.22 bolt-actions

Breda wants a .22 caliber rifle, after her shooting experience the other day with one.  Being a woman of good taste, she wants a bolt action rifle, as she’s come to enjoy the aesthetic feeling of manually operating the bolt.

I love bolt action. There is just something so neat about working that thing back and forth and making the cartridge pop out. Is that weird?

No, it’s actually perfectly normal.  For people that “get it”, there is a simple elegance to bolt action rifles that can’t be found in semi-automatic rifles; something (for me anyway) about a bolt action that just feels “correct”.

In terms of actually getting a .22 bolt action rifle, both Marlin and Savage make excellent products for that market; I have a Marlin 25M, my very first gun, a bolt action .22 Magnum rifle and I love it.  You can find a brand spanking new Marlin 980 for less than $300 in most places, and I promise that you’ll get endless hours of enjoyment from it.

Shooting .22 is probably the purest form of “fun” in the shooting sports, and for a lot of us it takes us back to when our parents first taught us how to shoot.

5 Comments

  1. Two thumbs up here for the Savage Accutrigger. My friend got a .223 bolt action from them with that trigger, and it was a joy to shoot. I had considered getting a .22 bolt from them because of that trigger, but ended up going with the Ruger 10/22 since there are so many more accessories for it. If there was a decent rifle range here, I’d probably go get a .22 bolt from Savage as well.

  2. The Savage is a very good rifle, although I prefer my CZ-453 as a conventional bolt action.
    My real preference is my Browning T-Bolt. The T-Bolt is a straight pull back design that was updated and re-introduced for 2006 after a 30 year hiatus. It shoots very well and after a little practice, I can operate the bolt very effectively with my thumb without completely letting go of the grip. When operating the bolt this way I find it very natural to remove my finger from the trigger guard (a good thing) while keeping very good control of the gun.

  3. There’s something very satisfying about shooting a lever action .22 as well. I picked up a nice Henry a short time back, and few things are as fun as shooting it.

  4. If you don’t mind hunting around a little, I’d recommend a Remington 511. Bolt action, 10-round box magazine, light and handy while still being long enough to have a good sight radius. I have a 510, the single-shot version, and I’m very fond of it.

Comments are closed.