Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Rimfires Savage A22?

Anybody have any experience with one?

I won a Savage A22 22 long rifle last week. I’ve owned a few 22 autos over the years but never a Savage. After getting it home I proceeded to break it down to clean it. It had so much oil on and in it, it was actually dripping out of the action. Got everything dried off, run patches through the bore and got all the oil out of it.

After removing and cleaning the included pic rail I got it reinstalled and torqued. I had some Burris Signature Zee rings in my parts box and an older Japanese made Sightron S1 3-9x40 duplex I figured I’d try. Got the scope mounted, reticle leveled and bore sighted.

Sighting in was painless and got it zero’d at 50 yards. All I can say is that I was surprised how well the little rifle shot and how accurate it was even though the trigger sucks. I’m not even sure what ammo I was shooting because I had dumped a bulk pack into a Tupperware bowl a couple years ago and threw away the box.

I might have to find a place in the truck for it when checking pasture fences.

Looking good. That's what I'd expect out of one. I have an A17 that is a tack driver. The A22's I've seen, have all shot well. I don't like the tupperware/plastic models, as the stocks seem to flex too much. I wouldn't complain if I won one, as you did, but if it didn't have a laminated stock, I'd probably invest in one. Especially if the rifle didn't cost me anything..


Savage may be extremely underrated here, but they do tend to make accurate rifles.

Looks good given who knows what was shot out of it. Plenty accurate for pasture critters.

It would be nice to see what it does with good ammo. Or even Federal Automatch, as a baseline. I'd try some of that Eley Semi-auto benchrest in it, or the Semi-auto outlaw, or SK Standard Plus.

Thanks for the replies guys. Since I didn’t remember what ammo I was shooting I ordered some Super X hollow points to give them a try after the older ammo is gone. They were recommended by quite a few guys for use on critters and were pretty accurate.
It should be a fun little gun.

It's a Savage, it will probably like Federal ammo. I'd try some of their hollow point options, like the Game Shok, Hi-power, and American Eagle 38gr copper plated hollowpoints. Federal Automatch for plinking.

I've had a Savage A22M (.22 Magnum) for 6 years now... I have yet to find anything (other than the black plastic stock) that bothered me in any way.

Accurate, and no misfires/jams at all.

That's pretty good. Their delayed blowback system is much better suited for the magnum cartridges like the WMR and HMR. That is one area where Ruger failed miserably. You'd probably like that rifle much better in a Boyds.

Update- the ammo that was a mystery is now unmasked. It is Aguila, 38 grain, super hollow point that I was originally shooting.

The Super X that I ordered came today. I shot 20 rounds, they would not group better than 3 inches, had 3 failures to extract and 1 that did not fire even though the striker hit the case. I put the rest of the Super X on the shelf and will use them for a bolt action. I also shot more Aguila and they all performed good as before.

I checked a local gun shop today for some Federals but they didn’t carry any. I’ll check another place tomorrow for some Federals and maybe pick up some more Aguila.

That is pretty poor accuracy from that ammo. I'd expect a little better out of it. But, I've seen some Winchester stuff that shot like crap as well. I've also been shooting many different types of Aguila ammo, and it has been pretty good across the board. This was older "eley prime" copper plated


Group shot from my 10/22 with Green mountain barrel.

and some older lead round nosed 40 gr ammo. The newer Aguila ammo shot pretty well too. That was labeled "Aguila prime" instead of "Eley prime". Some super express ammo, and some hollow point ammo. It's not really that bad of ammo, and it's pretty easy to find over here. Cabela's had a bunch of hollow points there, for something like $3.99/box, so I bought a few boxes of that to try. It shoots right around .8" for 10 shots, in most of my rifles.

If you go to Cabela's, you may be able to find some Norma match ammo. I found some there the other day. It's always shot real well in my rifles, and is fairly affordable...

The barrels on the A (auto) series and the B (bolt) series have the barrel threaded to the receiver, don't they?

BSA, How does your A22 shoot?

My A17 shoots awesome. It's the big brother to the A22. I've been around A22's that shoot lights out as well. Some of my buddies can't afford (or that's their excuse) a "high dollar 10/22", so they bought the A22's to play around with instead. They also buy Ruger Americans and Savage mk2's, for the same reason.

This is one of the reasons why I say to buy one with a laminated stock, instead of the flimsy plastic stock savage uses. My buddies both bought the plastic stocked ones and later regretted it.