Time for a fun experiment.

Howard Funk (hrfunk) is a name lots of us may recognize for his informative and entertaining videos on You Tube. One which grabbed me recently was “My Most Accurate .22 Pistol.”

Howard owns six .22 handguns, the same as I do, and he set out to have some fun by comparing their accuracy under some moderately controlled conditions. With my major matches mostly behind me until next fall, I had time to back off from my regular training schedule and enjoy Howard’s experiment with my own guns.

It didn’t hit me until I was preparing the guns for the range session that this possibly came down to a Ruger versus Smith & Wesson contest! The participants include four revolvers and two automatics. Revolvers first:



Bottom to top, these are a 6-1/2” Single Six, a 6” S&W 17-3, a 4” S&W 63, and a 6” S&W 617-6. That’s one each of S&W’s J, K and L frames. The 617 has a 10-round cylinder and the others are all 6-shooters. The 617 also differs from the others in that it has a fiber optic front sight. All have adjustable sights.

Next, the automatics:



The bottom gun is a 1983 vintage Ruger Mk II, which dates to the Mk II’s second year of production. The upper gun has been shown on this forum a few times; it’s a 22/45 Mk II which I bought new at my first Arizona gun show 20 years ago. Both guns have Volquartsen trigger kits installed, and both have fiber optic front sights substituted for the benefit of faster sight pickup in the steel plate matches I use these guns for.

My test protocol was similar to Howard’s, with a couple of notable differences. Howard correctly notes that .22s are well-known for having individual ammo preferences, but chasing down a gun’s favorite fodder would have expanded the experiment tremendously. To keep things simple, he chose Wolf Match Target, a premium ammo that generally performs well in a lot of guns. What I had on hand was the slightly pricier Wolf Match Extra, which performs exceptionally well in a couple of my custom-barrelled 10/22s. Prior to shooting, all guns had their chambers and bores thoroughly cleaned. I shot from a single sandbag rest on a concrete bench, and target distance was 11 yards. Where I went a step further than Howard was that I fired six rounds into a paper plate target for bore conditioning prior to shooting for the record, as we all know it often takes several rounds for a rimfire bore to acclimate to a given ammo’s lube or coating. This was worthwhile, as more than one gun threw its first shot or two several inches away from where the subsequent shots grouped. Following the 6 conditioning shots, I then shot two targets of six shots each.

A few disclaimers before I get into the results. Although I’m no stranger to revolvers, the grips on the Single Six and the classic M17 just did not work well with the combination of my hands and the sandbag rest. For those two, the heel of the grip seemed to extend below my hands and seated directly on the sandbag. With the other four guns, my 2-handed grip separated the heel of the guns from the sandbag. This may factor into the results, as I’ll describe later.

Next, the fiber optic front sight on the 617 and both Ruger automatics presented a less-defined sight picture than the crisp Patridge blades on the Single Six and the 6-shot Smiths. In particular, achieving a consistent alignment of the top of the front sight blade with the top of the rear sight notch seemed more difficult with the fiber optics. I have F/O sights on my competition (action pistol) guns, and I think there’s a tradeoff for speed of sight pickup versus precision.

Lastly, the three double-action revolvers were all fired in single-action mode. For the 617, with its 10-shot cylinder, there was no attempt to cherry-pick the best 6 chambers… 6 rounds were loaded sequentially, starting with whichever empty chamber my fingers found first.

Now the results! Targets were photographed and groups were measured center-to-center using On Target software. Looking at 2 targets per gun, I measured both the overall group size and then the size of the best 5 of 6 shots, as there was typically 1 flyer (some called, some not) per group.

6-shot group / best 5 of 6 shots
Ruger Mark II 1.96” / 1.50”
Ruger 22/45 1.31” / 0.58”
Ruger Single Six 1.50” / 1.16”
S&W 63 1.45” / 0.94”
S&W 17 2.79” / 1.67”
S&W 617 1.03” / 0.92”

These results had some surprises. The top shooters were the 617 revolver and the 22/45, both of which had good triggers, and in spite of both having fiber optic front sights. Biggest disappointment was the Model 17! This had a last-place showing in both overall group size and best 5 out of 6. I’m pretty sure this poor showing was related to my inability to get a good grip on the gun, and the possible hard contact between the butt of the grip and the sandbag, as noted above. As evidence, the group size is biased by the large vertical dispersion of my shots, which is nearly triple that of the horizontal. I think the 17 deserves another chance for the shooter to improve his grip! (Spoiler alert… stay tuned.)

The ”ringer” of the day was the J-frame Model 63, the 22/32 Kit Gun as S&W once called it. This gun has a delightful single action trigger and a very useful set of sights. The shortest barrel and sight radius of the 6 guns clearly did not put the gun at a disadvantage! Now if I could just get its double action trigger down under 10 pounds it could really be a fun gun.
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My apologies for going Hemingway on you good folks and turning this into a real scroller. Bottom line is that it was a fun experiment, even if the goal of determining the most accurate of Smitty’s .22 handguns wasn’t achieved. That’s just a challenge for more experimentation, so… watch this space!

That was a fun video. My most accurate .22 is my Ruger MKII Competition.
BTW, those J frame Smiths are nothing to sneeze at.

 

Browning 5.5 Bullseye.

 

Nice write up! I have written this before, but in any type of aimed shooting (that us, not locked down on a Ransom rest) my aiming system matters more than the type or brand of firearm. So a revolver with a red dot, for me, is three times more accurate than any pistol with open sights, absent an obvious defect, like a timing problem. I am talking 1-inch groups vs. 3-inch groups off a rest at 15 yards.

Your shoot-off is a nice test of the pistols in your battery, though. I have a Model 63 that shoots better than it should with its 3-inch barrel. Looks like you have some winners there!

 

Mine is my Ruger Mark IV Target.
It is inherently pretty accurate, but it has a red dot which lets me shoot it better than the others I have.

 

Ditto
My other 22 pistols have open sights. The 617 4" barrel is #2 in accuracy, and its just fantastic.
My Ruger MKIV Target is ridiculously accurate and fast on target with a Burris ff3 and Volquarsten goodies installed.
I guess my 22lr pistols are only limited to my ability to shoot them well. It's a test of my skill I recon, and late 40s eyesight. (Its getting real) Red dots are my new best friend.
I dont have a ransom rest or vice for testing.

 

Old style 22/45, with VQ guts and barrel. I actually have two and shoot the one with a red dot best.

 

It would be my MK IV target followed closely by my Smith 22-a. Both guns like the same flavor of ammo and both have red dot sights so things are fairly equal between the two although I like the grips I have on the Ruger better than the factory grips on the 22-a. Due to my tremors getting worse with time and medication no longer keeping them under complete control I have become a rather poor shot with any handguns and won't bore anyone with my group sizes.

I should get out the High Standard HDM I inherited from my dad and compare it. I haven't shot it since the tremors have become worse..

 

Great write-up, thanks for taking the time and putting forth the effort to document and share your results with us! Have you tested with any of the pistol match ammunition?

My best and worst are both from Ruger...
* SR22
* SP101 (older model)
Can you guess which is which?

My testing is all 10 rounds at 10 yards. Colt Cadet Target and a 22A have come very close to the Ruger. Lapua pistol king is usually the best performer in my testing.

 

Very nice read. I have Ruger Mark I and II, Walther P22, & a Browning Buckmark HB. For me the Browning is the most accurate. My daughter won a Wyoming 4H state championship using a Buckmark.

 

Off of a solid rest……..

 

I have a good number of 22s and a decent number of guns which should be extremely accurate to include a few SW 41s, Freedom Arms 97, and a Volquartsen Black Mamba TF.

I don't compete nor have I put any of these guns on a Ransome rest and frankly I think if I were to do that even some of those guns which I haven't mentioned would be all fairly accurate.

I will say however as far as actual results go based on my limited abilities so far it's my Volquartsen Black Mamba TF where I get my best results. Close behind would be my SW 41 and Freedom Arms 97. The Volquartsen Black Mamba TF is just that it's much easier to shoot more accurately for me. Partly I imagine in the confidence it would do so but in large part the ergonomics and how easy it is to operate.

 

SW-22 Victory. A few minor upgrades from Tandemkross including my favorite, the rear peep sight. Just waiting for the time to install their trigger kit.
Inherently accurate to 25-30 yards, then my skill level rapidly deteriorates below the potential of the pistol.

 

Marvel conversion on my ex-IDPA STI with about a million rounds through it.
Dave

 

My S&W 41 definitely.. beats my Mk4 22/45 and cheap 22 1911 Walter/Colt (by a long shot).

Not a fair competition though honestly…


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

I own 2 , K22 6in and Mk3 Heavy Target . Both will out shoot me . My favorite is the wheel gun . Just because I’m a dinosaur

 

I’d have to go with my M41 but my MKII Competition Target might be right there too. Hmmm…I think I need to go shoot and reassess.

Thanks OP for the informative write-up.

 

-My most accurate gun (that I can make it shoot accurately) is my High Standard Olympic.

When I got it in 1982, it had been shot so much, that the bullet wax and lead had almost completely clogged the two compensating ports.
I had to dig at those two ports for an entire evening to get the gunk out.
The gun must have fired over 10K rounds,, to clog those ports.

Since it is ported, has an aluminum slide, shoots shorts, and is the closest thing that I own to a hair trigger,,,+
it shoots more like a Nintendo pistol playing "Duck Hunt" than being a powder burning gun.
It even has barrel weights, and a W I D E trigger shoe.

This is my most accurate rimfire pistol.

 

S&W 22A 5.5”, followed by a Victory. I have all 3 barrel lengths in the 22A, and two of the Victory, one threaded. They outshoot my 3 Rugers and my Sig P322 every time. My KelTec P17 is better than those as well. The Wrangler and Rough Riders are just fun, not that accurate.

The first 10 shots through the gun, 10 yards, standing unsupported.

 

In order for me, my SW M41, SW Victorys, my Ruger MkI and Mk II...not a huge spread among them.

 

My nod to (my) most accurate .22 pistols would list as follows.
Optics: a pair of Browning Varminters (as now, both wear glass)
Factory Irons: Ruger MkIII Target, followed closely by Smith 617 and another Browning with a TS barrel swap.
Their honorable mentioned room mates: Smith 22A, Smith 317, Walther P-22 and PPKS, Ruger LCP and Phoenix HP.

 

I've owned and shot most of the pistols shown here and they really are great. If we expand the discussion to specialty pistols, though, my two most accurate pistols are a couple of my old 22 LR silhouette rigs from back in the day, but I still shoot them and enjoy them. Rarely shoot them inside 50 yards, though, but still mostly offhand. Inside 50, I shoot my conventional revolvers and pistols.

Anschutz Exemplar 22 LR


TC Contender with 22 LR Match barrel (and 44 mag barrel)

 

I've owned and shot most of the pistols shown here and they really are great. If we expand the discussion to specialty pistols, though, my two most accurate pistols are a couple of my old 22 LR silhouette rigs from back in the day, but I still shoot them and enjoy them. Rarely shoot them inside 50 yards, though, but still mostly offhand. Inside 50, I shoot my conventional revolvers and pistols.

Anschutz Exemplar 22 LR


TC Contender with 22 LR Match barrel (and 44 mag barrel)

I have shot a few Contenders, over the years. But on the "Specialty" Pistol expansion. I have a "discontinued" Savage Striker, right hand grip-left hand bolt-right hand eject. In 22-250 that wears a 2.5-8 Weaver. that will hold them all inside an inch @200.

 

We have a number that shoot very well, contenders, the High Standards are really accurate for a target pistol but if I was forced to make a choice; it would be the Freedom Arms silhouette pistol or the free pistol.

 

We have a number that shoot very well, contenders, the High Standards are really accurate for a target pistol but if I was forced to make a choice; it would be the Freedom Arms silhouette pistol or the free pistol.

That's what I was hoping to see while reading this thread!

 

My Freedom Arms 252, so heavy you needed a wheeled carrier to tote it. Off bags with good ammo, 5 shots under .5” @ 50 yards were pretty easy. It gave me tendonitis so I had to sell it. A Model 97 is about as accurate with match chambers.

 

I was just curious if anyone owns one of these and would it make the list https://www.taurususa.com/pistols/t...x-tm-22-competition-scr-hard-anodized-black-22-lr-black-polymer-frame-16-rounds

 

Your most accurate 22 pistol – UPDATE!
Following up on my previous post about determining which of my .22 handguns was the most accurate.

A couple of things troubled me after that test. First, and sort of the elephant in the room, is that there was no effort to sort through scores of .22 LR loads to see which each individual gun shot the best. With 15 or more varieties of .22 LR on hand here, finding each gun’s happy load was not within the scope of this test. This was more about fun than hard science!

Next, there were two guns that I felt fared poorly in the evaluation due to easily remedied issues. First was the Ruger Single Six, which I know from routinely handling the gun simply puts the bullet where you point it. Granted, target shooting is not its raison d'etre, but I struggled with achieving a good grip on the gun as well as its trigger pull. The trigger was crisp and free of creep, but it was just too heavy. Wolff Gun Springs to the rescue – lighter trigger and hammer springs were an easy and inexpensive cure. Thirty minutes of bench work resulted in a delightful single action trigger of about 2.5 pounds.

The other problem was with the classic S&W Model 17 – the standard Magna grips were just too small for my medium-sized hands. Even though all the guns were fired in single-action mode, achieving a solid, two-handed grip was literally out of my grasp. Fortune smiled upon me and I found a set of K-frame target grips from a woodworking shop back east which were modestly priced on eBay. These were just what I needed and as the before and after photos show, they don’t detract from the looks of the gun at all.

OK, with small improvements having been made, I revisited the experiment. All the boundary conditions remained the same – same range, same targets, same Wolf Match Extra ammo; the only thing different was the ambient temperature was in the mid-90s to compared to 60F for the original experiment. Test protocol remained the same as well, starting with clean chambers and bore, firing 6 “conditioning” rounds followed by 6 rounds twice for score. I measured the 6-shot group sizes as well as the size of the best 5 out of 6 shots to allow for the inevitable flyer due to human error.

Here are the results, re-shoots in bold:
6-shot group best 5 of 6 shots
Ruger Single Six original 1.50” 1.16”
Re-shoot 1.08” 1.02”
S&W 17 original 2.79” 1.67”
Re-shoot 1.20’ 1.01”

The pleasant surprise of the day was that the Single Six moved into second place, based on overall group size, up from its previous fourth place. I still struggled a bit with its plow-handle grip, but the much lighter trigger pull made it easier to drop the hammer once the sights were aligned. Comparing the original group with the re-shoot shows a similar pattern but overall just tighter.

The re-shoot confirmed my belief that the Model 17 had been unfairly penalized by the mismatch of its OEM grips with my hands. Original and re-shoot target photos tell the tale. The original target shows a lot of vertical dispersion of my shots, which was reduced by over an inch with the larger grips! This moved the Model 17 out of its miscast last-place showing into a solid third place, behind the heavy L-frame S&W 617 and the improved Single Six. Yay – revolvers rule!

Here's the Model 17 with its original Magna grips and its new, larger target grips.

This is the Single Six re-shoot target, with the original inset for comparison:

And the Model 17 re-shoot. Note the dramatic reduction in the vertical stringing – the new group shows a much more normal pattern. I also suspect a more talented shooter could reduce that group size a lot more!

Although it would probably be too ambitious, I still think it would be fun to find an “optimum” ammo for each gun, at least from “popularly priced” choices, leaving out the pricey Lapua and Eley stuff running over 40 cents a round. Nonetheless, the current exercise proved to me that relatively simple changes can improve a gun’s performance and thus make the shooting experience much more satisfying.
So the question remains – what’s YOUR most accurate .22 pistol?

 

My Browning Buck Mark for semi auto and believe it or not my 6.5 inch barrel adjustable sight Heritage Rough Rider. I am not a marksman, but using a rest and open sights--both shoot holes the size of a quarter at 25 yards and both put holes in 2 inch circle at 50 yards. With a good shooter, I would imagine those groups to get smaller.