[BadWool]

Earlier this year I went with my dad to his favorite sporting goods store because he is like Norm from Cheers when he walks in(retired life, gotta love it I guess). While there, he asked one of the sales guys if there was anything unique to check out. The guy set down a Ruger 10/22 on the counter. I just looked at it and wondered to myself what the heck was so unique about this little .22 rifle. I rolled it over on the counter and immediately noticed something was jammed in the magazine port and I was WTF is wrong with this thing.

I then looked at the barrel end and WHOA, this is not a .22! That is when I begin to scrutinize the entire thing, and noticed "RUGER CARBINE 44 MAGNUM CAL" stamped on the left side. From that point I just couldn't get enough of this little rifle and the sales guy was getting a chuckle out of it because it does fool people who are unaware of it's existence into thinking it is a 10/22.

Well after chatting about it a little with the sales guy I let him return it to the shelf and I went to checking out other things, and then noticed my dad was buying the carbine. When the purchase was complete he turned and handed it to me - said I seemed to really take a liking to that rifle and given the unique history and hard to come by nature of it, figured it was either get it now or it would be a long time till one is seen again.

I wholeheartedly agree with the assertion that it is a fickle rifle when it comes to the power of the load. Using 1200+FPS it cycles just fine, but dropping down to 1000FPS turns it into a single shot carbine.

What is really interesting though is that the 10/22 was modeled after the .44 Carbine. The .44 began production in 1959 whereas the 10/22 debuted in 1964. Makes me wonder how many others have completely otherlooked the Carbine thinking it was a 10/22...........