[tace]

Reliability, accuracy and safety wise. I shot one a few times but I would like to know if its light and reliable enough to pocket carry. Also, how picky is it? With different kind of ammos. Anyone have a pocket holster for one?

I am considering the P22 for my wife to get comfortable with guns and to carry along when I am not really carrying.

Thx

 

[ThetaReactor]

My dad's got one. While I have heard stories about them being picky regarding ammo, this thing eats anything. Mostly Federal bulk packs. It's got that stupid slide-mounted safety that the Europeans seem to like, but it keeps the firing pin outta the way. Accuracy seems to be excellent, and it's extremely easy to shoot. Magazines can be a bit tricky to load, as they've got this quasi-doublestack thing at the top, and require the usual tap on the back to get everything seated right.

As a defensive weapon, I suppose it would excel in everything but its specified ammo. It's almost identical in size to my PF-9, which obviously kills it in bang-per-ounce.

[But yeah, perfect starter pistol. I took a friend from work shooting a couple weeks ago, and the P22 was his favorite. He's about 5'6", maybe 120lbs.]

 

[CoolHand]

I picked up a used one at Christmas for my G/F to shoot. It's a long barreled target model. It's been extremely reliable and very very accurate. I've been squirrel and rabbit hunting with it a lot and plinking. I guess I've put about 300 rds through it and no worries so far.

My only gripe is it's to small for my hands. It fits my girlfriends hands perfectly though.

I really like the Sig Mosquito but I've seen 2 at my local shop with failure to extract issues.

 

[budder]

I love mine. It was very picky with ammo at first, so I stocked up on CCI Stingers. The only problem I have is that the slide will not lock back when empty when using one of the (two) magazines. Very weird. I need to call S&W about that.

 

[AeroShooter]

My wife has one. We bought it as an introductory pistol for her, trainer for me. I concur with everything said so far. It can be picky with regards to ammo, I've had not problems with CCI Stingers or High Velocity. Federal bulk packs seem to work fine. Remington bulk packs are dicey. I've had a number of failures-to-fire and poor cycling.

My biggest gripe with the P22 is the re-assembly. The design of the recoil spring system leaves a lot to be desired.

 

[ev239]

Got one for my wife a couple years ago and she loves it. To address your concerns:

Accuracy - It's surprisingly accurate for the short 3.something" barrel and since it comes with lots of adjustability (front sight, rear sight, grip backs) you can customize it to shoot and fit just right.

Size - For pocket carry, it may be a little big depending on your pocket size. It'll fit easily in a cargo pants pocket and you'd forget you're wearing it in an IWB holster.

Reliability - Ours is picky with ammo. It usually works well with Remington bulk from Wally, but out of the 550 there's usually a handful that give problems. My advise if you wanted to use it for SD and not just plinking would be to load it with Stingers or MiniMags which have always worked.

If you want to read more from "experts" go to rimfirecentral.com where they have a dedicated forum on the P22 along with any tweaks to increase reliability and performance.

Let me suggest another little 22lr that I have and have used for pocket carry. A Bersa Thunder22 or Firestorm 22. They are basically the same gun as the Bersa Thunder 380 except chambered in 22lr. I love mine. It's of similar size to the P22 so it's not any smaller, but with a proper pocket holster it works. My favorite thing over the P22 is that the Bersa breaks down and goes back together so much easier and it also just feels good in my hand.

This is a Firestorm 22. The main differences you'll see are rubber finger grips and a rounded trigger guard otherwise they are exactly the same.

 

[Tinkerhell]

I've got one & for the same reason you are thinking of one - cheap to shoot, great to get the skiddish wife accustomed to guns, relatively small, relatively light, pretty darn accurate. And later on I'm going to put a suppressor on it & see how quiet they get.

It's small for my hands and I have a big problem with the mag release being on the trigger guard. Every time I pick it up to shoot it for the first time I drop the mag on the first couple of shots. Never fails. I really have to watch how I squeeze the trigger to avoid letting the mag slide out. I really dislike the location of that release. For me I would never carry it as a primary SD weapon because of that release. High stress & I KNOW I would be dropping that mag after the first squeeze.

Someone else mentioned the disassembly. That spring is a pain in the arse. I was afraid to field strip my glock becuase I had such a hard time putting the Walther back together. What a sweet pleasure it was to have the glock be so easy to field strip.

I've had no problem with ammo. I mostly have used Remington rounds. For normal plinking I used the standard bulk hollow points. I've also fed it fmj with no problem. I'd suggest CCI "Stinger" 32-gr. or Remington "Yellow Jacket" 33-gr. hollowpoints if you are going to use as a SD carry gun.

It's also a "cool" looking little shooter too. At the end of the day when all else is equal that counts in my book. :wink:

 

[budder]

It's small for my hands and I have a big problem with the mag release being on the trigger guard. Every time I pick it up to shoot it for the first time I drop the mag on the first couple of shots. Never fails. I really have to watch how I squeeze the trigger to avoid letting the mag slide out. I really dislike the location of that release. For me I would never carry it as a primary SD weapon because of that release. High stress & I KNOW I would be dropping that mag after the first squeeze.

What kind of freakish hands do you have? Is your trigger finger forked?

 

[Tinkerhell]

:?:

Have you seen the release on one of these? :?

It is on the bottom of the trigger guard and is molded in as part of the guard. You press down on the release to drop the mag. When you press back on the trigger during firing if your fingers are large &/or long it's VERY easy to brush the mag release at the bottom of the trigger squeeze. If I hold the gun & fire in the most comfortable fashion for my hand I will hit the release just about everytime. I have to maintain a bit of an awkward grip and finger position to not hit the release.

Here is a good close up shot of a p22. you can see the release lever at the bottom of the trigger guard. It should be pretty obvious how this is easy to brush. It's not tight, a slight bump will release the mag.

 

[budder]

I've put about 1000 rounds through mine, so I am slightly familiar A slight bump will not release the mag on my gun, though perhaps yours is differently weighted. Since my middle finger rests just under the release, there's no chance of an accidental depression. Furthermore, I still don't see how your finger reaches, unless you pull with the second joint in your hand. Maybe you just have really long fingers.

 

[commodore_dude]

I bought a P22 as my first gun a couple of months ago, just to get used to shooting/maintaining a handgun. I've got a cheap Hafner IWB holster that I purchased for it, and it is definitely concealable, but I just bought a Glock 26 so I can trust my life to something with a little more kick . It is a pain to try and put it back together, but after I figured out that the little plastic cylinder that came with it was expressly for the purpose of keeping the spring in place during reassembly it got a whole lot easier. Overall, it has a lot of features for a small gun, like the rails (I bought the official laser for it) and the threaded barrel (going to get a suppressor eventually). If you want something that's fun and easy to shoot, and to introduce people to shooting, you can't go wrong with it!

Oh, and I feed it a steady diet of CCI Mini-Mags, gives it a bit more realistic recoil than the bulk Wal-Mart stuff, although after shooting the Glock it feels like a cap gun

 

[Tinkerhell]

I've put about 1000 rounds through mine, so I am slightly familiar A slight bump will not release the mag on my gun, though perhaps yours is differently weighted. Since my middle finger rests just under the release, there's no chance of an accidental depression. Furthermore, I still don't see how your finger reaches, unless you pull with the second joint in your hand. Maybe you just have really long fingers.

I do. my hands are like the rest of me. Long and thin & strong. 8)
I've actually heard of a lot of people that have that problem. I still like this little gun though. I wouldn't trade it for another .22 (at least not that I know of...)

 

[budder]

I've put about 1000 rounds through mine, so I am slightly familiar A slight bump will not release the mag on my gun, though perhaps yours is differently weighted. Since my middle finger rests just under the release, there's no chance of an accidental depression. Furthermore, I still don't see how your finger reaches, unless you pull with the second joint in your hand. Maybe you just have really long fingers.

I do. my hands are like the rest of me. Long and thin & strong. 8)
I've actually heard of a lot of people that have that problem. I still like this little gun though. I wouldn't trade it for another .22 (at least not that I know of...)

I'll trade mine straight up for a FiveseveN. You heard it here first, folks! Absolute steal of a deal!

 

[gsusnake]

I've put about 1000 rounds through mine, so I am slightly familiar A slight bump will not release the mag on my gun, though perhaps yours is differently weighted. Since my middle finger rests just under the release, there's no chance of an accidental depression. Furthermore, I still don't see how your finger reaches, unless you pull with the second joint in your hand. Maybe you just have really long fingers.

I do. my hands are like the rest of me. Long and thin & strong. 8)
I've actually heard of a lot of people that have that problem. I still like this little gun though. I wouldn't trade it for another .22 (at least not that I know of...)

I'll trade mine straight up for a FiveseveN. You heard it here first, folks! Absolute steal of a deal!

Speaking of FiveseveN... why doesn't FN make a compact or subcompact (or pocket gun) in that caliber? It seems like it'd be perfectly suited... small round, high power...

I had this discussion with the guy at the gun store today and he couldn't give me a good answer.

 

[budder]

I've put about 1000 rounds through mine, so I am slightly familiar A slight bump will not release the mag on my gun, though perhaps yours is differently weighted. Since my middle finger rests just under the release, there's no chance of an accidental depression. Furthermore, I still don't see how your finger reaches, unless you pull with the second joint in your hand. Maybe you just have really long fingers.

I do. my hands are like the rest of me. Long and thin & strong. 8)
I've actually heard of a lot of people that have that problem. I still like this little gun though. I wouldn't trade it for another .22 (at least not that I know of...)

I'll trade mine straight up for a FiveseveN. You heard it here first, folks! Absolute steal of a deal!

Speaking of FiveseveN... why doesn't FN make a compact or subcompact (or pocket gun) in that caliber? It seems like it'd be perfectly suited... small round, high power...

I had this discussion with the guy at the gun store today and he couldn't give me a good answer.

You're not the only one. It would be so easy to conceal a 10-15 round version, while still having the 20 round (I think you can also extend them to 30 rounders) mags as reloads.

 

[tace]

I wondered that, too. Then found out the reason is that a short barrel would really negate the whole purpose of the gun. You see for the 5.7 round to be effective it needs to be traveling fast. Any shorter of a barrel than the current 5.7 and it becomes a very ineffective little .22 caliber round.

 

[budder]

I wondered that, too. Then found out the reason is that a short barrel would really negate the whole purpose of the gun. You see for the 5.7 round to be effective it needs to be traveling fast. Any shorter of a barrel than the current 5.7 and it becomes a very ineffective little .22 caliber round.

We're not saying to shorten the barrel, but the capacity. The grip's always been the hardest part of a gun to conceal.

 

[misawa]

I put a mag through one a while back, and I've gotta say it moved up my list of guns to buy. The mag release doesn't bother me b/c that's where it's at on my P99, but I can see how it might bother somebody with bigger mitts than mine.

I'm not so sure about it being a pocket gun, though, at least not when comparing it to other pocket guns like Kel Tec or Berretta's Bobcat.

:2cents:

 

[gsusnake]

I wondered that, too. Then found out the reason is that a short barrel would really negate the whole purpose of the gun. You see for the 5.7 round to be effective it needs to be traveling fast. Any shorter of a barrel than the current 5.7 and it becomes a very ineffective little .22 caliber round.

We're not saying to shorten the barrel, but the capacity. The grip's always been the hardest part of a gun to conceal.

Leave the barrel at length, but make the gun half as thick... single-stack instead of double-stack mag.

You could still get 12 rounds of a pretty potent caliber in something half the thickness of the regular FiveseveN.

 

[budder]

I wondered that, too. Then found out the reason is that a short barrel would really negate the whole purpose of the gun. You see for the 5.7 round to be effective it needs to be traveling fast. Any shorter of a barrel than the current 5.7 and it becomes a very ineffective little .22 caliber round.

We're not saying to shorten the barrel, but the capacity. The grip's always been the hardest part of a gun to conceal.

Leave the barrel at length, but make the gun half as thick... single-stack instead of double-stack mag.

You could still get 12 rounds of a pretty potent caliber in something half the thickness of the regular FiveseveN.

Maybe something like 1.5 stack. I really think the hardest part woul dbe concealing the length of the grip, not the thickness.