Caliber Decisions. I know, one should have such problems, but I'm at a crossroads with a purchase decision. I've been doing a lot of reading here, and elswhere, but I'm now bumping up against a deadline on savings\purchase price.

I'm new to the sport rife arena. Having primarily been a handgun owner\shooter\"collector". My ventures into rifles have been primarily of the deer hunting variety, as well as the old Ruger 10/22 standby I no longer own. (Or any current rifle for that matter).

After much research, and comfort with the brand, I've concluded the S&W M&P series rifles are what I am interested in. I started out looking ONLY at the M&P 15 sport\.223, however, after coming to the realization that ammo costs might kill me, I started reading about the 15-22. Seems like an incredible rifle, especially for the price, and the cost of .22 ammo is SO very tempting. My only hang up here, honestly, is ammo availability. I plan on spending at least 2 weekends per month range shooting and I'm trying to balance the cost\availabity and fun factor of these rifles. It's actually starting to give me a headache now, lol.

Primary use for this rifle will be target shooting. Plinking. Weekend outings with the kids. (I admit, the rifle is more for me than them at this time). This is also another factor. While my daughter, 13, has shot my handguns before, she has never shot a rifle. I want to teach her, and she is also going to be taking some official courses this summer. My son on the other hand, currently 7 years old, has only been exposed to Nerf, BB, and more recently Air-soft. He's quite good, and understands firearm safety, even with Nerf. (Yes, serious here).

I guess what I'm looking for is some input from anyone that is in, or has been in, a similar situation. Ultimately, I'd LOVE to buy both rifles, but even at the price I have available to me, that's just not possible right now. (I'm looking at $550 for the standard M&P Sport and $350 for the 15-22 - that pricing ends soon at my local dealer).

Thoughts? Ramblings? Some reading for a forum newbie who has been spending too much time here already?

For me, for primarily target shooting, a bolt action. In particular the CZ 455 Varmint. The rifle can be had for under $500.00 (you will need a scope) but for the money I've never shot a more accurate .22LR caliber.

I don't know your financial situation but 223 isn't that expensive. You can get a 1000 rounds of brass cased 55gr for just over $300 delivered to your door.

Of course it does come down to why you have it. If it's just to put holes in paper a 22lr will do it as well as anything else

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As an instructor, I strongly recommend NOT starting youngsters on a semi auto for a first gun trainer. I've seen too many little trigger yankers that don't learn the basics...and some haven't ten years later.

And as Arik said, if you just want a plinker for yourself, any caliber will do. If you want to try precision target shooting, a bolt will outshoot an AR.

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Science plus Art

My opinion, get the 15-22 first. The cost of ammo is much less, and for plinking and paper target shooting, .22lr is a ton of fun and wont break the bank. While you can get 1000 rounds of .223 for around $300, you can also get 1000 rounds of .22lr for $100 or less in some cases. Some areas are still suffering from scarcity of .22lr ammo but for the most part, a lot of people are able to find it if you look in the right places. Check the Ammo thread on this forum...people are constantly posting updates when new sales or ammo becomes available. I know by me, in the Democratic State of Illinois, .22lr is becoming more and more available again. My local walmart will have CCI Mini-Mags sometimes. Cabela's and Gander Mountain also have some stocked fairly regularly. And the local gun shops and ranges usually carry .22lr without much of a price increase.

In addition to saving money, the 15-22 is a perfect way to get your kids comfortable with a rifle and especially with the AR platform. Low recoil, ease of use, inexpensive to shoot and easy to clean and maintain....all good reasons to go with the 15-22. Hope this helps. Good luck!

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I have a T/C Hotshot, a Oregon Arms Chipmunk, and a Ruger American Rimfire Compact. Three different sized rifles depending on the beginner's size and age. The RAR Compact has different sized butstock and comb hights for scope use or iron sights and can be easily used by adults.

IMHO, part of the .22 shortage is because of the popularity of military style .22's. Noise counts for nothing. Only holes on target matter.

Thank you for the replies so far. Just wanted to note that while I did mention teaching my kids in this post, this decision is by no means based on that factor alone. Primary use really is for myself, as I noted above, and not as a teaching tool for the kids. (That duty will really be left more to a .22 bolt action my father in law still owns).

My real hangup here appears to be the the complete an utter lack of .22 ammo available in my area. I guess I haven't looked for any in a long time, and I thought how hard could it really be to find. Yes, I can get it on line, but it's very frustrating having a Walmart, Dick's, and two local shops that have had zero available for almost a month now.

The .223 on the other hand, while available, is averaging $35 for $100 rounds. Not terribly more expensive then for my 9mm, but still, much more so than .22.

(Sorry, don't mean to turn this into a .22 availability thread as I've already subscribed to a few of those right here).

A .357/.38SPL lever action is a fun plinker.

A Rossi 92 with a 20" round barrel seems a good do-all size that's at Bud's in your price range.

Rossi 357 Magnum Lever Action w/20" Round Blue Barrel/Walnut $489.00 SHIPS FREE

Lots of rambling that hopefully is useful....

My situation was similar to yours with a few exceptions - I had a bolt and lever action .22 already, but wanted something more AR-15ish without necessarily stepping up to the AR-15.

Our family now has 3 15-22 rifles [and several AR-15s in various chamberings]. I was out at the range yesterday and there was another family with a 15-22, along with their 2 kids. Honestly, I see more 15-22s at the range than I do 10/22 or bolt actions.

I taught my son on the bolt action, same one I learned on. He likes to shoot the 15-22, and will definately chug through ammo. Interestingly, he often requests the bolt action as it allows him to go slower.

I understand the financial stress WRT firearms and ammo. Ammo being a recurring cost, 5k rounds of 22 [available online for about $300-$400] means 5x more shooting than the 223.

Of course, with the 22lr, you will go through more rounds than you will with the 223. Because of cost, noise, recoil, ... I went through 500 22lr rounds this weekend, but only 100 223/300 blackout rounds.

Interestingly, TTAG had a video yesterday where a well-respected mother purchased a 22lr bolt action for her 5 year old daughter.... And switched to the 15-22 because she could shorten the stock for her daughters arm length [wasn't the point of the story, but it was an interesting aside].

To combat the 'spray and pray' that a semi-auto might teach:
1) Use 10 round magazines. Perhaps only load them with 5 rounds.
2) Require the shooter reload the magazines [this will teach them the price for spray and pray]

Lastly, it has been my experience, both as a youth and now as an adult, that shooting holes in paper doesn't provide the same level of instant gratification that 'reactive' targets bring to the table. This past weekend, shooting steel at 100 yards with subsonic ammunition made everyone on the firing line giggle hearing the 'ping'. If your range allows it, clay pigeons make excellent inexpensive targets.

I am going to buck the trend here.

As you expressed you want the rifle for fun, plinking and target practice, for yourself and your offspring. Then i would go for the 15-22. It will retain close to its market value, if you want to sell it and trade for a real AR. It acts as a perfect trainer for an AR and any accoutrement you purchase (scopes/RD/grips/triggers) will transfer over to the AR.

As far as training rifle for kids, if you already have a bolt action then i see no reason why you cannot train your kids on a semi-auto (while having a lot of fun yourself). The 15-22 is an adjustable platform, recoil low, relatively accurate and low maintenance rifle.

Teach your kids that there is a time and a place for making an expensive noise and that patience and accuracy are not necessarily 'boring' both can be achieved with a 15-22. The fun my father and I had trying to split an edge facing credit card just the other week was great (we both did it- mine shattered ..his split perfectly in two).

If you can't stop them from being trigger happy then you are probably not the best to be training them. The novelty of pew, pew, pew ,pew, pew, pew ,pew ,pew....wears off when the range trip lasts 12 seconds.

I think the 15-22 would be a great choice. So it all depends on the availability of the ammo, can you not get it ordered online?

Oh sure, I can get it online, and as I'm sure most know, fairly reasonably. That is a definite consideration as it seems so scarce here locally.

Really thinking on this all day. And the more and more I ponder it, the more I'm leaning toward the 15-22. I think, once again, cost is driving me a lot. I just ran across a local shop that had, regardless of my previous statement, boxes of 325 rounds, Federal, for $30. That's very hard to beat in anything else; especially at just under $100 for 1k rounds. (Again, considering this is primarily for paper targets and cans).

Thanks again all for the responses.

I prefer to get my ammo online, so local availability is not a factor for me. I also am particular in what I shoot, so online works best in getting what I like. I much prefer shooting subsonic. A large part of that is because I shoot suppressed and don't want a sonic crack, but besides that I find it more accurate. CCI standard velocity & Norma Tac 22 are my go to rounds.

I have all sorts of guns in a range of calibers. I do agree that a 22 bolt gun is the best training option out there... especially for young shooters. However that being said, the kids of today are mostly different than me 50 years ago. Today they get bombarded with technology & fast paced action games, so I have found they get bored and are somewhat uninterested in bolt guns. Bring out a 15-22 and that is a different story. So as the kids have changed, I've changed some of my training. I'm now not hesitant to let a new shooter start with one of my 15-22s. Since there is no recoil, I'm not concerned about them losing control of the semi-auto. I don't use the 10 round magazines because I'm in control of the shooting. I shoot on my home range, so while shooting on paper we take a few shots, safe the gun & then go look at the targets up close. Point is to slow it all down & talk about what is happening. I find that folks shoot much faster at paper targets than steel ones. Guess it is because most of my steel targets are rather small and take good aim to hit. When one misses a steel target, especially when shooting suppressed, the lack of the "bong" is instantaneously noticeable. Seems when someone misses the steel a few shots in a row, they slow down all by themselves. The audio feedback seems to control the pace of shooting. That is the beauty of shooting smallish steel targets. It is either pass or fail... no in between. My suppressed 15-22, with the 11" barrel is a perfect training gun, IMO.

As far as which rifle the OP should start with, I'd start with a 15-22. Granted, I love my ARs, especially my suppressed, SBR 300 Blackout, but they are much more expensive to purchase & shoot. With the 15-22, I get mostly the same shooting experience & can use much cheaper ammo. Even though I have lots of options to choose from, when I want to go down for some shooting fun, the vast majority of the time I take down the 15-22.

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FIDELITAS ET FORTITUDO

Please let me respectly disagree with you. I have taught two children and five grandchildren to shoot. Pistols were revolvers, but the rifles were all semi-autos - first Ruger 10/22 with the children and 15-22 for the grand children. In none of the cases did they become trigger jerkers. All learned the concept of timed fire and single, aimed shots before moving up to some variation of rapid fire.

It's all in how they are taught and how errors are corrected - the function of the instructor.

Following up on my initial post. I decided to go with the 15-22 and picked up one last night for $350 locally. I have yet to shoot it, hoping for some time this weekend\early next week, but I can say that so far I'm very pleased with the decision. I spent quite a bit of time with the rifle last night unboxing and doing an initial cleaning. I'm very impressed with the build and features S&W put into this "little" .22. I'm sure I'll have many a happy range hour with it in the months to come!

Also, as a follow up to my ammo dilemma, my local Walmart and Dicks seem to have heard my want for more local ammo. I was able to pick up just over 600 rounds of various brands, Winchester, Federal and Remington for just under $60. That calms my nerves on that issue a bit, as well as being easy on the wallet.

I'll follow up again with a new post once I get a few hundred of these rounds through it.

Take a look at buying a used 22lr rifle. A used Marlin 60 semi on gunbroker will cost you a third of a new 15-22. And as for ammo, there actually is plenty online from Trop, PSA, Midway, Cabela's etc. Sure there is shipping added but there are deals to be had out there.