Ruger 10/22 Carbine Squirrel 22 LR 18.5" 10rd Rifle

The 10/22 has been in continuous production since 1964, and there is a reason nearly every American shooter has owned one at some point. The action is dead simple, the rotary magazine sits flush with the stock instead of hanging below it, and the parts catalog behind the rifle is deeper than for any other rimfire made. This one is the Carbine in its original dress: an 18.5" barrel, blued metal, and a wood stock, in a distributor exclusive Squirrel configuration.

Wood and blued steel handle differently than the black synthetic versions of this rifle. There is a little more weight out at the forend, it sits steadier off a rest, and it looks considerably better leaning in the corner of a camp. Feeding comes from Ruger's 10rd rotary magazine, the piece of the design that made the rifle famous, since nothing hangs below the stock to snag on a fence rail or a truck seat. Iron sights are fitted and the receiver takes a scope base if you would rather run glass. For squirrel hunting the gun matches its name: 18.5" of barrel is short enough to carry through hardwoods all morning, and 22 LR does everything that job asks of a cartridge. As a first rifle for a new shooter it remains the safe recommendation it has been for sixty years.