Skip to main content

The Best Rimfire Trail Guns on the Market

The Best Rimfire Trail Guns on the Market

 A great trail gun is light, accurate, reliable and, most of all, useful. And though it may chap some shooters when I say this, "useful" really means "rimfire." Some will argue that a trail gun should be chambered in a powerful centerfire cartridge in case it's needed for defense against bears or two-legged predators, and that's a valid point. However, folks who use their trail guns on a frequent basis- back country campers, snake-country hikers and so forth- don't usually need or want a powerful centerfire.

One of the most important functions of a trail gun is a byproduct of everyday use- that of skill building. One of the first handguns I had as a teenager was a Ruger Single Six .22 rimfire, and I carried that six-shooter everywhere and shot it every chance I got. No target of opportunity was safe. The little revolver was simple, robust, accurate and didn't recoil much. Without conscious attempt, I polished my skills to a creditable point.

A friend of mine purchased a Ruger Super Blackhawk in .44 Magnum and had the opposite experience. He carried it as insurance against a wreck with the extremely wild cattle he worked in the breaks of southern Utah's high canyon country. But he rarely shot it and developed such a massive flinch from the few times he did that he had to work long and hard to overcome it.

How to choose the right rimfire trail gun? Pick one for reasonably light weight, excellent accuracy and complete reliability. Light weight is important because if you're going to carry it, and carry it consistently, it should feel comfortable on your hip or in a shoulder holster. A too-heavy handgun will get left home more often than not.

Accuracy, however, must not suffer at the expense of weight. When it comes to bouncing a tin can at 25 yards or head-shooting a rattlesnake that's somewhere it's not supposed to be, accuracy is paramount to weight.

Thankfully, there are plenty of good medium- to light-weight .22 rimfire handguns available. Tiny poppers such as Walther's P22 don't make good trail guns simply because they don't offer sufficient accuracy, but most of the full-size models such as Ruger's Mk III (especially the 22/45 Lite covered here), Browning's Buck Mark and Smith & Wesson's Model 63 offer excellent accuracy and are easy to shoot well by virtue of hand-filling ergonomics and generous sight radiuses.

Reliability is important, too, and is not nearly as common in rimfire semiauto handguns as might be imagined. Many are sensitive to ammunition type and bullet weight, although the quality full-size .22 handguns that make the best trail guns tend to be a lot less picky than compact .22 semiauto handguns.

Reliability is a product of quality engineering and robust design on the manufacturer's part and diligent maintenance on the shooter's part. Most .22 rimfire ammunition is naturally dirtier than centerfire ammo, and a lot more rounds typically get sent downrange. Take care of your .22 semiauto handgun, and it will take care of you.

Revolvers, on the other hand, soak up abuse and neglect and keep on cooking. I shouldn't admit this, but in the interest of science I've fired my old Ruger Single Six until it was so dirty that I had to firmly press each cartridge into the cylinder chambers, and still it functioned flawlessly. (I don't recommend such neglect, by the way.)

Good trail guns have adjustable rear sights. Yes, they're a little more damage-prone than a fixed rear notch, but good adjustable sights are robust enough, and the ability to fine-tune your point of impact with your chosen rimfire load is important.

The "center mass" concept popular with defensive handgun shooters isn't good enough when a feathered potential dinner is peering down at you from a low-hanging spruce branch or when your favorite bird dog is firmly on point near a buzzing rattler.

I like to sight my rimfire trail guns dead on at 25 yards. After shooting a variety of ammo from a sandbag rest to determine which load offers the best accuracy (and to confirm reliability if shooting a semiauto), I shoot at a small black dot and tweak the sights until I am placing all shots within an inch or less of center.

Recommended


One of the best rests I've found for semiauto pistols is a simple bunny-ear rear rifle sandbag. Place it on top of a short length of 2x6 to elevate it if needed and rest the pistol's frame just in front of the trigger guard in the bag's notch.

Revolvers, on the other hand, can be difficult to shoot with the gun itself resting on sandbags. If resting the frame- just in front of the cylinder- on bunny-ear bags doesn't work, try just resting your wrists across a sandbag and shoot with the revolver free of contact. It's a test of your ability to hold steady and squeeze, but I've shot some of my best revolver groups with handguns held in this manner.

If called on to shoot a very small target at close range, such as a snake's head at four or five yards, remember that the bullet actually exits the muzzle around three-quarters of an inch to one inch lower than your line of sight, so you must hold slightly high to compensate. Just hold the top of the front sight on the top of the target but not over.

Choosing the best ammunition for your rimfire trail gun boils down to two criteria: penetration and accuracy. First, decide whether you want a solid-nose bullet that will penetrate well with minimal expansion and leave small holes or a hollowpoint that will expand well, impart a lot of shock and have minimum penetration.

Velocity also affects penetration and expansion: A low-velocity solid nose usually won't expand; a high-velocity solid nose will expand a little but may not penetrate much deeper (because the expansion creates more drag). High-velocity hollowpoints will usually expand into a nice classic mushroom shape, penetrating well enough but not as deeply as a solid-nose and usually leave a slightly larger exit hole- if they exit at all.

I prefer to use a high-velocity hollowpoint for almost all of my trail-gun shooting, assuming my gun shoots them well. Hollow points work well on small game, aluminum cans and other targets of opportunity, and since I go for head shots on anything I'm planning on eating around the campfire, meat damage from the expanding bullet is not an issue.

Once a bullet type is chosen, it's well worth buying a box of several different brands and lines of .22 cartridges for accuracy and reliability testing. Rimfire handguns, like any firearm, often show individual preferences. You might end up with a gun that shoots most loads into two- to 2.5-inch groups at 25 yards but places one favorite load into sub-inch groups.

Now, I have a hard time shooting sub-inch groups with an iron-sighted handgun. My eyes just aren't quite good enough. For this phase of your load testing, it's worth mounting a handgun scope if you've got one (and if the handgun model accepts a scope base).

Many semiauto pistols today are shipped with a base, and mounting a scope is as simple as screwing the base to the top of the slide and putting a scope on. Revolvers can be more difficult, but a bit of shopping can usually turn up a suitable base.

After I discover which load or loads shoot the best, I remove the scope because I don't like carrying scope-sighted trail guns. Big game magnum handguns, sure, but not my rimfire trail guns.

Range testing semiautos will also tip you off to any reliability issues. If you had multiple ammo-related malfunctions while testing, you'll probably want to find a different load that your handguns devours without a hiccup.

However, if your semiauto shot the most accurate loads with few or no issues, put another couple of hundred rounds through it. If you continue to have trouble-free- or darn near trouble-free- functioning, you're good to go.

At this point, you've got a lightweight, beautifully accurate, wholly reliable rimfire trail gun. It will help you hone your handgunning skills, fill the stewpot and take care of destructive rodents and dangerous snakes (should it be legal and ethical to do so, of course).

Can such a handgun be suitable for personal protection? That is a good question. Convincing arguments have and will continue to be mounted for and against using a .22 rimfire for defense.

Me, I prefer to carry a bigger gun and my rimfire trail gun if I think there's a real possibility of danger to my person. However, were I in a pickle without a more powerful handgun available, you can bet your boots I'd use my rimfire trail gun.

Four Guns to Consider

Here are four trail guns I think are worth considering. There are many more options, of course, but the following pistols would rank among my first choices.

Smith & Wesson Model 63

Gained in a trade during the poor, college-textbook filled years after I got married, my vintage Smith & Wesson Model 63 is my favorite rimfire handgun, hands down. My preference isn't logical — the old S&W isn't as accurate as my Rugers or my buddy's Browning — but I love the way it feels in my hand, the superb workmanship apparent in every aspect of the revolver, and the just-right size and weight. Modern iterations are just as appealing. The current steel-frame, three-inch barrel gun is a little harder to shoot really accurately than the other three guns showcased here, but only because of a shorter sight radius and bulkier sights optimized for fast shooting in low light. An accomplished precision handgunner can milk very good accuracy out of the Model 63. And reliable? You'll put tens of thousands of rounds through a Model 63 without a bauble. Capacity is eight rounds — not far short of its semiauto cousins.

Price: $759

Browning Buck Mark

One of my best shooting buddies packed a Buck Mark during his teens, and I've watched him hit empty Winchester 50-count cardboard ammo boxes at 25 yards on demand. Last I heard he had an estimated 30,000-plus rounds through it, and it was just starting to wear out. Arguably the most ergonomic of all full-size semiauto rimfire pistols, the Buck Mark has a 1911-esque thumb safety; predictably placed magazine release and slide catch; and an abbreviated rear slide (the back couple of inches of slide reciprocate while the rest is fixed). Like most rimfire semiautos, it's blowback-operated, and the Buck Mark typically shoots extraordinarily accurate and is very easy to shoot well. Single-stack magazines hold 10 rounds. Myriad variations exist: The Camper UFX is one of the latest.

Price: $420

Ruger 22/45 Lite

I was introduced to the gold anodized version of the Ruger 22/45 Lite a year or two ago and was mesmerized by its combination of light weight, great balance and superb accuracy. The frame is polymer; the fixed 'slide ' is aluminum alloy, explaining the weightless sensation when you hold it. To boost accuracy, it has a 'tensioned ' barrel. Popularized decades ago in Dan Wesson revolvers designed for long-range handgun silhouette competition, tensioned barrels have an excellent reputation for accuracy. In the 22/45 Lite, Ruger accomplishes the tensioning by housing the slender steel barrel in an aluminum shroud (the fixed slide) and screwing a knurled nut on the front end to contain it. At first I feared that the lack of weight would make the pistol wispy and hard to shoot offhand. My first 25-yard 10-shot offhand group out of the handgun clustered into less than and inch and a half, and I quit worrying. Early versions of the Ruger rimfire semiauto pistols utilized a mag well/grip butt magazine release, very European in function. More recent versions have a thumb-activated push-button mag release in the classic spot left lower rear of the trigger. The slide catch and safety are low-profile round knobs — hard to function but not prone to accidental snagging. Like the Browning Buck Mark, magazines are single stack and contain 10 rounds.

Price: $499

Ruger Single Six

By the time I was in my early 20s I'd already possessed my Ruger Single Six for many years. The finish had worn off the backstrap and ejector rod, but the six-shooter still stacked little 40-grain hollowpoints right on top of each other. I recall wandering back down along a local irrigation stream after a fruitless foray with our fly rods and deciding that a nearby dirt clod looked ominously threatening. It was fist-size, about 25 yards away. I broke it in half with my first shot, and then powdered the halves with two more shots. My fishing partner — a fairly new acquaintance — picked his jaw up out of the dusty two-track and began calling me Quigley. We all knew Quigley preferred a rifle, but that didn't stop him. Reliable even in the worst conditions and accurate enough for any task suited to a trail gun, the Single Six appeals to neophyte shooters and grizzled old-timers alike, and for good reason. It's easy to shoot, never needs fixing, and it has that Western six-shooter panache only single actions posses. The only common fault to Single Sixes is a stout trigger pull. If you want to get the best out of yours, take it to a reputable, certified gunsmith for a trigger job. Single Six revolvers come in blued or stainless, with an extra cylinder in .22 Magnum.

Price: $569 (blue)




GET THE NEWSLETTER Join the List and Never Miss a Thing.

Recommended Articles

Recent Videos

Scott Rupp and Richard Nance correct some common shooting advice.
Handguns

Smith & Wesson M&P in 5.7 and .22 Mag. Calibers

Scott Rupp and Richard Nance correct some common shooting advice.
Gear

Streamlight Updates Its Wedge Flashlight with Tail Cap Switch

Scott Rupp and Richard Nance correct some common shooting advice.
Gear

Hodgdon Adds Match and HD to Its Winchester StaBALL Powder Line

Scott Rupp and Richard Nance correct some common shooting advice.
Gear

Crossbreed Rogue Holster and System with Mag Carrier

Scott Rupp and Richard Nance correct some common shooting advice.
Handguns

Smith & Wesson Model 350 Hunting Revolver In .350 Legend

Scott Rupp and Richard Nance correct some common shooting advice.
Handguns

First Look: Taurus GX4 XL

Scott Rupp and Richard Nance correct some common shooting advice.
Handguns

A Perfect 10? The S&W M&P 10mm

Scott Rupp and Richard Nance correct some common shooting advice.
Handguns

S&W M&P Shield Plus

Scott Rupp and Richard Nance correct some common shooting advice.
Handguns

A Perfect 10? The S&W M&P 10mm

Scott Rupp and Richard Nance correct some common shooting advice.
Handguns

Beretta A1 Carry

Scott Rupp and Richard Nance correct some common shooting advice.
Handguns

First Look: Federal .30 Super Carry Pistol Cartridge

Scott Rupp and Richard Nance correct some common shooting advice.
Learn

Bad Shooting Advice

Handguns Magazine Covers Print and Tablet Versions

GET THE MAGAZINE Subscribe & Save

Digital Now Included!

SUBSCRIBE NOW

Give a Gift   |   Subscriber Services

PREVIEW THIS MONTH'S ISSUE

Buy Digital Single Issues

Magazine App Logo

Don't miss an issue.
Buy single digital issue for your phone or tablet.

Get the Handguns App apple store google play store

Other Magazines

See All Other Magazines

Special Interest Magazines

See All Special Interest Magazines

GET THE NEWSLETTER Join the List and Never Miss a Thing.

Get the top Handguns stories delivered right to your inbox.

Phone Icon

Get Digital Access.

All Handguns subscribers now have digital access to their magazine content. This means you have the option to read your magazine on most popular phones and tablets.

To get started, click the link below to visit mymagnow.com and learn how to access your digital magazine.

Get Digital Access

Not a Subscriber?
Subscribe Now

Enjoying What You're Reading?

Get a Full Year
of Guns & Ammo
& Digital Access.

Offer only for new subscribers.

Subscribe Now

Never Miss a Thing.

Get the Newsletter

Get the top Handguns stories delivered right to your inbox.

By signing up, I acknowledge that my email address is valid, and have read and accept the Terms of Use