Choosing a first rifle

I’m looking to buy a .22 rimfire for rabbit shooting and looking at perhaps a Ruger 10/22. Would this be a good accurate first rifle?

The Ruger 10/22 has been around for a long time now and

has been very popular, especially in the US, with a large fan base and numerous aftermarket accessories and upgrades available. These rifles are rather like Lego — you can build all kinds of variations of the same gun with all the different extras, rather like the popular Smith & Wesson M&P 15-22, which is another great fun semi-auto rimfire.

In honesty, semi-auto rifles, although great fun to shoot, can often suffer with

reliability and accuracy issues over a standard bolt-action rifle. If you want a fast shooting, fun plinking and casual hunting rifle then by all means a semi-auto such as the 10/22 would be the way forward.

If you’re looking for more precision, accuracy and reliability, then a boltaction rifle such as the Tikka T1X or one of the popular CZ models offer excellent value for money. MR

The Tikka T1X is a great option for a first rifle; it offers excellent value for money, with precision, accuracy and reliability