10/22 or 597

If you're going to get a 597, get the heavy barrel. I shot a heavily customized early ruger and my VTR will easily keep up with it. It is a royal pain to completely disassemble it, but considering how often you need to, its not an issue to me.
 
Marlin 795.

Nothing against the 597 - don't own one, not much experience with them.

But for "out of the box" accuracy and reliability... 795 over 10/22 hands down.

I bought the 10/22 first and ran it for a couple years before safe queening it out of frustration. Picked up a 795 this spring and... It made me like semi-auto .22s again.

If you want to go full on Mall Ninja with bolt on blinkin lights and tactical tupperware, and aren't really concerned with being able to hit what you point at... Then yah, the 10/22 is a good choice.
 
I've got a pair of 597's both with a Volquatrsen hammers, and they shoot great. The big mags are hit and miss, but the 10 round ones are fine, and easy to find. I've got a heavy barrel that out shoots my FVSR and a regular barrel that has collected many birds since I got it. I'd like to try a set of Tech sites on the regular barrel one, I've heard lots of good things about them.
 
I've owned both, but have since got rid of the 597. The 10/22 is MUCH better. It feels better put together. The 597 suffered from light primer strikes, the Remington 30 round (or was it 25 round?) mags are HORRID. They just don't work, and I went though 6 different mags, different revisions too. It was also a PITA to clean. It was an accurate gun though, but that's about it.

Now I have a 100% stock black laminate 10/22 that I LOVE. I won't be getting rid of this one.

10/22 > 597
 
597 HB gets my vote, for what its worth. Stay well clear of the remington 30 round mags, and get a few of the factory 10 rounders, with the 10 in a circle symbol on the casting. They should be the latest generation mags, and work fine.
Hold open bolt and trigger finger mag release make it a fantastic little rifle.
Seems crazy to me that ruger still hasn't adopted a hold open bolt system, and is kinda the only flaw in the 10/22. It sucks when you acqire a nice target picture and your rifle goes CLICK.
 
I got my 597 for $150 from Cabelas a few years ago, I adds a Volquatrsen hammer and extractor and properly torqued the guide rods and the thing eats all the cheap ammo I feed it. To me the extra $200 for the 10/22 was not worth it.
 
I will be honest, I bought a 597 with less than high expectations but mine defies all the negative press they have gotten.Very accurate, no jams or failures of any kind. I bought the 30 Rd Remington mag as well and works fine. Looks disgustingly tactical lol, but works as it should. Mine has the sportier barrel and I swapped the sights with william's fire sights. Hasn't met any ammo it doesn't like yet either.
 
I've had a 597 LSS for oh 16 years now. Good accuracy up to 25 yards, isn't going to win matches at 50. The plastic 10-round mags I have I can really only load 6 or 7 into it or the rounds get stuck and don't feed up. Steel mags feed better and will load the full 10. Needs high velocity ammo to reliably cycle the action, CCI Mini Mag Choot Em! edition is working well for me. The Remington Viper and stinger or whatever that crap is, is well, crap. Cycled the action though. Bolt hold open is a great feature. Now those of your complaining about the cleaning must not be very mechanically inclined. Yes it is a little more involved than taking the bolt out and shoving a patch down the barrel however a little extra labor is different than actually being difficult to work on. If you wanna talk PITA try stripping down a Remington 7400... I overtightened the barrel nut once and have not been able to loosen it. Oh they make a special tool for it too since you can barley fit a wrench between the action bars... Somebody please hack remington and delete the 7400 engineering documents so they can't make it anymore...

Well I chose the 597 over the 10/22 and would again if I had to.
 
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