I took my new SR22 to the range today. Not all that easy to find right now but managed to get one from Mark at Lone Butte Sporting Goods. Didn’t even have to leave home to get one!
It is one solid gun weighing just over 6 pounds. Nothing wobbly or loose on it. I say that in part because in comparison the Remington 957 VTR I got had a loose stock right out of the box. The smooth ff tube is threaded if you want to attach rails. Normal AR grip and the Tapco stock is pinned so you can’t adjust it. No threaded barrel so you can’t have the flash hider which raises the cool factor level but not a vital item. It is just annoying that you would have to pay extra to get one put on when the States ones are a stock item. After mounting a B Square “Shorty Forty” scope I was ready to go. 12 clicks up and 8 over and it is pretty close to dead center at 25 yards.
For the first part of my test I loaded a Tactical Innovations 25 rounder and put 25 Winchester rounds through it as fast as I could pull the trigger. Right out of the box and not a single issue. Once again, in contrast to the Remington 597 VTR, which couldn’t feed 10 rounds through the factory mag without a jam. I have since replaced the Remington extractor and adjusted the two rails in the action and it behaves a lot better but out of the box I think that shouldn’t have to be done.
While not a match trigger I thought it was better than the usual 10/22 trigger. Very little creep and fairly smooth pull. I used, besides the Tactical Innovations mags, the factory 10 round Ruger and some Butler Creek steel lipped mags. The Ruger mag worked fine, no surprises there, but it was difficult to remove. The BC steel lips worked ok but there were some jams. I don’t understand why Ruger doesn’t make the slide release so that you can just pull it back and let it go like the aftermarket ones instead of having to push that poorly designed release. I will modify it as per the stickie in this forum but you would think that Ruger would have done that by now unless there is some issue I don’t know about.
One thing that I noticed was that the sling swivel mount at the end of the ff tube has an extension inside the tube that has a pillow block that appears to support the barrel. That seems odd in a free float barrel setup. I have read in other websites that some people remove the pillow block and it has made a difference in accuracy. I am just wondering why it is there in the first place.
Speaking of accuracy, I set up a target at 25 yds. and tried a group from a rest. My first shot was a little low so I went up 6 clicks and fired 5 rounds. First 3 are all in pretty much one hole. Got a little inattentive and the fourth was a little high, out of the herd. Settled back down and the fifth shot was back with the first three.
I also fired some Remington Hornets through it but didn’t have time to shoot for a group. They fed well and I was shooting some broken clay fragments at 35 yds. with no trouble. Dynapoints worked well also but I was running out of daylight and didn’t test them for accuracy.
The SR22 was everything I hoped it would be. Well, come on, it's a Ruger, right? It’s not restricted so you can take it anywhere you want for plinking or hunting; shoots as good as it looks; and you can put on pretty much any AR type mods on you want.
It is one solid gun weighing just over 6 pounds. Nothing wobbly or loose on it. I say that in part because in comparison the Remington 957 VTR I got had a loose stock right out of the box. The smooth ff tube is threaded if you want to attach rails. Normal AR grip and the Tapco stock is pinned so you can’t adjust it. No threaded barrel so you can’t have the flash hider which raises the cool factor level but not a vital item. It is just annoying that you would have to pay extra to get one put on when the States ones are a stock item. After mounting a B Square “Shorty Forty” scope I was ready to go. 12 clicks up and 8 over and it is pretty close to dead center at 25 yards.
For the first part of my test I loaded a Tactical Innovations 25 rounder and put 25 Winchester rounds through it as fast as I could pull the trigger. Right out of the box and not a single issue. Once again, in contrast to the Remington 597 VTR, which couldn’t feed 10 rounds through the factory mag without a jam. I have since replaced the Remington extractor and adjusted the two rails in the action and it behaves a lot better but out of the box I think that shouldn’t have to be done.
While not a match trigger I thought it was better than the usual 10/22 trigger. Very little creep and fairly smooth pull. I used, besides the Tactical Innovations mags, the factory 10 round Ruger and some Butler Creek steel lipped mags. The Ruger mag worked fine, no surprises there, but it was difficult to remove. The BC steel lips worked ok but there were some jams. I don’t understand why Ruger doesn’t make the slide release so that you can just pull it back and let it go like the aftermarket ones instead of having to push that poorly designed release. I will modify it as per the stickie in this forum but you would think that Ruger would have done that by now unless there is some issue I don’t know about.
One thing that I noticed was that the sling swivel mount at the end of the ff tube has an extension inside the tube that has a pillow block that appears to support the barrel. That seems odd in a free float barrel setup. I have read in other websites that some people remove the pillow block and it has made a difference in accuracy. I am just wondering why it is there in the first place.
Speaking of accuracy, I set up a target at 25 yds. and tried a group from a rest. My first shot was a little low so I went up 6 clicks and fired 5 rounds. First 3 are all in pretty much one hole. Got a little inattentive and the fourth was a little high, out of the herd. Settled back down and the fifth shot was back with the first three.
I also fired some Remington Hornets through it but didn’t have time to shoot for a group. They fed well and I was shooting some broken clay fragments at 35 yds. with no trouble. Dynapoints worked well also but I was running out of daylight and didn’t test them for accuracy.
The SR22 was everything I hoped it would be. Well, come on, it's a Ruger, right? It’s not restricted so you can take it anywhere you want for plinking or hunting; shoots as good as it looks; and you can put on pretty much any AR type mods on you want.
lol. Nice SR22 but I still like my VTR better and it shoots better groups 
