Two of my friends have the BL-22. They both love them. I have shot both and they are great little guns. I once had a Winchester 9422 and sold it. Dumb, dumb, dumb! I did pick up a Marlin 39 Centennial 1870-1970 in the late '80s. I love the octagon barrel and the straight stock.
One of the BL-22 owners bought his in about 1974. He had shot my other friend's Browning and decided he wanted one too. He lived outside of Birmingham and I was visiting him before we went back to college. The Sears, Roebuck and Co store in downtown B'ham had one, so he went and looked at it. The clerk couldn't find the box, so Bill paid for the rifle and we walked out of the store with him carrying the .22 over his shoulder. Nowadays, somebody would have called the SWAT team.
