So I went into Gander Mountain last weekend, looking for jackets, when I made the mistake of checking out the firearms section. Now, I've been wanting a black rifle for a while, never expected to just walk in and fall in love...
I picked up an M&P 15-22 Smith&Wesson.
.22LR
I wanted a flat top receiver with full length rail, it's got that.
I wanted something fun and cheap to shoot, it exceeds doing that.
I also wanted something with the ability to modify somewhat, and no, that does not mean lasers and crazy tacticool stuff, basically just rails to mount holosights and bi-pods to, so again I'm covered.
It's got a heavy barrel for a rimfire, I went out to test it the other morning, and after going through 250rnds in roughly 30 minutes, the barrel was warm, but not hot. I had one feed failure, but that was my fault, my finger stopped the follower from pushing the next round up all the way, so the bolt missed it. Being a little more mindful of where my hand is on the magazine/magwell, it didn't happen again.
The sights were extremely easy to adjust, and took only a small increase in elevation to get them in the right spot. The same went for the holosight I mounted on top of it. Safe to say the cans never stood a chance, it's excellent fun, walking and plinking away at them, the rifle being so light, and recoil nonexistent, it was almost effortless.
All the functionality of a full caliber AR is still present in it, from feild stripping, to the bolt release, it's the same animal, just simplified as it's a blowback rifle. It slings brass further than and AK though, it was tossing them 10 feet or more at times.
Anyhow, it's not much more than a toy, but a really fun one, and so much less painful (on the wallet) to shoot than my big bore centerfire auto-loaders. I'm really looking forward to the next time I can get back out with it.
My #1 pick would be SCAR, but I could never afford to spend that kind of money on an assault rifle.
