Went to the range today to do some plinking with a Ruger .22 pistol.
Not a Standard Model/Mark I, not a Mark II, and not a Mark III, but...
...a Ruger
Mark IV!
The Mark IV is the biggest redesign since the original Ruger rimfire was made in 1949. The gripframe, formerly welded together from two stampings, is now a single piece, CNC machined from a forging. On the stainless guns it's a stainless steel forging, and on the blued ones, an aluminum one.
The Mark III magazines will still work in the Mark IV, but they will pop out with amazing vigor, thanks to a spring-loaded plunger. Additionally, the loaded chamber indicator is gone away from the Mark IV.
The thumb safety is a more conventional pivoting one, and the right-hand side of the ambi safety (if you aren't one of those people whose right hands are on the wrong side) can be removed with household tools, if so desired.
I started with some warmup shots in the center and then shot each dot at the indicated distance with two mags of junky Remington "Bucket o' Bullets" stuff at about a 1/rd-per-second pace. Gun shoots fine and no malfunctions (other than one dud Remington round. This is my shocked face.)
Here's the biggest deal of them all: Lock the slide to the rear, drop the mag, ensure the pistol is on safe, and then the push of one button on the rear of the frame allows the upper to tip forward like on an AR or break-open shotgun.
Then the upper assembly lifts off the gun, the bolt group is pulled out the back, and you're done. The gun can be disassembled for cleaning and put back together again in less time than it took me to type this paragraph.
They had three versions for us to shoot this past weekend: blued and stainless target models and stainless hunters with wood grips, fiber-optic sights, and fluted barrels.
There were a bunch of them on hand and I didn't personally see any malfunctions, but you expect that with Ruger deuce-deuce pistols.
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