mom has always wanted to shoot. she shot air pistols when she was young and really dug it.

i am thinking a .22. she has a bone disease that's mostly in remission however bones break easily so i would be looking for very light recoil on the wrist just to be safe.(have .22 magna-ported? or is that just ridiculous?)  

my instinct is to go with sig, since i am just delighted with my p226. the trailside models look pretty neat. but i do believe that ruger makes some decent target .22s, and i think the colt woodsman pistols are supposed to be good too. but i guess we wouldn't need (to pay for) sig reliability in a target pistola.

anybody got ideas? money isn't an object, as it would be funded by dad, but no need to spend unnecessarily.

I would go with the following in this order.

Smith M-17 K-22
Smith 617
Smith M-41
Ruger Mark II
Ruger Single-six
Browning BuckMark

from the standpoint of recoil sensivity, for whatever reason, i vote for a SnW .22 revolver.  the older 6 shot models are beautiful little things and can be loaded with .22 shorts.  much like shooting an air pistol.  .22 shorts are pop can accurate out to a hundred yards.  

if an auto loader is desired and money is no object, still sub one grand, seek out a High Standard .22 short International Rapid Fire autoloader.  these were made to fire the four second stage at five silhouettes from a distance of 25 meters.  turning targets, skidders were counted as a miss.  started with the pistol pointed down angle of 45 degrees or more.  can easily be seen that recoil was a factor.  these have not been produced, to my knowledge, for several decades.  however, saw one in Shotgun News last year.  $800 or so. hard to believe that i sold mine in 1969 for $100.  neat little gun, i just preferred my mdl 41 which won the HS for me.  

still would recommend the Smith .22 revolver for your purpose.  beautiful little guns and faithful as all getout.  many are still around.
saw one refinished in Colt blue once, OMG

Glad your getting her out to shoot :)
 I would reccomend 3 guns. Light weight, low recoil, and easy to clean ..The S&W 422 has aluminum alloy frame with 6" stainless steel barrel. Very accurate and fun to shoot.
 The 2nd is the Ruger 22/45 5 ". While a bugger to clean, it is very accurate and polymer frame so it is not as heavy as regular rugers. Further, the controls are similar to other more popular centerfire guns like the 1911's EAA, CZ, Taurus92 etc.
 3rd is the Walther P22. This gun is Small framed for even the smallest hands. coms in a 4 or 5" model and very light recoil. Same design as Walthers popular P99 series pistol only scaled down with smaller grip.
 All three of these guns would make a good choice:)

hey thanks everyone... looking at some S+Ws over at gunbroker, as i never considered an S+W before.

Quoted: hey thanks everyone... looking at some S+Ws over at gunbroker, as i never considered an S+W before.

WARNING, WARNING Will Robinson...

If you do get a K-22 be sure to get two so Mema gets one too!