流浪枪手
携书弹剑走黄沙，瀚海天涯处处家。大漠西风飞翠羽，江南八月看琼花。
不记得几年以前了，在买了第一只枪以后，一发不可收拾，接二连三地又买了两把。可当初太幼稚，所以买的都是点22LR口径的。心情激动之下，把感想和体会都记录了下来。可是计算机不行，只能以中国式的英语来表达。虽无大用，毕竟弃之可惜，留此存证。也顺便试验一下网易有没有英文的敏感那个词过滤器。
The Story of My Rimfire Guns
Just a sharing of my experience of three 0.22LR handguns.
Selection of Guns
First of all, I am not an expert. Just before one year, I had neither experience nor background with guns, the only spark that ignite my hiding love to these things happened last Thanksgiving. When I saw accidently an adv from Cabella’s, I was attracted immediately by the picture of a S&W 22A-1, which was on sale for a good price. Sometimes ago, I did pick up a couple gun magazines and enjoyed the pictures of different guns. It never happened to me before that I should buy a gun while still busy with my work and my home; but the cool appearance on the paper really got me. My wife was encouraging too since she also wanted me get something to relax once a while. And that is the beginning. By that time I did not even know what does 22LR mean, but the price of 22LR ammo in the same paper assured me. Now within 6 months I got another pistol and a revolver already, all are of 22LR; and I really love them. I am not sure if three rimfire guns are too much for one shooter, but I do feel I should think about some larger calibers.
Photoes of my guns (click to see inthe original size)
When I got my first S&W 22A, I could not even put it down. Actually I even fired it in my basement before I could find a suitable range. Of course I had to be very careful to make sure my family was out, and the sound would not reach the neighbors. After the weather got warm, I found a very nice clue with a designated 22LR range, which was so comfortable to play in. I shot couple thousands rounds there and never got any issue. Also the field strip and cleaning were also very smooth. As of now, I should say that the A22 is a perfect gun in the price.
Like it was said, a new shooter with his first gun cannot wait too long to the second one. While I was having a good time with my 22A, I started felt being bothered, not by the performance but the price of the gun. It sounds stupid, but I kept thinking by that time, if $200+ gun can amuse me like this, how about a $400+ or $600+ one? I kept thinking and searching until I made up my mind to get a Ruger Mark III.
As mentioned before, the appearance of gun will make a big deal in my mind and decision. So I started the searching for the second gun mainly by the pictures from magazines. Also I went to gun store, gun show and even gun auction to get more and more chance to touch and feel different guns. Finally I focused my targets on Browning BuckMark and Ruger Mark III. Another thing that remains in my mind was that a friend who has extensive experience with guns once told me a general talking; the Ruger makes the best pistol while S&W the best revolver. Therefore I added a Ruger Mark III Competition 6.88” to my list. According to the online reviews, both of them are of equally high quality with reasonable price, so the final choose will be purely personal. Actually I like the feeling and design of Browning BuckMark very much, But it was said that one has to deal with some screws while disassemble or assemble a Browning BuckMark. Somehow I believe that a structure with screws can be loosen by repeated shock / shoot. Then finally I picked up the Ruger Mark III.
Maybe I was crazy, but I was still not satisfied with both S&W and Ruger. When I picked both of them, I preferred larger designs since I got big hands. Now I was trying to tell my wife that both guns were too bulky, and I should have another one that is something smaller and easier to handle, or always ready to use (for what!). Probably the real desire in my mind was an expensive toy that I can hold in my hand all the time. In any case, my wife was talked again and I got the third one on 22LR, an S&W M63.
For the revolver, I searched a lot of resources and finally decided to go with S&W. At beginning I was thinking a Taurus M94 which was nice and not expensive. But there were many terrible stories online telling the bad quality as well as good customer service from Taurus. Besides, the M94 is of almost the size as the S&W 22A that hesitated me. Went back towards to S&W, the selection was huge. I like the J frame ones, but worried about handle size. I had the chance to hold an S&W M317, which did not attract me at all because there was nowhere I could place my little finger, and thus made the holding not tide. On the other hand, the K or L frames were little bit too larger which almost the size of A22. The problem bothered me for sometimes until I found the new version of M63.
The selecting of M63 was not a easy one. Actually, I did spend some time to decide what size a revolver I should buy. I live a little far away from gun stores, and I do not feel good to try many guns in the store without buying any. I like gun shows where I could touch the guns briefly without bothering anybody. Actually I found out an easy way to know the fitting of a gun even it was not available to look or hold. What I did was print the guns in papers with some I knew very well, then it could be easier for me to decide if a gun will fit my hand or not.
Obviously the biggest advantage of the S&W 22A is it simplicity. Without any tools, you can disassemble the gun in 5 seconds anywhere, and reassemble it in another 5 seconds. So there will not be any field strip or cleaning issue at all. I am six feet high, and the gun is big enough to fit in my hand. The rubber grips looked cheap but quite comfortable. The 5.5” barrel was made of steel and body of alloy which is much lighter; the overall balance is great. I am not an expert but I thought the accuracy is good enough. I did make some comparison with the other two guns below. If I should say something shortcomings, I thought the slide stopper and manual safety were made with thin metal pieces which looked not impressive. But like I mentioned before, it is an inexpensive gun, and one should not expect too much from it. As a matter of fact, the slide stopper did failed once (I was not sure if it hit something when the gun slipped to the floor from my hand). The issue was fixed easily by free replacement after I called S&W and told the story to a very nice lady.
The Ruger Mark III Competition cost me some dollars; and I cannot make a clear conclusion that it is worthy or not. One thing for sure is that if I sell it sometime later, probably I can get back most of the money I paid. So I should not think the price too much. Overall I am pretty happy with the Mark III Competition. It is quite heavy; and I have to make some effort to hold it with single hand for a longer period of time. The operation is flawless all the time.
The Ruger Competition is a little bigger than S&W A22, so it can fit persons bigger than me. The grips are of 1911 style that cover both sides of the handle, and expose some metal part to the hand. I cannot criticize the design of 1911, but really dislike the metal feeling to my hand, especially in the winter. The Ruger Competition came with wooden grips which look very impressive and dedicated. The original grips were designed for right-handed shooter with a real prominent thumb rest. The feeling for holding the gun is quite tide and comfortable. Actually the thumb rest was real big that made it impossible to hold the gun with left hand. Actually the grips were so smooth and shinny, and made me nerves every time I put the gun down because I needed to find a nice and soft surface. After a very short period of time, I finally decided I did not deserve these luxury grips, and replaced them with checked plastic ones. Now the gun looked less expensive but at least I could play it with both hands. Of course, when holding with my right hand, the feeling was much less favorable than that from the original grips. By the way, the original grips were sold on EBay at a real good price.
At beginning, I believed the longer barrel would bring higher accuracy. But after several tests in the 50 feet range, I could not confirm that. The bullet groups for Ruger Competition and S&W 22A were almost the same, even I shot them on a stand. May the distance was too short or the sights designs made some different. Or I myself was the only issue. Anyway I was a little disappointed with the accuracy of Ruger, and decided to install a scope on it, since it was heavy anyway. The installation was smooth with the scope rail in the box came with the gun. With the scope, even a cheap one, the accuracy was quite good now, though I had to shoot on a stand most of the time. It was not relevant though, but I did think the appearance of the gun is much better too with the scope. As mentioned above, I gave up the Browning because I thought the screws could get loose during shooting. Now I thought I was right because I found the screws that holding the scope rail did get loose after some shooting. I did not want to tide them too much to risk the possible damage, and would try to find some screw lock to fix the issue.
Now I had to mention about the famous Ruger Mark III’s field strip problem. It was really a pain! For S&W A22, I disassemble even without check the manual. But for Ruger Mark III, I got a lot of trouble, especially the first time, even though I followed the manual. Till now, I was quite familiar with the Competition, still I needed make up my mind to disassemble it, and I needed a table with some tools. To be honest, sometimes I did disassemble and reassemble the Ruger very smoothly, but that was not very often. And I could not tell if it was going to be easy or not before I did it each time. The Ruger Competition came with a really good stainless steel finish; and I was trying to keep it. Now the only tiny scratches on my Competition were all caused by the small accidents during disassembling.
It seemed that I kept complaining other than complementing my Ruger Mark III. I would like to say that it is a good gun. The only problem was that I setup such a high expectation on it and was disappointed somewhat. In fact, I made the choice mainly based on online reviews. Now I understood that those reviews were affected (if not based on) largely by the Ruger Mark II version which might be a real good design. From Mark II to III, to me the only improvement seemed to be the relocation of magazine release button, from bottom to where the thumb rest. This modification allows a faster replacement of magazine. One could release the empty magazine with right hand, and let it drop to the ground, while the left hand was holding a loaded magazine for fast replacement. In case of Mark II, one had use both hands to release the empty magazine. Another modification made from Mark II to III is the chamber load indicator which Ruger boasted as a big deal. To me, however, it was a real shame design. I hoped no Ruger fan will throw bricks to me on this remark. Obviously it increased lot in manufacture and therefore the cost. But it was such ugly and useless design. The indicator can show you if there is a bullet in the chamber, but you have to watch closely and carefully, I believe everybody preferred to check that by pulling the slot a little bit. This useless design caused a lot of trouble to the cleaning process because the additional obstacles inside the chamber. After some shootings, the outside of the gun also showed some dirty because the cheap plastic piece caught a lot of power residue.? I could not say enough how much I hate it.
The holding of my three guns (click to see in the original size)
The M63 revolver seemed a little bite tiny comparing with my other pistols, but it did cost me $600+. It was an online purchase which came to my FFL real fast. I was very excited on opening the box but, however, kind of disappointed on the appearance of the gun. It was too dirty to be called a new gun. and I could tell it had been shot a few times because of the black powder residuals inside the barrel and chambers. After checked it carefully back in my home, I was further shocked to find out that the rear sight was in bad shape also. I wrote an email immediately to the online store to find out the history of the gun, and to see if they can replace the defeat part. The online store was polite but passed all the bugs to S&W. They told me that the gun was received about 6 months ago directly from Smith and Wesson and then had been in the box until shipped to me. They suggested me to contact S&W to have defeat rearsight replaced and even for a deep cleaning. I am not sure how much I can trust the words but to contact with S&W seemed the only way to go. Again I contacted with the nice lady mentioned above, and she nicely arranged me to receive a new rearsight assembly. It was such a mixed feeling on receiving a gun like that and experiencing a very good customer service.
Besides the information given so far, I would like also emphasized the specialty of rim fire revolver, which is the trigger is much harder than those with center fire revolvers. I was warned by a friend before, but did not concern it too much. Even long after I got the gun, I did not realize how hard is the trigger until I got change to try the other revolvers. The tricky thing is that no dealer or seller will allow you to dry fire their rim fire revolvers, so you would not have a ideal. Actually you could get the feeling only after dozens of dry fires which was the case with me. Usually rim fire needs more strength to ignite the powder so the trigger will be much harder, especially in case of small frame guns. The trigger pulling could be really tough, if not painful. I was about to open the gun to see if something can be done, but not in a hurry because I highly doubled if any improvement can be done. As for the time being, I just left the gun with hammer cocked hoped to reduce some strength of the spring. But again I was not expecting too much.
The defeat rearsight (click to see in the original size)
For range test, all three guns were shot from a wooden stand to the targets in 25 feets. As a rocket, I had no idea if these kind of tests mean anyting, but a good comparing reference. It also should be mentioned that there was a scope with the Ruger which might the be reason for such a good result. In case of Smith & Wesson revolver, it was shot in single action mode.
Comparision of bullets group from three guns
Basically, there is no significant kick for all three guns when shooting, no matter the size and weight. The only thing that could be felt was shake. To clearly show the shake during shooting, a video was recorded on shooting with single hand. Still the difference is small, if any.
