Last Saturday at my local indoor range I counted four different guys shooting rimfire off the same bay, and three of them were running pistols that cost less than a box of premium 9mm defensive ammo. That’s not a coincidence. Ammo prices did what ammo prices do, and a lot of shooters finally admitted they’d rather put 300 rounds through a .22LR than 50 through their carry gun and call it “practice.”
Here’s the long and short of it: a .22LR handgun that mimics the size, weight, and trigger of your actual carry gun will make you a better shooter faster than dry fire alone, and cheaper than live fire with your defensive caliber. But not every rimfire pistol is built for that job. Some are target guns with no place on a duty belt. Some are just cheap. Below is what I’d actually put money on, ranked by what they’re good for, not just spec sheets.
Quick picks before we get into it #
Best overall for most shooters: the Ruger Mark IV. Best budget pick: the Heritage Rough Rider… no, actually for practice purposes it’s the Ruger 22/45 Lite you want on a budget. Best premium pick: the Walther GSP. Best trainer for carry-gun dry runs: the SIG Sauer P322. I’ll walk through why below, plus a few others worth knowing about.
Best overall: Ruger Mark IV Standard #
I’ve owned three Mark-series Rugers over the years and the Mark IV fixed the one real complaint anybody ever had about this line: the takedown. You push a button now instead of fighting a pin with a punch and a bad word. Everything else that made the Mark I through III a training staple for two generations of shooters is still here — dead-reliable feeding, a trigger that’s better than it has any right to be at this price, and enough aftermarket support that you can turn it into whatever you want.
It’s not a carry-gun trainer. It’s heavy, it’s got a bull barrel option that makes it front-heavy, and the grip angle is its own thing. But if the goal is pure trigger control, sight picture, and just burning rounds without your hand aching by round 200, this is the gun. Pros: rock-solid reliability, excellent factory trigger, huge parts and holster support. Cons: takedown still takes a few tries the first time, not a carry-gun analog, the weight adds up over a long range session.
Best budget pick: Ruger 22/45 Lite #
The 22/45 Lite runs the same action as the Mark IV but wears a polymer grip frame shaped like a 1911, which matters more than people think if you’re trying to build muscle memory for a 1911-pattern carry gun. It’s aluminum-and-polymer construction keeps weight down, and street price usually lands under $400, sometimes closer to $350 if you catch a sale at a shop like Bud’s or your local dealer.
It won’t shoot quite as tight a group as the steel-frame Mark IV at 25 yards, and the fluted barrel shroud picks up carbon fast if you don’t clean it. But for a few hundred rounds a month of trigger work, this is where I’d spend first-time money. Pros: lighter than steel-frame options, grip angle useful for 1911 shooters, same reliable action as the Mark IV. Cons: barrel shroud fouls quickly, accuracy edge goes to the heavier models, aftermarket holster options are thinner than for a Glock-pattern gun.
Best premium pick: Walther GSP #
This one’s a different animal entirely and I want to be upfront about it — the GSP is a dedicated Olympic-style target pistol, not a general-purpose range gun, and it costs like it. You’re looking at four figures. But if you’re serious about bullseye shooting or you coach junior shooters heading toward NRA or ISSF competition, nothing else on this list touches the trigger or the balance.
I got to shoot one at a match a few years back on loan from a friend and the trigger genuinely spoiled me for a week afterward. Everything else felt gritty by comparison. Pros: match-grade trigger and barrel, adjustable grip and sights built for precision, a genuine step up for competitive shooters. Cons: expensive for a rimfire pistol, overkill for casual practice, not something you’d want banging around in a range bag with your other gear.
Best for carry-gun dry runs: SIG Sauer P322 #
If your actual carry gun is a striker-fired polymer pistol and you want a rimfire trainer that feels close to it in the hand, the P322 is the obvious call. Similar controls, a threaded barrel option if you’re running a can on your centerfire gun too, and a 20-round flush magazine that lets you work through drills without reloading every ten shots.
Reliability took a minute to shake out — early production runs had some feeding hiccups that SIG addressed, and I’d still recommend running a few hundred rounds through any rimfire before you trust it for serious dry-run practice. Pros: closest control layout to a modern striker gun on this list, high-capacity magazine, threaded barrel available. Cons: needs a break-in period, early units had reliability complaints, magazines aren’t cheap to replace if you lose one.
Best for revolver shooters: Smith & Wesson Model 617 #
Most of this list skews semi-auto because that’s where the training-gun market lives, but if your carry piece is a wheelgun, practicing with a semi-auto .22 teaches you the wrong trigger habits. The Model 617 is a 10-shot .22LR revolver built on the K-frame, and it shoots like a Smith should. Double-action pull is smooth once it’s broken in, and the extra cylinder capacity over a standard six-shot revolver means more trigger presses per cylinder, more reps per range trip.
It’s not cheap and it’s not light, but if you carry a .357 or .38 wheelgun and want dry-fire-adjacent live practice that actually transfers, this is close to the only game in town. Pros: true double-action trigger feel, 10-round capacity beats most rimfire revolvers, K-frame durability. Cons: price sits closer to premium than budget, weight isn’t a great match for smaller-framed carry revolvers, DA trigger needs breaking in before it feels right.
Best compact trainer: Browning Buck Mark #
I’ve written about this gun before and I’ll say it again here — the Buck Mark just doesn’t quit. It’s been in continuous production since 1985 for a reason. The grip is more ergonomic out of the box than the Ruger lineup for a lot of hand sizes, and the trigger, while not quite Mark IV-level stock, responds well to a basic spring kit if you want to tune it.
For a full breakdown I’d point you to our Buck Mark review, but the short version for practice purposes: it’s accurate, it’s reliable, and used ones show up at gun shows for good money because owners take care of them. Pros: comfortable grip for a wide range of hand sizes, long track record of reliability, tunable trigger. Cons: not a carry-gun analog in size or controls, sight radius on some models is shorter than ideal for precision work, aftermarket barrels can get pricey.
The one I’d skip: sub-$200 novelty revolvers #
I’ll be blunt about this one. Single-action rimfire revolvers in the Heritage Rough Rider mold are fun, and fine for plinking with a kid at a state park range on a Saturday. But they’re not a practice gun in the sense we’re talking about here — no repeatable double-action trigger, no capacity to speak of, and build quality that varies more than it should. If your goal is genuine skill transfer to a defensive handgun, this category doesn’t get you there. Spend the extra hundred bucks on the 22/45 Lite instead.
Why rimfire practice actually works #
Fear of recoil is one of the biggest things that wrecks new shooters’ fundamentals and rimfire takes that variable almost completely off the table. You can focus purely on trigger press, sight alignment, and follow-through without your brain flinching in anticipation of a bang it’s scared of. I’ve seen it happen dozens of times running qualification courses when I was still on the job — officers who struggled with a duty pistol suddenly shot lights-out once we handed them a .22 conversion kit or a dedicated trainer for a session.
The catch is that rimfire ammo isn’t free and it isn’t always available, and the CDC and other public health bodies that track firearm injury data don’t distinguish much between calibers when it comes to safe handling basics, so the fundamentals still matter regardless of what’s in the chamber. Treat every .22 like it’s loaded because, statistically, unintentional discharges happen more often with guns people assumed were “just” rimfire and therefore not dangerous. They’re plenty dangerous. Check the NSSF’s published safety materials if you want the numbers on that.
If you’re building a home range routine, pairing rimfire live-fire sessions with regular dry fire at home covers most of what you need without burning through a budget. We’ve got a full breakdown on that in our dry fire practice piece that’s worth reading alongside this one.
Matching the trainer to your actual carry gun #
This is the part people skip and shouldn’t. A rimfire trainer only earns its keep if it teaches your hands something that transfers. If you carry a compact striker gun, the P322 or a similarly-sized rimfire pistol makes more sense than a bull-barrel target gun that weighs twice as much and points nothing like your carry piece. If you’re still deciding between a revolver and a semi-auto for a first handgun altogether, our revolver vs semi-auto breakdown covers that decision in more depth than I can here.
And if concealment is part of your daily carry setup, remember the trainer doesn’t need to conceal, it needs to teach. Don’t let carry-gun holster habits from our IWB vs OWB piece bleed into how you’re choosing a range gun. Different job entirely.
What I’d actually buy today #
If someone walked into my garage right now and asked me to pick one, it’s the Mark IV. It’s the gun I’d hand a new shooter, the gun I’d hand an experienced one who wants to shoot more for less, and the gun that’s still sitting in my range bag a decade after I first bought one. The 22/45 Lite is the smarter buy if budget’s tight or you’re working on 1911 fundamentals specifically, and the SIG earns its spot if your carry gun is a modern striker pistol and you want the closest possible dry-run feel.
Bottom line, rimfire practice isn’t a compromise, it’s a multiplier — more trigger time for the same money, and less flinch to unlearn later. Buy the one that matches what you actually carry, not just the one on sale this week.
— Wyatt Coale, Handguns & Concealed Carry Editor