.22lr target pistol options

tommyboy26

I have been shooting my gsg 1911 for a while now and in a few comps and while it is accurate and well made i feel i might need to upgrade to a more target orentated pistol. so what are my options??? i would like a feinwerbau or pardini or something similer but the price of these are fairly high so i would need to find a secondhand one. Would a hammerli be a good choice.

The pistol will be used in gallery style comps which are never shot further than 25m.

all advice would be greatly appricated

tb26

2011

tommyboy26 wrote: »

I have been shooting my gsg 1911 for a while now and in a few comps and while it is accurate and well made i feel i might need to upgrade to a more target orentated pistol. so what are my options??? i would like a feinwerbau or pardini or something similer but the price of these are fairly high so i would need to find a secondhand one. Would a hammerli be a good choice.

The pistol will be used in gallery style comps which are never shot further than 25m.

all advice would be greatly appricated

tb26

I had a few shots out of one of these recently. I can see why you want to change it, the trigger is very disappointing. The sights are a disaster too, but at least they are both dovetailed so they can be changed.

My choice would be a Hammerli Xesse.
Reliable, great trigger, accurate and fantastic fully adjustable sights.
Does what it says on the tin straight out of the box.

Due to the look of the GSG some may argue that it should require a restricted license, where as the Hammerli Xesse definitely falls into the unrestricted license category.

50cal

2011 wrote: »

tommyboy26 wrote: »

I have been shooting my gsg 1911 for a while now and in a few comps and while it is accurate and well made i feel i might need to upgrade to a more target orentated pistol. so what are my options??? i would like a feinwerbau or pardini or something similer but the price of these are fairly high so i would need to find a secondhand one. Would a hammerli be a good choice.

The pistol will be used in gallery style comps which are never shot further than 25m.

all advice would be greatly appricated

tb26

I had a few shots out of one of these recently. I can see why you want to change it, the trigger is very disappointing. The sights are a disaster too, but at least they are both dovetailed so they can be changed.

My choice would be a Hammerli Xesse.
Reliable, great trigger, accurate and fantastic fully adjustable sights.
Does what it says on the tin straight out of the box.

Due to the look of the GSG some may argue that it should require a restricted license, where as the Hammerli Xesse definitely falls into the unrestricted license category.

+1 on the GSG.
If you are serious look at the Hammerli and similiar. The GSG looks the part but it won't win any comps.

Mike87

Im not sure what your budget is, but I fired one of these recently enough and all I can say is I would have one right now if my super would licence pistols.

2011

The OP Stated that he felt the "need to upgrade to a more target orentated pistol."

The Hammerli Xesse is an .22 excellent target pistol and has the benefit it may be more palatable to certain superintendents.

dax121

If you didnt want to spend huge money on something like a walter or pardini etc you should consider a s&w model 41. i bought one from almo gun supplies for €1400 a few months ago. as far as i know he had a few in stock in germany it want give the best of them a run for its money without the huge price tag.
also the 22a is a great gun at half the price of the m41

tommyboy26

After the hassle i had getting the gsg imported i would like to try get something that is already in the country and as im getting married next year i need to get something that will be far superior to the gsg (although the gsg is a great gun for plinking and comp shooting) but not break the bank. so secondhand it might need to be.

a few questions i have.

what barrell lenght would you recommend?
what about an x-esse?

also i would like something i can get a moulded hand grip for like the pardini/walther style has.

TB26

Cass

The debate about restricted/unrestricted status of certain pistols has been moved into it's own thread on the target forum.

Thread can be found here.

All debate on the matter can go there, and any suggestions for pistols can be posted here.

BattleCorp

Mike87 wrote: »

Im not sure what your budget is, but I fired one of these recently enough and all I can say is I would have one right now if my super would licence pistols.

These are great guns to shoot but unless you are doing Olympic style shooting, they can be a bit impractical for some competitions. I was watching guys shooting with them and the magazine position is awkward. Some guys were taking 5 or 6 seconds to change magazines. If you get a dud round or anything like that, it's very difficult to pop out the mag and insert a new mag before your time is up.

My second point is that it is illegal for your Super to ban all pistols. He doesn't have the power to do that. A blanket ban on unrestricted pistols is illegal. He's acting above his powers. What the Super can do is give you a set of conditions he wants followed to secure your firearm, but he can't just ban them in case they get stolen.

If you don't want to break the bank dropping a couple of grand on a SSP, Pardini or a Feinwerkbau, a Smith & Wesson 22A with a 7 inch barrel is good enough to win plenty of competitions with. You can pimp it up with wooden grips etc and it'll do pretty much just as good a job as the more expensive guns. At 10m to 25m, it's more the shooter than the gun.

The X-Esse with the longer barrel is a cracking gun too.

ianoo

i was in harbour house last week at an open day and got to try several handguns ,by far the most accurate was the hammerelli x-esse found it a little bit on the small size do for my hands ,love the look and feel of the sig and the 1911 they had do :cool:

someday maybe ....


ian

tommyboy26

I found a beautiful secondhand hammerli x-esse sport. with the olmypic grips...its in atlantic shooting and fishing in carlow the only problem is its 850:eek:

Sparks

That's a daft price. Five years ago, €550-€600 was the price range for that pistol. I'd keep shopping...

(I mean, they're only supposed to be about €800 new...)

tommyboy26

Sparks wrote: »

That's a daft price. Five years ago, €550-€600 was the price range for that pistol. I'd keep shopping...

(I mean, they're only supposed to be about €800 new...)

I know there on www.triebel.de brand new for 740!! Plus about 100 shipping/export that still works out cheaper than what atlantic were looking for

tommyboy26

Would a beretta 87T be a good target pistol?

Witcher

tommyboy26 wrote: »

Would a beretta 87T be a good target pistol?

I know 3 people with them and have fired them and they're good guns, I wouldn't have any complaint against them really, they should win you competitions as easily as any other pistol of the price range.

rowa

tommyboy26 wrote: »

Would a beretta 87T be a good target pistol?

Very small grip though , handle one before you buy.

dax121

rowa wrote: »

Very small grip though , handle one before you buy.

+1 on that their horribly small but i think you buy mags with extensions on them to make them better. also great trigger
my option is still a s&w 22a with a 7" barrel is a sweet shooter and will prob be more accurate than you or i will ever be able to shoot it.

Sparks

dax121 wrote: »

+1 on that their horribly small but i think you buy mags with extensions on them to make them better.

I will never understand why anyone would buy a firearm that needs aftermarket parts to shoot properly. I can understand needing to tweak grips on pistols and setup on rifles, I can even understand getting aftermarket parts in an attempt to make a firearm shoot better, but if you can't pick it up out of the box and have it shoot well enough to meet your needs, just don't buy the thing in the first place, buy something better. Buy cheap, buy twice...

my option is still a s&w 22a with a 7" barrel is a sweet shooter and will prob be more accurate than you or i will ever be able to shoot it.

That's a bit defeatist
C'mon lad, it's not magic, it's sport. Train harder
(If the S&W 22a was all you ever needed, Pardini, Morini, Hammerli, Matchguns and all the others would be out of business by now!)

BattleCorp

Sparks wrote: »

I will never understand why anyone would buy a firearm that needs aftermarket parts to shoot properly. I can understand needing to tweak grips on pistols and setup on rifles, I can even understand getting aftermarket parts in an attempt to make a firearm shoot better, but if you can't pick it up out of the box and have it shoot well enough to meet your needs, just don't buy the thing in the first place, buy something better. Buy cheap, buy twice...

There's hardly a world class shooter out there shooting with a "straight out of the box" rifle or pistol. I'd bet my right nut that you have changed or added parts to some of the rifles that you have had in the past in order to get them to shoot better.

I know what you are saying, buy the best if you are in a position to do so. That makes sense, but not everybody is in a position to buy a Pardini or a Walter SSP. Unless you are taking part in Olympic style events, the really expensive guns won't make a significant difference. My cheap little S&W 22A (with after-market wooden grips) often beats Pardini's and SSP's in club competitions. If it was benchrest pistol or something like that, then yes, the Pardini will win every time, but for T&P, Multi-Target and GP40, it's not worth spending a few thou on a gun when a cheaper gun will do pretty much as good a job.

Just my two cents.

IrishTarget

How about a ruger 22/45 LITE or 22/45 target. Nice pistol that can be done up as required.

Sparks

BattleCorp wrote: »

There's hardly a world class shooter out there shooting with a "straight out of the box" rifle or pistol. I'd bet my right nut that you have changed or added parts to some of the rifles that you have had in the past in order to get them to shoot better.

After a *very* long time of experimenting and documenting results, yes. But that's not picking up the rifle out of the box and saying "well, I'll obviously need to replace this bit right away". If you can say that, don't buy the rifle. Mine was able to win a medal right out of the box (Katarina Emmons did it with her 2002CA in Athens; she's just a better shot than I am )

I know what you are saying, buy the best if you are in a position to do so.

What I'm actually saying is that if you want to compete, you need kit that's good enough for what you want to compete in.

Example: If you want to shoot air pistol in the NTSA Nationals, an IZH-46M is good enough (and it costs 300 to 400 euro today or thereabouts). Highest score in AP60 with that pistol historically has been about 578; highest score in the NTSA Nationals is somewhere around 540-550. But go international, and you'll find that 578 - the absolute best ever recorded with that pistol - is not enough to get into the top 20 in a World Cup, let alone a larger match. You need a better pistol for that level and you're going to have to shell out the 1200-1600 they cost; it's not just a case of being able to buy any old firearm and then compensating for the firearm with more training. There are those who'll tell you that you can do that - that you can buy a cheap-ass pistol and outshoot someone with fancier kit - but they're talking through their hat, to put it politely (unless the person you're outshooting just doesn't train *at all* with that fancy kit, in which case, the kit's not the issue anyway ).

Now if your plan is to compete internationally and you want to start off on an entry level firearm for the beginning, well, that's a valid way to do it; but it sounds that the OP has done the entry level stuff and wants to move up. And personally, I think that when you're buying a new firearm because the old one isn't good enough anymore, and you know the kind of standard you'll need from your kit at the level you're aiming at, well you might as well save time and just get the kit you will eventually need. When I bought my 2002, I wasn't anywhere near the level where I'd need it; but I knew I'd get there and I knew I wasn't going to quit, so I got a credit union loan and just bought the thing. Never regretted it.

tl;dr - The OP wants to compete. The OP ought to get a firearm that's good enough that he knows any problem in his shooting that he sees is caused by himself and is therefore something that's fixable with more, better training. Anything else is just not competing (and there's nothing wrong with not competing either; but know what you want to do and do it, y'know?)

tommyboy26

Sparks wrote: »

After a *very* long time of experimenting and documenting results, yes. But that's not picking up the rifle out of the box and saying "well, I'll obviously need to replace this bit right away". If you can say that, don't buy the rifle...

I like alot of .22 gallery shooters bought a ruger 10/22 knowing i would have to put in an auto bolt release and do something with the trigger cause if you dont the rifle is terrible to shoot but they are a fantastic rifle for gallery

What I'm actually saying is that if you want to compete, you need kit that's good enough for what you want to compete in.

totally agree with you on this

.....but it sounds that the OP has done the entry level stuff and wants to move up. And personally, I think that when you're buying a new firearm because the old one isn't good enough anymore, and you know the kind of standard you'll need from your kit at the level you're aiming at, well you might as well save time and just get the kit you will eventually need....

This is what i did i started with an entry level pistol a sig mosquito and itsit served a purpose to teach me the basics and to see if i liked pistol shooting. then i upgraded to the gsg and im really enjoying competing with it

tl;dr - The OP wants to compete. The OP ought to get a firearm that's good enough that he knows any problem in his shooting that he sees is caused by himself and is therefore something that's fixable with more, better training. Anything else is just not competing (and there's nothing wrong with not competing either; but know what you want to do and do it, y'know?)

at the moment i am a b class shooter which is the lowest class but i will get better the more i practice so my thinking is why should i wait to upgrade to a better gun why not just get it now and then when i shoot in a comp i dont have to worry about my kit i can just concentrate on my shooting and as you said any mistake i make is my own fault and not the guns....

Dr_Teeth

If you're shooting gallery pistol competitions I would not recommend one the uber ISSF-style pistols. They're amazing shooters but the ergonomics and design aren't suited to courses of fire. For example:

Draw from holster, chamber a round, shoot 5 rounds, reload, shoot 5 rounds - all in 20 seconds @ 15 meters.

I wouldn't want to do that with an SSP. You'd have difficulty getting a decent competition holster and and mag holders for the gun.

Go for a "service"-style .22 with a light single action trigger. The Sigs are good but very expensive. The S&W 22A is good but I've never liked the stock grips and it can't be dry-fired. It's also difficult to find a decent holster for it. I haven't shot the Hammerli but some of the guys like them. The Browning Buckmarks are good also.

I'm using a Ruger 22/45 Target at the moment and I like it a lot, as soon as my Volquartsen trigger kit arrives it will be perfect. As it has a 1911-style frame I was able to buy a good dropped and offset kydex holster for it.

Here's my set-up at the moment..

Pistol (P512MKIIIRP):

http://ruger.com/products/2245Target/models.html

Trigger kit:

https://www.volquartsen.com/products/281-accurizing-kit-for-ruger-mkii-mkiii

Mark II-style bushing:

http://bushing.webs.com/

Holster (for Ruger 22/45 6"):

http://blade-tech.com/Dropped-Offset-Holster-w-Tek-Lok-pr-1167.html

Mag-holder x3 (for Ruger 22/45):

http://blade-tech.com/Single-Magazine-Pouch-w-Tek-Lok-pr-834.html

Belt:

http://www.doublealpha.biz/ipsc-holsters-rigs/belts/double-alpha-competition-belt

dCorbus

+1 on the S&W Model41 (Shop around: You may get lucky! I did! )

+27 on handling the various models before you buy. That way the gun should sit nicely in your paw. No point in getting a gun that doesn't fit you. I was initially looking at a Beretta 87T or a S&W22A - but the grips felt all wrong. I wasn't initially interested at all in the Browning Buckmark - but as it turned out that pistol fitted my hand very well: so that's what I had planned to get. As it turned out in the end, a Model41 came along at a price-I-couldn't-refuse (Thanks, Intershoot ) so I went with that (but not before trying the pistol for size and fit, before making my decision).

packas

rowa wrote: »

tommyboy26 wrote: »

Would a beretta 87T be a good target pistol?

Very small grip though , handle one before you buy.

Egomomically the x esse is far superior than the Beretta 87.

grasncov

tommyboy26 wrote: »

After the hassle i had getting the gsg imported i would like to try get something that is already in the country and as im getting married next year i need to get something that will be far superior to the gsg (although the gsg is a great gun for plinking and comp shooting) but not break the bank. so secondhand it might need to be.

a few questions i have.

what barrell lenght would you recommend?
what about an x-esse?

also i would like something i can get a moulded hand grip for like the pardini/walther style has.

TB26

Tommy,
I have a solution for your problem. Don't get married buy a really expensive pistol that you like, go shooting every week, and see you in the Olympics in 4 years, and live happy ever after, oh and did I mention don't get married and live happy ever after ðŸ˜႒

Happy hunting

Sparks

grasncov wrote: »

Tommy,
I have a solution for your problem. Don't get married buy a really expensive pistol that you like, go shooting every week, and see you in the Olympics in 4 years, and live happy ever after, oh and did I mention don't get married and live happy ever after

Hmmmm. I don't think you have to give up any of that. In chronological order:









...so I think you're being unnecessarily pessimistic there grasncov

grasncov

Sparks wrote: »

grasncov wrote: »

Tommy,
I have a solution for your problem. Don't get married buy a really expensive pistol that you like, go shooting every week, and see you in the Olympics in 4 years, and live happy ever after, oh and did I mention don't get married and live happy ever after

Hmmmm. I don't think you have to give up any of that. In chronological order:









...so I think you're being unnecessarily pessimistic there grasncov

Well you look like your very happy and have a great family, congratulations. I too am married have 3 kids take part in competitions and have 3 fire arms which have taken me a few years to make my own. As I know tommy and his future wife he knows i ment everything in a sarcastic way. Oh and tommy, don't forget the barrel tomorrow :-)

Sparks

grasncov wrote: »

Well you look like your very happy and have a great family, congratulations.

It's been a good year or two allright

I too am married have 3 kids take part in competitions and have 3 fire arms which have taken me a few years to make my own. As I know tommy and his future wife he knows i ment everything in a sarcastic way. Oh and tommy, don't forget the barrel tomorrow :-)

Ah, context

grasncov

Is that ray keane in that picture with you?

Sparks

grasncov wrote: »

Is that ray kane in that picture with you?

Yup. That was Intershoot in February.