The .25 acp Raven cost a whopping $159 or so when new. Its often derided as a “Saturday night special”, when in fact its one of the most reliable and useful guns around. Generally they are unreliable because some want to be gunsmith has screwed it up. Or its been left to rust. Or it never gets cleaned and oiled. Or its recoil spring has never been replaced. Or its firing pin spring has never been replaced. But as to the design? Its flawless. And a ton of fun to shoot. Highly concealable. I happened to get mine from a little old lady who had never shot it, so it was mint. Because I clean and lube religiously, I’ve never had a failure to feed or eject. I think a lot of it is the makers who couldn’t design a reliable gun if their life depended on it, and want to charge a mint for crap, don’t want it getting around how cheap and easy it is to build a good gun.

Then there’s the Taurus PT22 Poly. What a mixed bag. I watched Richard at Small Caliber Arms Review take a look at one today. It ran for him like it sometimes does for me: like shit. When he used cheap Remington ‘Thunderbolt‘ (for God’s sake) it ran perfect! When he ran premium Federal Punch or Winchester Silvertip it clogged up like a gas station toilet. I put 120 rounds through mine today with bulk Winchester M-22, and it ran flawlessly! There are other times I can’t make it through an 8 round magazine without 3 jams. Generally if your .22 LR won’t run on CCI Mini Mags, it ain’t gonna run. I literally do not understand it. How one day it can run like a Glock, and the next day like a Taurus. Just do not understand it. I clean it the same, I lube it the same, I load the magazines the same way. And one day its the gun from hell, and the next I want to keep it forever. Which gun is going to show up on the day you might someday need it?