Ruger #2.
Had an acquaintance that lost his house in a fire.
He dug the mk II out of the ashes. Brought it to me for an opinion.
I cleaned it up and oiled it. Test firing was successful.
Grips melted off. Bluing gone.
It fired enough shots later to land his ass in prison.
I have 2 Buckmarks and love them. Had one and got a .22 dueling tree. To make it fair, had to get another one. It was written in stone somewhere if you have a dueling tree, you need to provide matching guns.....I think.
Had a buckmark and sold it. The sights were way bad, maybe I got a lemon. Currently have the mark 4 as suppressor host. Also had a II but sold it to my SIL when I got the IV. Both shoot well, kinda liked to II a little better. Really like the ease of clean g the 4 over the 2
Have Ruger 2, 3, 4. I like the design of the 4. Much easier to clean. I like the non-reciprocating sight mount. All of them shoot well. My favorite accessory is a Kliploader. You can fill a magazine faster than someone can empty one, and you can empty one pretty quick.
I do not care for the Ruger 22/45 series, different grip and magazine.
I don't think you can go wrong with any of them but my Buckmarks have been flawless. I've owned a first gen Buckmark camper that I never should have sold. I've also owned the Ruger mkiis, iiis and a 22/45(gen3). My GF and her brother have the newer Buckmark vision series and they're light and good shooters. I feel like my older Ruger mkiii hunter had the best stock trigger but the Buckmark has a simpler upgrade and disassembly process.
From what I gather the gen4 Rugers are much easier to take down so if I had none I would have to choose based on price of the specific models I wanted. My victory is currently a contender for top spot but it was riddled with issues right out of the box.
We have had Ruger MK-III's,the OG and the non-changable-grip 22/45, and with the dingle-berry it was a PITA for the wife to make sure she had it assembled correctly, me not so much, but I still would forget to jump on one-foot, stand on my head, and do the truffle-shuffle to get both of ours to be functional from time to time.
The Ruger MK-IV's were appropriated w/extreme quickness,BUT I don't think we ever had a jam (in the MK-III, NOR the MkKIV's...
Y'all actually dissemble your Rugers? I just soak mine in CLP, run a bore snake through it, and blow it out with compressed air. Tens of thousands of rounds through it
1. I enjoyed the Buckmark Camper, I assume you still own, a lot. It was a good shooter but I never liked how you had to take off the rear sight to clean it.
2. Mark III's are a PITA
3. I own a Mark IV 22/45 Tactical that has been great and couldn't be easier to disassemble. Factory trigger is a little creepy and I wouldn't mind if the safety had a more positive snap/click to it as well.
4. Browning Challenger Series (I, II, III) might be of interest to you if your into old school stuff.
5. I don't need another 22lr pistol but there have been some new designs that recently debuted that I'm thinking of taking a look at, primarily the Sig 322.
ETA: Ruger SR22's are great despite the recent recall.
We sold the OG Mark-III and Mark-III 22/45, and now we currently own:
1) Mark IV 22/45 lite
2) Mark IV Hunter 5.5"
I wanted the stainless Hunter, but in the panic/shortage they were few and far between, and after I got this the LGS got the Hunter the wife then told me that they had the stainless one in, so so I had to get it
3) Mark IV Hunter Stainless 6.88"
They REALLY ARE GREAT SHOOTERS.
I thought about the Buckmark, as they seemed to even be available in every pawn shop I've gone to, but I never knew if they were as reliable as the Ruger Mark series, and as you can see, we've got 3, and we are kinda a Ruger family, with roughly half of our guns being Rugers.
The Dingle-berry (hammer strut?) really wasn't that bad, but it would get stuck a lot during reassembly, and jumping up and down in frustration if it got stuck, or the wife couldn't get it pointed at the hammer spring when she closed latch on the back of the 22/45 was very annoying.