For a tube fed take a look at the Marlin Model 60. Very accurate. The trigger is not the greatest but with a little time and minimal effort they can be made much better.
A forum member sells the KAT trigger upgrade which is getting rave reviews.

Mals

 

tube fed

I much prefer tube fed. No extra magazines to buy, you have to really work to lose a tube magazine in the woods, easy to load, generally hold more ammo. I love my Nylon 66s, with tube mags; also my Henrys.

Ferox34

 

I much prefer tube fed. No extra magazines to buy, you have to really work to lose a tube magazine in the woods, easy to load, generally hold more ammo. I love my Nylon 66s, with tube mags; also my Henrys.

Ferox34

Back in the mid 1970's I went rabbit hunting with a friend who had a 60.
After a while I noticed the inter tube with the spring and plunger was missing from his gun, he said he had lost it hunting. How can you lose something about 18" long and not find it even in snow is hard to believe.

I don't care for tube feed mags, I've seen and have had cartridge's hang up in the tube when you unload and not feed through the chamber after replacing the inter tube and working the action several times.

Some box mag's do hang down to far but my A-bolt is flush and my 597 only hang's down 1/4" and I've never had sore fingers from loading .22 mags, some people must have soft fingers.

 

Yes, Marlin model 60 gives you a lot of 'bang for the buck'. Very accurate for the price... and you don't wear your fingers out fighting spring loaded magazines. On average, significantly more accurate than the 10/22 'out of the box'.

 

I have 2 marlins, both older; 1 a 39a that always feeds and the second a 60 that even after i had fixed never feeds. I personally hate loading tube mags. Give me the 10/22 any day of the week. because a $189 10/22 carbine, with a Green Mountain sporter barrel and a volquartsen hammer goes a long way. it would be more accurate than a factory marlin 60.

 

it is obivious........



that you have never experienced the ease of loading a TUBE MAGAZINE using a spee-d-loader !! LOL I keep one for butt loaded tube mags like my nylon 66 and one for the others that load from the muzzle end. over 120 rounds ready in each loader.:bthumb:

 

definitly TUBE FED

less hassle, and a spee-d-loader is fantastic, load the tube in 2 seconds ! you best buy right now is the stainless steel marlin mdl 60 at wal mart for 197.00. it includes a cheap scope, for what it is worth, NOT MUCH!! this is a sweet .22 semi-auto, shorter barrel length than a regular mdl 60, decent wood stock too! i like my 10/22s but I have to admit, the mags are NO FUN to load at all. I am considering the stainless mdl 60 myself, a lot of gun for the bucks. go to Marlins website to get a good look. decent IRON SIGHTS too.

 

always hated tube feeds, whenever crossing a road, within a few yards of a road, placing the gun in a vehicle, or approaching a house, empty the tube. PITA, mags were much easier and allowed for a much easier ammo change if needed.

 

Mag feed all the way. If one's fingers get sore loading its time to take a break and light off firecrackers for making rapid fire bulk ammo noise. JMO

 

Anybody who says loading box mags is easier than tubular... is off their rocker, and trying to justify their preference for a different rifle. lol

With a tubular mag, you simply lift up the plunger above the slot where the bullets go, and drop them in. There's no fighting a spring loaded box mag, and no sore fingers! If you're done shooting before the tube is empty, simply remove the plunger, dump the extras out of the tube, and click the one out of the chamber. This is FAR easier than trying to push the extra ammo out of a box mag!

As a bonus, the tube holds more ammo than the box mag, and doesn't hang down below the stock.

Tubular magazines pretty much define 'user friendly'.

 

No doubt most tubes are easier to load and do hold more capacity. But I'll stick with my 10/22 Rotary Box with just 10 rounds. Range time doesn't matter, but hunting I carry a couple of extra mags loaded. Right now my hands and fingers are cracked and pealing like an old snake shedding it's skin. But I can still load my 10/22.

These are the kind of things that have no "Right" or "Wrong" to them. But it is fun to do now and then.

 

depending on the mag and such, you can get chewed up fingers too.

if your fingers/hands aren't use to loading mags, its something you will get accustomed to and will develop callouses if needed. No different than anything else. Just give it time.

 

I prefer tube feed .22s for walking, hunting, and plinking.

I prefer detachable mag feed .22 rifles for shooting ranges as I can keep the muzzle downrange while loading/unloading or making safe for a cease fire.

 

Owned and shot a lot of both, I prefer tube fed.

 

Rugers are fun. I had one. But out of the box they are not accurate. I'm going to look at a model 60.

 

Tube feed or magazine....errr....clip....errr...magazine feed? Definitely a matter of preference, and mine is tube feed.

 

i far prefer the tube fed [not that i dont have a lot of box fed] i like the way they can be reloaded from a speed loading multi tube , and far less finicky in my experience .

 

What's the big deal here?



I have a spee-d-loader for my 1941 Remington 121A Fieldmaster, and a Shooter's Ridge 10/22 magazine loader for my all-weather 10/22 carbine, and 5x Blackie Collins Catch22 belt-clip carriers for my Ruger pistols. I use 4x MTM Rimfire Wallets for my bolt CZ's from the bench.

I like the tube-fed approach because it will shoot 18 shorts, 15 longs, or 14 LR, or a mixture. I don't like the fact that the center of mass shifts to the rear as the tube is emptied.

I like the 10/22 magazines for easy ammo switching, but dislike them for their complexity and difficulty in manual loading. I have some rubber mag caps and the Borel disassembly tool coming in the mail. So far, I have just tossed them into my Hornady 2L ultrasonic cleaner with some Dawn detergent occasionally.

 

Seems to me everyone is comparing the popular Ruger 10/22 magazine to some the of tube feeds. I have several rifle with different feed systems. What works the best in hunting & what works best at the range may be totally different types. Factory tubes generally hold more ammo , but after market extended box mags can exceed their capacity. As mentioned nothing is faster to load than just inserting a new loaded box type magazine. Browning T-Bolts have a very nice Helix magazine of 10rd capacity that is smaller in size than the Ruger 10/22 make and has a thumb wheel on it to relieve the spring tension when inserting shells and that eliminates sore fingers if used properly & being it is semi clear in color you can check how many rounds are remaining at a glance. KSA ,Keystone Sporting Arms , has in their excellent model 722 series a 7rd box magazine, that they recently introduced that is one of the slickest I have ever used. It is a straight magazine with no sharp edges , very easy to load and uses no buttons or levers to release it from the rifle. I am surprised that no one else came up with this idea in the last 100 years. I consider both of these brands superior to the Ruger 10/22 styled magazines. But I do own all the above and enjoy them for their own attributes.

 

The 10/22 has the same reputation as a Mini-14, it can't find its way out of a wet paper bag. Quite a few shoot just fine and are more than accurate enough. Too many people run one mag of Thunderbolts through it and say how inaccurate it is. Every gun has its ammo preference and perhaps more importantly requires a certain torque on the action screws to really dial it in. Both the 10/22 and M60 have crummy triggers from the factory. Of the two I prefer the Ruger as to me personally the Marlins just feel kind of cheap. They are great guns, but you like what you like and it feels more like a "real" rifle to me.

My finger tips get deep splits in them all the time, especially from fall through spring so I know how that can be. I'm glad most people don't have this issue but if you do even the easy loading of the 10/22 mag can be a painful experience. It isn't because you shot 2000 rounds in one session.

But, at the end of the day I will always prefer a tube fed rifle. Semi, bolt, pump, I like them all for the most part. My Spee-D loader has been terrific and it really shines on butt fed rifles. With a mag tube there is nothing to lose and with it being all one contained unit is a plus to me.

 

tube fed

I always thought the only strike against a tube fed rifle was if you top off the tube sometimes it deforms a few of the bullet noses due to mag spring pressure ?

 

I much prefer tube mags over box mags, I have yet to drop and lose a tube mag in the snow or get a sore finger loading it. JMHO:bthumb:

 

Thanks for all the replies. Seeing how this is going to be a PLINKER I'm going with the tube feed. Probably a Marlin. No scope. I have a Savage bolt action 22 with a 3-9 Leopold for hunting or if I really need to hit something.
Next birthday I'll be 63. I've learned to start taking care of my body parts. That includes my trigger and magazine-loading fingers.

 

IMO buy an older savage or stevens steel and walnut semi auto, check the pawn shops in your area. Don't buy a remarlin but look at older Remington also.

 

recently bought a Winchester mdl 77 tube mag

read a lot of reviews, box mag mdl only holds 7 rounds, give feeding troubles, original dependable factory mags very expensive. went with the "rarer" version, tube fed. I am happy, zero problems with this pre 64 Winchester , a true blast to shot, and I lucked up and got a 1962 late production WITH the bolt hold open feature.

 

I'm with WKD and Bearman...

I have some tube-fed 22s, but I prefer a box mag of some sort that can be dropped and the bolt opened (on a bolt action) or locked back (on an autoloader). Tube-feed rifles have a nasty habit of hiding one round somewhere in the carrier/elevator mechanism and producing it when you least expect it. Some time back I had occasion to write a "how to clean your rifle" manual for some newbies on my rimfire team. Some of them were under the impression that the proper way to clean a competition rifle is to drag a bore snake through it a couple of times and spray things out with some sort of patent gunk. As a result, when I took one team member's Marlin 39A home for some TLC, I was getting lead strips out of the old Ballard rifling that looked like Christmas tinsel.
My manual started out with the obligatory advice to always have a clear workspace and that live ammo does not belong on your workbench, ever, and to make sure the rifle is unloaded. I added a caution about not triple-checking any tube-fed action to make sure it's not holding out on you. I may be prejudiced by the fact that my personal favorite tube-fed autoloader, a vintage Remington 241, is one of the worst for that. Have you ever looked at the path a cartridge travels from that odd tube mag in the buttstock up over the bolt and down? John Browning was a genius, but this convinces me that he got a bit eccentric in his old age.

 

Both

Mu favorite plinker is my Browning automatic take down. Iron sights, tube feed, bottom eject. It comes up and points like a little 1100 shotgun, which is very natural for me. I do not take it to the range though, because they charge by the hour and I can shoot my 10/22 on magazines for an hour without reloading.

Maybe you can buy a used Model 60 and a used 597 and sell the one that you like the least. Or just keep both!

 

I only have Marlin rimfires and have both tube and detachable box magazine variants:

All the above comments are valid points depending on what your primary use will be.

The only things I will add:
1. For tube magazines I have cut some old aluminum arrows to length, left the field point in and use a disposable foam ear plug as a stopper as a "speed loader"
2. My big use for the detachable box magazine versions is for Appleseed. While they can be done with a tube rifle, it's just easier with the detachable box magazine versions
3. The Baby UpLula 22LR-380 loader works like the nuts on the 10 round Marlin magazines. $25-$30 well spent (in my opinion)