Bias opinion, or fact? Curious because I am looking around for my first 22 and I have heard this before, but so many people seem to praise it. I don't want to get anything that is junk. Who would?
::yes, quote was posted about a year ago by Atblis, but I am still curious!::
Little of both probably. It is probably 50/50 at best for those who praise it/ bag on it. It does seem like there are a few people who have them, and have received what they consider to be good service from them.
To provide some context for my opinion, it is based on having shot three different P22s, and all of them did not provide what I considered to be acceptable reliability and accuracy. People claim that I am expecting too much from a little plinker 22. The problem I have with this is that every other 22 pistol I have ever shot (well except an RG10), has been superior.
One of the P22s I used to shoot split the slide in half and struck my friend in the face below his eye. He was not wearing safety glasses at the time, but I believe he does now.
A guy I used to shoot with on a weekly basis, went through I think three of them at the last count (maybe four!). The last one he got back from S&W as a replacement was the best in terms of performance up until it cracked the slide. S&W is refusing to service it under warranty at this point, but will sell him a new slide. He isn't bothering to buy a new slide if that tells you anything. He doesn't really care because he bought a Browning Buckmark and does not miss the P22 one bit.
There are other pistols that are much much better.
-Ruger MkII or even MkIII
-CZ kadet. This is the pistol to get if you want a trainer pistol that resembles a full-size pistol. Even though they are technically a conversion kit for the CZ75B, as a 22 pistol itself they are superb. Unfortunately, prices are way up on these. I paid $289 for my Kadet pistol NIB (whole pistol not the kit).
-Browning Buckmark
-Trailside. I have some reservations about these. The magazines are horrible. They also have some durability issues too. They shoot darn well though.
And regarding Zinc. There is absolutely no way of equivocating about the use of Zinc as major component in a pistol. The only reason to use Zinc is if you want to make it as cheap as possible with no regard for performance (especially durability). I can't think of a single quality pistol that uses zinc.
Zinc = junk. No way around that. It's been proven over and over.