Browning Buckmark .22
This is the 2nd Browning Buckmark I've owned.
I bought my first one back in the early 1990's, and just didn't care for the slide. I felt I could never get a grip on it. I sold it and spent the next several years trying to find the "right" .22 plinker.
I was really happy with my S&W 22A, right up until I bought my first suppressor. It seems that at some point S&W had discontinued the 22A, and nobody was making threaded barrels for them.
Oh, sure, I could have had someone do some machining, but then again, I could also use this as an excuse to see what had changed in the .22 world over the last ten years or so.
In the end, I ended up using this as an excuse to go pop more coin on yet another new firearm. Black rifle disease isn't limited to black rifles.
So I set off for Stinky Sue's Gun, Oat, and Whiskey Emporium, and promptly laid eyes on this beautiful Buckmark. I remembered my previous love/hate relationship, and, like that high school girl who was so sweet, but had braces, acne, and a flat chest, who wonderfully blossoms into the vivacious woman no man can keep his eyes off of at the reunion, the Buckmark of old had ugly-ducklinged into a beautiful swan woman gun hybrid thingie. Though unlike that girl in high school, the Buckmark had always good looking, with its fine lines, and nifty gold trigger, but now it had grown a picitiney rail on top, and most importantly, protruding finger nubs on the slide, with which I could actually rack the action with in the dreaded Pacific Northwest weather!
The good folks at Tactical Solutions must have seen me coming, because they already had a whole series of aftermarket barrels just itching for my purchase, including a nice aluminum one with deep barrel fluting, which I always think looks so bitchin'. While being aluminum makes it very easy on the hiking/carrying deal, I actually wish the barrel had just a little more "heft" or weight, for accuracy. I find I have to work harder just to keep it on target because it is so light. Darn flutes. Be careful what you ask for.
Recently I added an el-cheapo Monstrum holographic red dot, which I think was around $30 clams. I bought it more for "proof of concept", on reflex-style sights, than to be functional, but so far, it has performed flawlessly, retaining zero at point of aim every time I take it out. So, for $30 or so, hey, why not?
Shown above, it is mated to my NFA registered SilencerCo Sparrow suppressor, a match made in heaven...or...Utah in this case.
All in all this has proven to be a very nice plinker. It goes to show that there is always room for improvement, and a good design can sometimes become a great design with just the smallest amount of tweaking.