that is because my gun runs. I can't tell you how many Marvels, glock conversions, 2011 TS, that look cool as hell but won't run. That is my Ruger 22/45 endorsement and I wish I was getting paid for it.

[Onepocket]

Oh yeah. Comps on a .22 are stupid in my humble opinion.

[danjordan78]

After doing a bunch of research I decided to build an open Ruger 22/45 with a TK comp, cmore, and VQ trigger. Wanted the same grip angle as my 1911/2011s.

For a long time a shot an Accurate Arms 22 conversion on my 1911 and 2011 Open gun. Really liked it but hated having to re-sight in my dot on my 2011 every time I switched uppers (couldn't bring myself to buy another lower setup and dot for it). Loved it. Mags fit in my belt and same mag holders so I could practice reloads (which there is no way to do with Rugers or Buckmarks). Ran lots of rounds through it and it was really reliable as long as I kept it lubed up. More reliable than lots of other people's factory guns. Eventually though I cracked the frame completely where the slide release insert is. Still use it, but can't risk it cracking in a big match. Still use it though to practice USPSA stuff.

Don't think it matters Ruger or Buckmark, both are reliable if you break them in, cheap (completed mine cost under $800) and lots of accessories. The model 41's are awesome but a little rare and limited aftermarket options.

[danjordan78]

Oh yeah, I can tell you the comp works. However small an improvement, it's still an improvement. Especially when it comes down to fractions of a second!

[Nimitz]

you have obviously never shot my open rimfire gun ....

comps on rimfire guns enable fast shooters to shoot even faster ...

Edited September 20, 2014 by Nimitz

[Tom E]

Oh yeah. Comps on a .22 are stupid in my humble opinion.

I have 2 duplicate Open 22/45 Lites for steel. One's a back-up. I've shot them back to back, one with the comp, one without. The comp works. http://maddmacsprecisiontactical.com/lite-comp-2245l013.html The comped gun with hi-velocity ammo rises less than the no comp gun with std velocity ammo. There are opinions and then there are observed results...

[DougCarden]

Shoot an open .22 with a comp on it. Then take it off and shoot the same arrays on timer. Watch the dot movement. Look at the timer.

Comps do work, even if you don't "think" they work.....

DougC

[Hatchet]

Oh yeah. Comps on a .22 are stupid in my humble opinion.

I disagree with your statement. Since compensators on a .22 aren't capable of independent thought, they can be neither stupid nor intelligent. Perhaps you meant that the use of compensators on .22 pistols is stupid, or basically that the persons that attach them to their .22 pistols are stupid for doing so. Since you didn't provide a reason for this presumed stupidity, I will go on the assumption that you don't believe that compensators on a .22 will reduce muzzle flip/recoil, which is the primary use for a compensator. Before I purchased a compensator for my .22 pistol, I researched the matter and determined though anecdotal evidence and semi-scientific research performed by others, that even though the reduction in muzzle flip is minimal in a .22, compared to a larger caliber, it still exists and use of a compensator would be prudent.

Edited September 20, 2014 by Hatchet

[ZackJones]

you have obviously never shot my open rimfire gun ...

I didn't realize your open gun was based on a Buckmark. Good to know there are plenty of aftermarket parts available.

[Onepocket]

I never said they didn't work I just said they are stupid in my opinion. In steel challenge you shoot once per target then you move on to the next target. If you hold the gun right you should be able to keep the gun flat enough for the next giant piece of steel coming up. If you can't hold a .22 flat enough between transitions you should rethink your fundamentals.

[Onepocket]

Roamer. I apologize for getting your thread off topic. I great shooter told me to put my money in ammo not gun bling. His advice has served me well.

[Tom E]

I great shooter told me to put my money in ammo not gun bling. His advice has served me well.

There's "bling" and then there are functional parts that actually help your performance. "Stupid" is not knowing the difference.

[Onepocket]

Hahahahahahaha

You must be a .22 comp salesman.

[danjordan78]

So I guess BJ Norris, Jessie Duff, Julie Golob, Max Michel, and JJ Ricaza are all stupid and don't know what they are doing and obviously have no idea what equipment to use!

They must all be comp sales people too:)