My wife is petite and very recoil-shy. I saw one of these at my LGS today and thought this might make a good trainer for her w/the possibility of her carrying it later on (no caliber wars, please, I'd rather she carry a .22 than nothing at all). I wonder if you actual SR22 owners believe this might be suitable for what I've outlined. Thx!...
Tomac

I don't own one but the sr22 appears to have a good reputation and your reasoning makes sense to me.

They are great guns. I sold mine but I will replace it for sure. Very reliable, will shoot just about any ammo you put in it. The only ammo that gave me any feeding issues was the American Federal Eagle 40 grain lead nose crap, so avoid that stuff. If using for self/home defense load it up with some Aguilla Super Maximum. Also you can replace the take down lever with this. (see link below) pretty easy to do and well worth it, especially if shooting higher power loads like the Super Maximum. I miss mine, I sold it to a guy who made me a great offer, but it will be replaced.



http://www.twintechtactical.com/Takedown-Lever.html

SR22 great gun
The only negative for me is the safety is backwards

It would be great for training at the range - no recoil at all.  But I think she would need a decent size purse to carry it if she is not using a holster, it is not as compact as a real concealed carry pistols would be.

Its not a safety.  Its a de-cocker for when you are done firing with a still loaded gun.  Then it makes perfect sense.

After break in and identifying a MIM mold fragment on the hammer face and removing it, my SR22P has functioned perfectly.  It is easier to shoot than any DA revolver, recoil free, and hits where the sights are adjusted to.  My 9 year old grand daughter can shoot it just fine.  Any adult should be able to also.

The small back strap option makes it quite comfortable for small hands.  But I with 2XL glove size shoot it just fine with the small grip.

See for some deeper info:

http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_5_4/148288_Beginner_Level_Set_Up_Of_A_New_Pistol.html  (Archived with original photos.  Copy/paste below has no photos.)

Or even easier I guess:  Copy/pasted below, but it deletes the pictures at the URL above.  Note the ammo info.  The SR22P runs on most anything, but does really well with CCI products.

_______________

For the novice shooter with a new pistol, there are a number of things that can be done to increase the ease of use of the new pistol. The steps likewise help insure future satisfaction and avoid problems. While not all inclusive, they would include:

1) Read the manual that comes with the firearm.



2) Strip the pistol, clean it, lubricate it, and re-assemble it. Some manufactures ship pistols dry of any lubricant and really need lubed to run without damage.

3) Discretely number the magazines that go with that pistol. Fingernail polish, electro-pencil numbers, or your own system. The reason is so that you can attribute any firing difficulty to a particular magazine or know it happens with all of them.



4) Take the pistol out and shoot it for function with different ammunitions. This is to break it in functionally and to settle the parts so that they can be zeroed and not wander off as they settle in later.

5) In this process, you can get a rough sighting in. Depending on the type of pistol, if it has an adjustable rear sight, center the rear sight. Then shoot the pistol and move the front sight left or right to adjust windage on the assumption the movement keeps it fairly near the center line of the slide. At the same time, you can adjust the elevation for vertical impact.

5a) In moving either the front or rear sight, how much to move it is always a headache. There are mathematical formulas down to the last 0.001". Easier is to use a 0.7mm mechanical pencil and put a pencil line on each side of the sight on the bottom of the dovetail cut into the slide. As you move the sight left or right, cover one line and expose the other line more. With a full size 4-5" barrel service pistol, one line is about 2" at 15 yards and 3" at 25 yards. With a smaller pistol having a 3-3.5" barrel, one line is about 3" at 15 yards or 5" at 25 yards. The difference is because of the sight radius being much shorter. The same amount of move generates a larger change in the smaller pistol. The line that you move away from is always there so you can move back towards it if you went too far. Degrease the dovetail bottom before marking and the pencil mark lasts a good while.

5b) If the pistol has a fixed front sight, then you can only move the rear for windage.

5c) If the pistol has a dovetailed front sight, or if you have changed the front sight for another style such as the HiViz, in this process is a good time to fix the location of the front sight so that it doesn’t decide to wander off in the future. You will avoid questions like, “Why is my gun shooting a foot to the left all of a sudden.” This is done easily with either or both of a super glue and Locktite. Locktite the screws as with this SR22 HiViz front sight and let super glue seep into all the cracks and crevices between the slide and sight. It will stay put, but yet come loose if needed. The glues work best if the sight and slide were degreased before any shooting.



5d) Please note that this sight information applies directly to the SR22P and may not apply to other pistols. It would depend on the nature of their sights, the sight material construction, and how tight the sights are in their dovetails. The factory front sight in the SR22P is very serviceable, but made of plastic and moves in the dovetail quite easily. The HiViz sight was snug, but easily moved in the dovetail with a brass drift. It needs the set screws tightened and Loctited. Other pistols like the Glocks have a fixed front sight and plastic-steel-night sight steel rear fixed and plastic adjustable sights depending on the model. They should be moved left and right only with a Glock sight tool.

6) The rear sight can be final fine tuned for this click left or that click right as need be. As the pistol is being carefully shot at this stage to set a zero, it might be bench rested or carefully fired offhand as shooting skills allow.

7) As the points of impact of different ammunitions are noted and recorded, along with accuracy, the new shooter will start to get an idea of where this or that ammo might be expected to impact.



8) If forced to use a different ammo than your “standard”, you will have a good idea of where something else will impact and not need to start all over again. This Ruger SR22 put:
-CCI MiniMag 40RN
-Remington 40RN (1964 Golden Bullets)
-Federal 40RN HS
-CCI Blazer 40RN
-American Eagle 40RN
into essentially the same zero at 15 yards. I haven't gotten to try the Velocitor or any standard velocity or hollow points yet. But you get the idea. The Magic Marker colors let you put 10 shot groups on the same target for quick reference and yet tell the shots apart. I still need to lower this rear sight probably one more click. As you shoot, try to get some idea of the amount of adjustment each rear sight click creates. It would be nice if the manufacturers listed the change rate.

9) Other ammo of note:
WW SuperX 36HP: same point of impact: good function
Remington Viper 36TCSB hyper velocity: same location and snappy action function.

9a) I have noticed that the Federal 40RN gives both erratic ignition and recoil impulse from more or less powder. Needing second strikes and rounds firing that do not operate the slide are tell-tales. Both affect accuracy which is poor. The AmEagle 40 RN is not much better, also a Federal product.

9b) The CCI products and especially the RemViper function with alacrity and you can tell they fired. The gun clearly likes snappy ammo.

Great gun. I shoot mine a lot suppressed.

Thx for all the input! Picked up an SR22 for her this morning plus ordered a couple of spare mags along w/a brick of Remington 40gr Thunderbolt. Looking forward to seeing what it can do!
Tomac

Keep an eye on the barrel while running Thunderbolts, they are famous for filling the rifling with lead really fast.

Will do. Couldn't find any of my preferred CCI.
Tomac

Don't use Thunderbolts unless you have no other ammo. I spent four hours scraping lead out of my M&P22 pistol after shooting that junk. Also, at least 20% FTF/FTE. I stick with Federal or CCI, and just keep the Thunderbolts in dry storage now. Here is what happened:

Wife is shooting and I notice she is having a hard time hitting the bullseye, which is weird because she's not a bad shot. I shoot it and it is off by 6". So I thought the new sights needed adjusted. Fire it again and it's still way off. So I figure it is just very "dirty", pack it up and go home. Looked down the barrel at home and see no rifling near the end. Looking closer at the end of the barrel on the outside I can literally see clumps of lead sapping out of it! The lead was so thick I was cutting it off with a knife. After hours with brushes and bore cleaner I finally ended up letting it soak in bore cleaner before I ever got it clean.

Same problem with the one I bought for my wife. She was shooting fine, always withing the 6 inch circle plate we put up for her. All of a sudden she is a good 1ft outside of even the 6" circle with maybe the occasional hit. We go look at the target and there are rectangles in it... keyholing. We we about done anyway so we packed up and went home. Got it home and could barely see the rifling in the barrel. It took me hours to get it out and got pieces of lead 1" long coming out of it. Got a nice scratch in the barreling from tryin to push some of the crap out too. Luckily the gun still fires well since the scratch is minimal.

I would suggest getting a boresnake and running it through it every so often at the range if you only have thunderbolts. If it starts keyholing on us now I'll have to rapid fire 5-10 shots and then run the boresnake through it 2 times and its clean as a whistle.