I know this is the S&W forum, but I also know we all own a whole bunch of other guns too lol, so here goes:
Does anyone here have a browning buckmark pistol? What do you think of it/would you recomend it to a friend? How ammo sensitive is it? How hard is cleaning, maintainence, and reliability? How are the mags/expensive/difficult to find them? I'm kind of in the market for a good .22lr pistol to compliment my model 18 so I can train more and still be able to buy food, gas, clothes, etc Thanks for your help/tips.

I have several friends who have and like them.

I don't have any problem with them, but prefer the Ruger MkII as a beginners bullseye pistol, since there are a lot more bullseye specific accessories available, although that has changed somewhat over the years.

As a general training, plinking and small game pistol, you could do far worse than a Buckmark.

I have two, and when I go shooting, one of them is usually along. Great guns. Cheap too.

Yes, yes,not specific,easy, not hard to find.

Yes, I have one and the are great 22's come in many different flavors. Only gun I like better is the older Ruger Mark 2. Not the 3.

My dad has a Buckmark and it's a fine pistol - accurate, reliable, and not particular about its ammo. That being said, I still prefer Mark II Rugers because of the shape of their grips. My Ruger Government Target Model has in excess of 20,000 rounds through it and it will still shoot offhand half dollar groups at 25 yards

I'm not looking for a bullseye gun, mostly cause I don't shoot bullseye (I'm way too loose on my reloading tolerances for pistol rounds lol). I like the ruger mkII series guns, but I don't dig the euro style mag releases. I would rather keep my muscle memory as close as possible no matter if I am plinking or doing cheap training drills. I've found one for $250 at a local pawn shop, but I am thinking of negotiating the price some. I think 2 bills would be more fair. What does the concensus think lol?

If the heel of butt magazine release of the Ruger MkII and MkIII bother you, there's always the 45/22.

I used to have one many years ago, I did not understand the nuances of 22lr at that time. I fed it the cheapest ammo I could find at the time, Remington Yellow Jackets, and it jammed constantly. Instead of knowing to finding proper ammo I blamed the firearm and sold it for money towards a 681. Had I known then what I know now I would have tried a bunch of ammo until I found what it liked and might not have been so quick to sell it off. It was a well made and accurate pistol.

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Regards,
Guy-Harold Smith II

I'd give my left...well you know what, for a 681 lol. I am lucky that I grew up around lots of people who are crazy about their 22lr pistols so I knew that they are a little sensitive about the ammo you feed them. But my requirement for a plinking/general purpose 22 is that it has to be able to digest ****** bulk pack ammo if I feed it.

I've got a 5 1/2" bull barrel Buckmark Camper.....not real picky about what ammo it likes and very accurate. As long as you keep it lubed it will run a LONG time without a teardown/full cleaning. My only caveat is that the two allen screws that hold the rear sight bridge on will work loose over time and the gun will begin to jam. Some LIGHT DUTY Locktite will fix the problem.

I have two of the little fellers- a 5 1/2" camper and a regular 5 1/2" slab barrel.

The only concern, but it's a little one, is the changes that they have done over the years to the slide assembly. Both of mine are different, and although I have a couple of extra springs, C-clips and buffers for each, I'm not too happy about the new camper with the plastic firing pin assembly frame, but I've never had a problem out of it.

Pick up a couple of extra recoil springs and buffers.

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Lost it all in a boat accident

To be fair most gun guys are opposed to plastic assemblies in their guns. Have you noticed anything wrong with the firing pin assembly on yours?

My Buckmark Camper has been cut to 4" and threaded for a silencer. It is a great silencer host, and it is a gun I shoot all the time. Silencers really grime up any firearm, but mine runs and runs with minimal cleaning. Accessories are available, mags are available.....
Mine is a tackdriver with Ely Match ammo, and Wolf M/T ammo as well....
What is not to like???

I've got a 5.5 Buckmark Plus that I've had for about 10 years now. I love it. Extremely accurate and reliable.
I think the whole Browning vs Ruger arguement boils down to which grip angle you prefer. I like the Buckmark.

I have 2 and love them. Classic .22 pistol.

I just want a good plinker, and this one has the potential to be a good target gun too if I ever chose to go that route with it. Good sights, probably a decent trigger (based on the numerous other browning I've shot), and a longer sight radius to work with.

I've got the 5 1/2 inch barrel Buckmark Camper. It is the base model and is a great little gun for plinking. It is also easy to add different sights, rail and scopes to. Mine is not particular about ammo although now I mostly use CCI SV. It is a nice, fairly inexpensive target plinker.

It was a large gun for a .22 pistol. It worked well enough, but it never grew on me and I sold it to a fellow from this board. I prefer the discontinued series of S&W's in the second photo.

Attached Images

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	0358.JPG (47.4 KB, 245 views)

Get at least one, and never look back. For me, the Rugers are a bear to take down for cleaning; Buckmarks are much easier.





Pete

I love my buckmark!

I've had one for years. Great, very reliable, never a problem. However, it does like the hot stuff... doesn't do well with the 'average' .22LR, but will eat up CCI Stingers all day long with no problem. I kind of like a little snappier round, anyway, so Stingers are all I feed it. I highly recommend the Buckmark.

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LEO since 1981.

Well I took the plunge and got it. $250 out the door (they agreed to take the taxes off of it for me). The thing that sold me on it over the ruger was the safety and slide stop positioning. Much closer to a 1911 that the 22/45 can hope to be (they're no buttons besides the mag catch on a 1911 ). My next stop is to load up on spare mags so I don't have to constantly reload mags while I'm standing on the range. I appreciate all your input guys. I just can't wait to get back home and put some lead down range lol.

Sounds like you got a good deal. +1 on the magazines! I only have three, which is the bare minimum for any gun I own. However, they are incredibly quick and easy to load. You might try CDNN Sports for spare mags- they seem to always have them in their catalogue.

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LEO since 1981.

I am with you on that one. All my pistols have a minimum of 3 working mags with them, my 1911 mag collection is something just short of legendary right thanks to a CDNN special about 3 years ago. I am also looking to add more to the Glock collection soon. I think that if nothing else having a pile of mags for this pistol is going to save my thumbs from the constant reloading that only having one mag causes.

I had a Browning buckmark & hated the way you had to disassemble it
to clean it.I even ordered extra springs & ballbearings incase I couldn't find the parts that gave me a hard time. I thought it was a lousy way to have to clean it. I traded it & some cash for a S&W model 41.Best move I made.

Yeah, but I can't afford a model 41 lol. Thats the rich man's .22lr handgun

Also, do any of you fine gents happen to have the takedown procedure handy so I can do it for myself? I checked the manual and don't see anything in it to work with.

I currently have the Buckmark Bullseye. But I had a standard Buckmark for years and I cannot say enough about the outstanding customer service Browning provides. The old Buckmark I had would go to the range with a bunch of us. When we shot all of our cenerfire ammo we would each get a Buckmark mag and wait our turns to shoot it. So it absolutely owed no service when it started having problems. It was sent to Browning. I got it back with a new extractor installed at no charge. My brother has it now and it still shoots like it was new. I will always have at least one Buckmark in my safe.

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Kevin
NRA Benefactor Member

I have owned both the the Buckmark and the Ruger MK series. The Ruger is considerably more robust in design. It needs no plastic buffer to protect the frame, and cleaning is, in my opinion, much easier. The only way I could keep my Buckmark together was to loctite all the screws. The problem is that the plastic buffer should be inspected periodically and these screws have to be removed. If not you risk damage to the frame. Most Ruger owners get pretty good at taking down the Mark series after awhile, and there is no loctite or screws to mess with. I like the way the Mark series bolt can be disassembled for cleaning without tools, with the buckmark you need to drive out roll pins, so this is usually only done when these parts need repair. The plastic parts and the delicate wire ejector was a real turnoff, also the grips keep many of the parts in place! The Ruger Mark series .22 Autos was a stellar design by Bill Ruger and seems to go on forever. It's only flaw, is that the barrels can't be interchanged, and to some that is important.

I had a 41 and it was so darned ammo specific that I quickly sold it. Wouldn't group under 2 inches with anything it fed reliably except Ely Tennex and Pistol Match. Too expensive to feed.

As for the Buckmark, I had a stainless camper special for a year or so. Good, accurate and reliable firearm. Traded it for a bull barrel Ruger Mark III. I have several varieties of MK II and MK III pistols. They just can't be beaten for reliability and accuracy.
Takedown is what you make of it. Fiddly, but not that hard.

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Virtue,Liberty & Independence

I own a Buckmark and it's a superb shooter. Not real picky about ammo, however it won't reliably eat just every brand/style ammo you feed it.

Aside from the occasional brand of ammo it don't like..only real issue my pistol has is that if it gets dirty enough..it won't lock the slide open when empty. Then you have to take the left grip off and clean inside where the grip and slide-lock interface together..not that big a deal.

I don't like the takedown either..the little Allen screws on mine are about stripped by previous owner..so I never take the slide.breech block off/out of mine. I just flush it out and re-lube.

It's an excellent .22 pistol..really accurate and decently reliable. I've owned several Rugers and some other brands .22 auto-pistols and would rank the Buckmark at or near the best.

Have had my BM for about ten years and like it quite a bit. It is not a beauty, but it has been reliable and one of the most accurate .22's I have-it almost always goes with me when I shoot.

The take-down process is a bit of a pain, but it isn't a deal breaker for me. There have been a few times that the allen screws have loosened during use causing obvious problems with the function of the gun, but no damage. I should use loc-tite but I don't since these screws need to be removed for cleaning/inspection.

The only major ammo issues I have had so far have happened recently and with Federal Lightning rounds. I would recommend a BM to a friend if that friend didn't want an M&P22

Take down is not bad, check out youtube.