Browning Buck Mark 051528490 22 LR

Few firearms offer as much pure fun as a good 22 LR. Recoil is almost nonexistent, and the noise level is greatly reduced. Then there is that budget thing. Even in today’s economy, a good box of 22 LR is much less expensive than even cheap 9mm. And always remember that the skills the shooter needs to master to run a HiCap Master Blaster 9mm can be practiced with a good 22 LR pistol with less damage to the wallet or to the wrists and elbows. So, we decided to take a look at three of the best affordable 22 LR pistols available right now.

The first is the Browning Buck Mark Field Target Model 051528490, $448. Ours sports a 5.5-inch bull barrel with a full-length Picatinny rail on top and gorgeous rosewood-colored laminate grips. Our second gun is a Ruger Mark IV 40101, $499. Ruger recently took a great pistol and modernized it with a new, much simpler to operate, barrel latch system, new safety, and new slide stop. Our third handgun is a Smith & Wesson SW22 Victory Model 10201, $434, which comes with a 5.5-inch barrel that includes a half-length sight bar. The rear sight is removable to allow access to the top of the action, which is already drilled and tapped to accept a Picatinny rail. Here’s what we liked and didn’t like about each gun in more detail. 

Browning Buck Mark 051528490 22 LR,

$448

Gun Tests grade: A-

That bull barrel does a great job of holding down what little recoil there is with a 22 LR. The result was a pistol that did great on our transition drills and came in a close second place in accuracy.

Originally the corporate creation of the famous John Moses Browning, today’s Browning Arms Company is owned by Fabrique Nationale. Also allied with Winchester Repeating Arms (with whom JMB was also intimately involved), the firearms manufacturers have become a juggernaut in both the military and civilian markets. While some of their firearms are produced overseas (Portugal), our Buck Mark is proudly stamped “Made in the USA.” While the Browning website shows more than 50 SKUs of various Buck Mark designs, we found just what we were looking for in the Field Target model. 

Like the others in this test group, the Buck Mark’s barrel is 5.5 inches long. Designed for accuracy, this one measures a consistent 0.90-inch diameter, leaving a lot of mass out front to stiffen the barrel and dampen what little recoil there is. A 14-slot Picatinny rail runs the full length of the pistol’s top and serves well as a proper sight plane for a base or a miniature red-dot sight. The base is attached with three screws, with the rear screw attaching to the frame and the front two mounted directly on the barrel. The base comes with good iron sights. The rear is adjustable for elevation and windage. The front is a black Patridge style that can be replaced by removing a roll pin. The combination makes for a very crisp and clean sight picture. 

The slide is right at 4 inches long and provides five grasping grooves on the rear sides. The very rear of the slide is flared to allow additional purchase for slide manipulation. The extractor is a single hook on the right side of the bolt, while the ejector is a fixed pin protruding from the left side of the frame.

Page 27 of the owner’s manual reads, “Never attempt to take your firearm apart further than explained in this owner’s manual…,” and the owner’s manual only shows how to lock open the slide and clean the moving parts with a toothbrush. With such a stark warning, we’re leery of describing or showing the break down beyond what’s in the manual, but there are two Allen screws that need to be removed to effect field stripping, one at the very rear of the slide and a second at the very front of the frame. Lift up the front of the slide and everything comes off.

The frame offers a feel that should be familiar to Browning fans. The grip is very close to the same shape and angle of the 1911 pistol designed by JMB himself. The front strap is at about 0.66 inch wide, which is narrower than the 0.759 inch we measured on a Commander we had in our battery. Then Browning added some thicker target-style grips (with a thumb rest) that makes this pistol very comfortable to handle and shoot. The grip panels are a rosewood-color laminate on our Buck Mark. The laser-engraved Browning logo added a nice finishing touch. The front strap and back strap are both smooth. The front strap lifts up under the trigger guard to provide a solid, high grip. Sorry to our Southpaws, but controls are left side only. The magazine release is slightly extended but still gets hidden by the left grip panel a bit. Both the slide release and the manual thumb safety are tabs that extend from the left side of the frame. The slide release was easy to manipulate, though we would have liked to see the thumb safety a little easier to work. As is, it hinges from the leading edge instead of the rear as on a 1911. That makes the movement a bit more awkward, though it probably wouldn’t be if we tried that practice thing. Still, we found that taking the safety off with our right thumb while grasping the pistol in our right hand was easy. Getting the leverage right to push the safety back up while using the same grip was somewhat more difficult. 

The Buck Mark uses a magazine that looked similar across all three test platforms. Made as a single-stack metal design, it provides the expected 10 rounds of 22 LR along with the obligatory thumb tab to help lower the follower for easy loading. Like its two competitors in this test, the Buck Mark comes with a magazine disconnect safety. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, they are common on 22s.

We shot multiple five-shot groups at 15 yards for all pistols. This Buck Mark shot all three loads well, showing a slight preference for the Eley Tenex loads, posting a 0.797-inch average with it. The others weren’t too shabby either. The SK Match averaged 0.940 inches, and the Eley Match posted a 0.984-inch average. Out of the nine groups we recorded, only two failed to break the 1-inch mark. Then we shot racks of 4-inch plates set 9 yards away, and the Buck Mark did well there, too. The Browning posted the best times on first shots and split times so, of course, it had the best total times. The heavy barrel out front really held down any recoil impulse and swung from plate to plate nicely. 

Our Team Said: The Buck Mark’s feeding and function were perfect, and it was accurate and fast to shoot. 

From low ready, fire five shots at 4-inch plates at 9 yards. Averages are for three repetitions.

Our speed tests are not designed to show how fast a firearm can be fired, but to use the same test on multiple guns fired by the same person to look for differences in the guns’ capabilities. We employed a CED7000 timer (Amazon.com, $140) for the speed tests.

We tested at American Shooting Centers in west Houston. We fired for accuracy at 15 yards by shooting multiple five-shot groups from a well-sandbagged Caldwell Pistolero Shooting Rest (MidwayUSA.com 517357, $28) assisted by a Mini DRC Fortune Cookie from Wiebad.com (MINIFC, $75). We used a Garmin Xero C1 Pro Chronograph (Amazon, $600) to measure velocities. 

Written and photographed by Joe Woolley, using evaluations from Gun Tests Team members. GT