A nice lady named Kathy already has the name "Cornered Cat," and she runs a website loaded with useful information aimed at women (but helpful to men as well).
Click on: http://www.corneredcat.com/

You may want to consider changing your screen name, to eliminate confusion.

The Ruger is more difficult than most, but like many things, not such a big deal once you know how to do it. Looks like you're choosing between two of the most recommended .22 handguns. I'd imagine that you'll be happy with either.

I've not broken down a Ruger, but I do own an earlier, and very similar, version of the Buckmark called the Challenger III. It's not difficult, but it does require some effort to get the recoil spring and buffer back into the slide and frame. I found that using a dental pick or something similar to sort of push the spring into the slide and then get everything lined up helped me out.

I love my Buck Mark.




I even added some optic's



This is a very accurate gun.

It almost always goes to the range with me.

Everyone loves shooting it.

Good luck finding what you want.

Originally Posted by Steve M1911A1

A nice lady named Kathy already has the name "Cornered Cat," and she runs a website loaded with useful information aimed at women (but helpful to men as well).
Click on: http://www.corneredcat.com/

You may want to consider changing your screen name, to eliminate confusion.

Sorry! did not realize. I did go to the web site and its wonderful. I will change my name.

Both of your choices are fine guns. Breaking down the Ruger to clean is a little harder than the Buckmark, but not enough to buy one over the other. Buy the one you like that has a good feel to YOU. It is a personal thing. You will find that .22's can be fininky with ammo due to differences in manufacturing tolerances. When you buy your Buckmark/Ruger take it apart and clean it thoroughly. Then get several small boxes of different manufacturers ammo to try in your gun. You will find out which ammo your gun "likes" for feeding reliably and accuracy. Use your guns prefered ammo(s) and life with your .22 will be good.

+1 yeti

I have a buckmark with thousands of rounds through it. so far it eats anything I feed it, except winchester wildcats.
you can't go wrong with either gun though.

I really find it hard to believe that after all of these years, that Ruger has not come up with a better design of their Mark series target pistols, so that you would not have to be a Houdini in order to get that little swing arm thingy in the correct position before the main spring housing, etc. can be gotten back into the gun.

I am not saying that getting the gun back together is impossible, but it really needs to be designed so that having to align that little swing arm is not required in order to put the gun back together.

Maybe Ruger thinks that this is the best design in order to accomplish the features of the gun. But my guess is, that this has cost them "some" gun sales over the years, i.e I dont think this problem is really good press for their pistols.

Thanks.

It does help to have a little mechanical aptitude when taking any firearm apart. The design of that little thingy has been around since 1949 and works quite well. All major manufactures of .22's have there pluses and minuses. Pick out the one you like the best and learn how to take care of it. It will give you a life time of pleasure.

Both are good .22's, and yes the Ruger is a little harder to break down and clean. Main advantage to the Ruger is that there are a lot of after market parts. If down the road you want to change sights, grips, or start shooting bullseye match, parts are easy to find with a wide rang of prices. I have 2 Rugers right now one is set up for plinking and can popping while the other is set up and being used for bullseye match. As for cleaning, I only break them down if it starts having problems. I will patch the barrel and clean out the action and mag. well but frequent full tear downs are not really needed. I don't understand your ammo problem mine shoot anything.

I love my Buckmark. It eats any kind of ammo I feed it and it is easy to strip and clean.

I love my Ruger but I shot a buddies buckmark and it was even a little nicer in my opinion. It did cost more as well so you could upgrade the ruger for the same money. Either one would be great. Taking the ruger apart isn't that big a deal.