Throwing out the Rugers, Smiths & Brownings & (maybe) Colts, what would be some of your fav rimfires?

I'm thinking along the lines of older models like Berettas, Hammerlis, Walthers, etc. Maybe a Colt Woodsman if you want some tradition?

I've been haunting GB for older rimfire semi's & have gotten reminded of all the older, well-made models that used to grace the pages of Field & Stream and other magazines of our youth or our grandfathers youth.

I love my Walther GSP myself. It has wonderful ergonomics despite it looking extremely odd. Upside down trigger, magazine forward of the trigger, oddly shaped bolt. Yet it shoots perfectly and fits well in my hands.

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However, I admit to lusting something fierce for these two Berettas.

Model 89.
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Model 87BB
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Anyone else enjoy the off-the-main-line rimfires?

Is VQ odd?

It's not technically a Ruger.

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I guess you read the part about "no Smiths"?    

Don't they use Ruger lowers?

Not the Scorpions.

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Yeah, those berettas make my pants tight.

I don’t have any current photos but a while back I bought a few old Harrington &Richardson .22 revolvers.

Why you no like model 41?


I grew up shooting a Beretta 89 Gold Standard and a Hammerli Olympia I'll need to get pics of them one day.
Dad wanted me to go to the Olympics, but being a poor mexican it wasn't in the cards.

I do, I love them. But for the purposes of this particular thread they're not going to be listed along with any of the Smiths (despite my owning several). Capice?





See, that wasn't so hard now, was it?  

I envy you the Hammerli too.

I really want one of the short barrel one of those

I love my Beretta 87BB suppressed. Every time I shoot it I think I should be popping a cap into the back of someone named Vinnie's head.
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That little 87BB I bid on in GB is now over $675!  


ETA: new updated price.  

Such a bitch to find one that is even semi affordable...same with the Walther PP in .22 which is one of my most favorite .22 pistols.  ( along with the 87 )

Here's a brand/model I've never heard of before. Italian made, looks like a gun built by Ferrari or something. Sexy as hell, IMO.

Domino Model 602.

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Another 87BB but this one is a rare long barrel model.

But now is a mere $3299.

I need to start buying lottery tickets..............  

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That looks like a .32 S&W Long WC to me with the larger .32 cocking handle.

Korth is just becoming known on this side of the pond.



S&S Medallion



Hämmerli Jägerschaftspistole


HK4 with the correct .22 l.r. extractor


SIG P210 with .22 conversion


Walther P38 with conversion


Walther .22 l.r. PP


S&W Parker Hale rimfire conversion


And finally, the sleeper. FN 150

Manurhin PP Sport Longue


And in this photo is another sleeper, a Weihrauch Arminius HW9. The HW9 was the top of the line rimfire match revolver that HW was building. These guns have a pretty decent trigger, a comfortable grip and great sights. They are accurate and rugged.

This one did not make the list, FIE15 :).

Ah, could be. I simply googled GSP & stole a pic.  

Love mine though.  

Are all those yours?  

I discovered Korth about 5-6 years ago. I also discovered Janz at the same time, who makes Korth look like K-Mart. They're also twice the cost of a Korth (or more).

That FN 150 is a beautiful gun! What do they sell for these days? $1500? More?

Of course they are mine and I am shooting all of them, despite the ammo crisis. I would not trade a Janz from Malente against the least of my Ratzeburg Korths. The FN 150 Medalist International is a really nice gun. Nice enough that I gave one to each of my kids.

Ho lee chit! Now that's what I call a collection, sir!




Dare I ask why you believe the Korth is better than Janz? I've played with both & the Janz is like a Swiss watch, IMO. No slight against the Korth in any way. Much like a Mercedes & Rolls, IMO.

I REALLY want of those 87bb. Especially suppressed.

The Korth is much better balanced for me. Korth Lollar's parent company is a real factory that mostly makes precision parts for Italian sports cars and Korth has great spare parts support, even for guns made over 50 years ago. Janz is a precision mechanic, who had worked at Korth in Ratzeburg and whose core business is milking machines.

But back to the FN150; those guns are kind of indestructable. Our club gun passed the 100,000 round mark without a single parts breakage and no noticeable loss of accuracy. Guns with the pictured rosewood grips are most desirable and start around $500 going up to 1,200 for a gun with accessories in the rare blue lined Euro case. Mags are $150 to 175, so it is a good idea to buy a gun with two mags.

I have a beautiful boxed Beretta 87 somewhere in my safe but am not impressed by its accuracy. I usually go shooting every Saturday morning and should take it with me and compare it to the HK4 and Walther PP.

My chores brought me in the neighborhood of the gun range and I had taken three pocket pistol sized plinkers along. Biggest problem, now that we are almost a year and a half into the latest ammo crisis was the Federal bulk copper plated ammo that gave me a nice concerto of different reports and a few failures to even drive the slide back. I only put the targets out to 10 yards and stepped a little bit back to avoid the illumination at the range, right over the booth,  to make my front sight appear larger. I first shot it for accuracy and then five yards for single handed left and right hand shooting and a few fast double taps to get a feel for the guns.
My highly unscientific findings are following.

First, Beretta 87.
This is a handsome and well made pistol with a good enough trigger and sights that are apparently geared towards the typical German 25 meter target shooter; it shoots high but is easy to shoot. The gun is easy to control also in rapid fire and is definitely a great gun to have!


Next one is a rimfire Walther PP. I have had a few of them over the years and had one of the first rimfire PPs made in Zella Mehlis according to the curator of the Walther museum. I gave that one to my son who babies it. Well, this one has not been shot a lot and has a kind of harsh trigger. I blame the trigger for the one that got away, down left. I have spent a lot of trigger time with rimfire PPs, so it did well on the rapid fire drills.


Finally, the rare HK4 in .22 l.r. that actually works and has the correct extractor. The gun has laughably small sights! Picking it up and aiming, it is not impressive but that first impression is deceptive and firing that gun will quickly change that first impression. It is really easy to shoot well and has a smooth trigger and very little felt recoil. It looks as if HK engineers got it right with their buffer technology! Rapid fire is a breeze and a ton of fun. The "4" in HK4 stands for four calibres that can be shot by just changing barrels and magazines and flipping the breach plate around to put the firing pin in the proper positioning. HK quickly found out that the shorter centerfire extractor was not working well and had a dedicated rimfire extractor marked .22 l.r.

This little HK is my favorite plinker and "warm up" gun that I use before running the same drills with centerfire guns.

And here I always thought the "4" stood for the $4k it took to buy the whole barrel set?  

It's not really that odd, but my favorite is a High Standard Sport king Military.
I had a Sharpshooter rear sight installed on the slide and found a 5 1/2" bull barrel for it.
The original 6 7/8" barrel was D&Ted for a TC scope mount and a 2x pistol scope mounted.

The thing is surprisingly accurate with either barrel and has a very nice trigger.

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Nice set-up!  

The High Standard The Victor was one of the three top semi auto choices for rimfire Bullseye at its time, together with the Colt MT and S&W 41.

Charter Arms Explorer II (uses AR-7 mags) and IntraTec Scorpion (uses Ruger 10-22 mags) plus an AR-15 .22 upper equipped pistol.

I'm really digging that Explorer II. We had one of those scorpions when I was a kid in CA, but it wouldn't run on the Ramline mags we had

To improve feeding, I've "throated" the bottom lip of the chamber on all three pistols in the photo.

Nice. Need to track one down

Another potential issue with the Scorpion (and maybe the Tec-22 branded versions) is that the magwell was sometimes more loose than desirable which did effect the feeding.  The Sport 22 that I also have has ridges in the magwell that provide a snug fit for magazines.  That said, the  BX mags that Ruger now sells seem to be a tighter fit than older 10/22 pattern mags, even in the Ruger 10/22 rifle that I have.
In any case, the Intratec .22 Scorpion//Tec-22/Sport 22 pistols are generally for sale on Gunbroker.  Last I looked, the ones that sold usually went for about $350-$400.  Extras such as vintage mags, carry case, threaded vs. non-threaded barrel, etc. may effect the price.

MHO, YMMV, etc. Good luck.  Be well.

Ramline/Magnum Research .22 doublestack pistol:

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Dang. Never seen one of those.
How's it shoot?

The one we used to have had a pretty tight magwell. Gotta get one with the threaded barrel for sure, I don't have enough suppressor hosts.

Held one once. Felt like a cheap water pistol, it was so light.

They are pretty light, it's mostly aluminum and plastic; the Magnum Research ones had longer barrels.  They're great little shooters and super accurate, but the mags are also plastic and the lips crack, making them unreliable.  I still have a couple of working ones, and they are great for introducing kids to handguns properly.  It's a shame they don't make them anymore, I'm sure with modern plastics they could be reliable and pretty cheap to make.

Unfortunately, in my experience (and this is probably a YMMV thing) the Intratec .22 Scorpion with a threaded barrel is a rather mediocre silencer host.  The pistol uses what is essentially an AR-7 FCG in a FCG pack.  As such, to prevent runaway due to the hammer out racing the disconnector section of the trigger, the hammer spring section has a rather high spring rate.  This translates into a pistol that generally needs pretty robust ammo (which means ammo that is supersonic) to function.  What little I tried, CCI SV ammo was marginally reliable.  And I've not tried anything else with a silencer installed. My most reliable operation has been with CCI AR Tactical, 40 gr. ammo, which is, of course, supersonic.  That said, I do not discourage one from getting a Scorpion or Tec-22 with a threaded barrel.

And FWIW, the threads on the Intratec pistols are 1/2-20, so one generally needs to get a 1/2-20 to 1/2-28 adapter to use most currently produced .22 silencers.  The good news is 1/2-20 to 1/2-28 adapters are cheap on eBay (and probably other online sites) if one is willing to use an aluminum, not steel adapter; as, apparently, most Airsoft guns with threaded muzzles have 1/2-20 threads.

Disclaimer:  I have no affiliation with or financial interest in any vendor or manufacturer; and I am not a competitive shooter or a blogger who receives any form of compensation for endorsements or favorable public or private comments.  Use of vendor and/or product brand names, if any, is for informational purposes only.

Best of luck.
MHO, YMMV, etc.  Be well.

Yea I need one of those 87’s

With that barrel length, high velocity 22lr should not be supersonic (in my experience). Yes, it should have a little oomph to help cycling though.

A Tec 22 isn't really something I'd consider great or good at anything. It's more of an odd, cool looking piece that reminds me of a different time.

A number of shooters use a (presumably "tight") suppressor to add backpressure to the bolt to improve operational performance.  That same suppressor added pressure adds effective length to the "barrel" which causes the projectile to go faster.

I bought the Scorpion to have a pistol that uses Ruger 10/22 mags.  At the time the Scorpion, as well as being smaller and lighter than a Ruger Charger, was considerably less costly.

Buddy had one of those for awhile. It felt like a toy but worked as it should. He only bought it because he always wanted a DE and this one was the only one he could afford at the time.

This is weird. I read this thread this morning and went to a gun shop later and they had an FN 150 but it had a shorter barrel without the rib. I believer they wanted close to $900 for it.

It's not fancy like some of those already posted but my Bersa Firestorm .22 has been a joy.  Had it about 20 years now, never a malfunction, lot of fun to shoot.  Not as accurate as my Buckmark but the Browning bobbles about every 3 magazines.  The Bersa doesn't do that.  Just wish I had more mags to go with it.

Model 70s beretta - steel frame .22 pistol.