re: the 10/22
I owned one
way back in the day (probably my senior year in high school). Box stock plinker. Light and fun. Traded it off for a dual oil relief Type 1 VW case so I could build a decent engine in my college apartment but always missed it.
About 6 years ago I got the itch to get another one, but I wanted to mod the crap out of it. Trouble is, you buy a box stock 10/22 and then replace every part on it (which of course means that you have a 10/22 and a really nice 10/22 when you're done).
I decided to circumvent the process and order the factory target version, seen here:
Hammer forged target barrel. It never sees high velocity ammo. The only thing it really needs is to replace the gawd awful rusty jaw trap of a trigger with something real.
As for ammo, I found this rifle doesn't care what is popular, expensive or what the experts use. It is
superbly accurate with Remington yellow and green box cheap ammo. Oh sure, everything else I feed it goes "crack" and makes a hole in approximately the right place but that Remington is X every damn time if I do my part.
Cleaning it? This might get me banned, but on advice of my father I have never touched this rifle with a cleaning rod. The .22 doesn't go fast enough to leave lead in the barrel, nor does it get shot often enough to leave much in the way of goo.
For the record I do clean all my centerfire rifles, especially the bolt guns.
Oh, and another really fun .22 is the Henry lever action. Throw a golf ball out as far as you can and start shooting at it. You'll have a hard time not laughing your ass off after 5 rounds.