Met up with Reader Jim and his lovely wife at the range yesterday at the Real New Year’s Day Shoot, and learned something — or rather, re-discovered something.
You see, Jim’s wife had only recently started shooting, and her handgun was a compact HK 9mm with a green-dot sight. It was shooting rather low for her, and at first I put it down to her flinch (which was quite severe; clearly, even the mild recoil of the 9mm out of the diminutive HK was a little much for her). I should note that she is a petite woman, and thus, I thought, the flinch.
But when I popped a few out of the HK, it still held low; so I adjusted the sight upwards for her until it fired into the desired area. That problem was solved, but she was still shooting a little low, and that was definitely the flinch.
So I invited her to shoot a few rounds out of my Buckmark:
…and the results were immediate, and very gratifying: once she’d got used to the trigger, she was putting all ten rounds into a 3″ group, not once, but several times, with absolutely no flinch. (Yup, it’s strange how much fun shooting a .22 pistol can be, huh?)
I therefore made a mild suggestion to Reader Jim that he purchase her a Buckmark to play with, and once I let go his arm and he stopped screaming with pain, he agreed that this would be A Good Thing. (Okay, I’m lying; he agreed immediately, with absolutely no hesitation, and a big grin on his face.)
Here’s a lesson to everyone: if you’re going to teach someone to shoot handguns, let their first shots be out of a .22 pistol — Browning Buckmark, Ruger Mk IV, whatever — because shooting should be first and foremost a lot of fun, and you’re not going to pick up bad habits (e.g. a flinch) when shooting the .22 LR cartridge.
“So which one would you recommend, Kim?”
It’s all personal, of course. But I’d recommend the Browning Buckmark — to be specific, this one, the Standard:
…but if Madame prefers something still lighter, there’s the Camper with its alloy barrel-sleeve:
I would stay away from the Micro, because even though it weighs next to nothing, it’s really difficult to shoot accurately at any distance past 20 feet with that lil’ shorty barrel:
Of course, you can go pretty, like with the Medallion:
…and for those of the red-dot persuasion there are these options (among many):
(For what it’s worth, this last — the Medallion Rosewood — is the one I’m lusting after, but as we speak it runs well over $800 including the scope, so I have to decide which gun I want to sell/trade to get it. Also, it’s quite heavy — speaking for women in general — but the longer, heavier barrel makes for astounding accuracy.)
“So what about Ruger?”
There’s nothing wrong with the Ruger, specifically the Mark IV. Here’s the Standard:
…the Target:
…and for those who would prefer less rake on the grip, the 22/45:
…which has an advantage in that it comes in a variety of girly-type colors:
And just so we are all on the same page, so to speak, I prefer the MkIV over all other Ruger .22 pistols because for the first time evvah it’s possible to field-strip and clean a Ruger .22 pistol without needing a third hand. (In fact, the MkIV is easier to clean than the Buckmark, for that matter.)
And I know, cleaning the guns is typically the job of hubby / boyfriend, so this is not a little thing. (If the woman in your life insists on cleaning her own gun, by the way, hold onto her with hoops of steel because she’s the rarest of all breeds.)
The only reason I still prefer the Buckmark over the Ruger in general is that the Buckmark’s trigger is miles better than the Ruger’s, in fact it’s better than just about any pistol ever made, including the 1911.
And of course there are jillions of other .22 pistols extant, so be my guest. But unless Milady wants to go all historical / nostalgic with a Colt Woodsman:
…I’d stick to the above two brands.
Oh, and single-action is better than double, because the squeeze is easier for a first-time shooter.
All comments, of course, are welcome.
One final thought: I’ve personally owned just about every variant of Buckmark and Ruger before, and fired a huge number of other .22 pistols (Walther, SIG, S&W etc.), and that’s why I pick the above two over all of them. I will confess, however, to having no experience with the S&W SW22 Victory model, but I will happily hear stories thereof.
