After shooting three 500 shell boxes of ammo through my new 22a1 pistol, I have to say I'm a little disappointed. I didn't realize it had a piece of plastic inside it that needed to be changed every 300-400 rounds. How long are these little pieces of plastic going to be readily available? The gun will be useless if they quit making them. I'm sure after they come out with several new models, these will be obsolete, and these will be sitting around gathering dust.
All of the guns made now with magazines are like printers. After buying them you have to pay about half of what you paid for the printer for an ink cartridge. It's the same way with the price of a magazine for these guns.
It does shoot fairly accurately, and I like the gun. The little piece of plastic doesn't cost very much. I guess I need to find a place that sells them buy the dozen, if I plan on keeping the thing, and shooting it much.
I'm not really into these 22 pistols much. Maybe all the brands have little pieces of plastic that need replaced. I didn't know I needed to ask.

That piece is a recoil spacer and doesn't need to be replaced all that often; IIRC, the owner's manual does not specify any replacement interval. I no longer have my 22A, but I recall that the spacer will compress to a certain extent and no further; it is still doing it's job but it will not have a pristine appearance.

The spacer in my gun had that appearance when I traded it, and I had over 1500 rounds through it at that time. I had already decided that I would see how long it would last and just swap it out if it got ragged enough. It is pretty tough material, so I think I would have had a long wait.

I lost the spacer that came on mine the first time I disassembled it. There was an extra one in the box; I contacted S&W and they sent me a few free of charge.

For their price range, they are pretty good little pistols. If you try out a few assorted makes of match ammo, you will be amazed at how accurate they are. Like all .22 pistols, there will be some brands of ammunition that will give much better results than others.

I have the 22A-1 and have shot about 1000 rounds through it and don't see any damage to recoil spacer, but after 2 hundred rounds on first outting it cut a grove in frame on side where slide hold back is it had a burr right where to hold back contacted the slide it cut right through finish into frame I filed it off and looks like it will work ok as is but you woul think they would not send one out like that, and trigger is way to heavy of pull i just can't get use to it after shooting my 41 wish I could fix that trigger.

I have put about 2500 rounds through mine and have not replaced the recoil spacer yet. Like cjw3 said, it compresses slightly, gets dirty but still functions fine. I figured that whenever it requires replacing, the gun will tell me so.
I would imagine that S&W will continue to stock replacements as long as they carry the 22A in the inventory, and then others will continue to sell them afterwards.

I have at least 8000 rounds thru my 22A and am still useing the same small piece of plastic that came with it. I just wipe it down with cleaner and put it back in every time I clean this gun. The spare one has never been out of the box as yet but someday it will go into service I am sure. Then I will look for more to stock up on. This is now my backup piece on the range as I mainly shoot my 46. I sold a Berretta Neo's last week as the 22A was a better backup unit then it was. The Berretta was in fine shape with a scope but just didn't quite feel as good as the smiths that I have in my paws. I have 6" scars from surgury damage on each wrist which limits my grip quite a bit. The hand feel is a major issue with me.

I have had mine for a year and some months now, first 50 CCI had one failure to feed, broke it down and cleaned and lubed it again and other than the sub-sonic stuff it has been flawless. Next purchase was a red dot sight @$65 and I am in love. Really a great warm up gun for a day at the range. jb

Brownell has them for 2-3 dollars. I bought some just to have. Still on my original with over a 1000 rounds.