Looking for first long gun

To date I've been a handgun guy but I'm nosing around for my first long gun. I'm looking for simplicity in operation & maintenance, not too big, something that can be used for home defense and also have some fun at the range.

I'm thinking some sort of carbine; here's my list so far:

* Ruger 10/22

* An AK of some sort

* An AR of some sort

* The Hi-Point carbine

The Ruger is a classic and a very reasonable price but I worry about the rimfire aspect. The AK/AR's are obvious choices but I hear the prices are going ballistic (sorry!). The Hi-Point is interesting; seems to be a love-it/hate-it gun, no middle ground, but low capacity mags.

Any others? I hear the Czech VZ rifles are good but I haven't researched them yet.

Thanks!

Chilly Bill

Hey Bill, Century Arms has come out with some nice AK's this year at around the 600.00 mark if you are an AK sort of guy. I have a DTI AR 15 that I love. It came with a heavy barrel, all mag-pul furniture and a lot of goodies. for 739.00 I added an Eotech for 499.00 and a Geiselle trigger for 172.00 and I'm all set. The 10/22 is the best .22 cal rifle in the universe. Also if you look around you can most likely find a nice lever action rifle at a good price in any of a list of calibers. Happy hunting bro... Oh and myself... I wouldn't hit a cat in the ass with anything from Hi Point. Just sayin'...:cool:

The Hi-Point, you get what you pay for but they're OK for the money I guess. Had a C9 for a while and it worked but I just couldn't feel that if my life depended on it, it would go bang. I my self am looking for my first long gun and I'm kinda leaning towards an AK.

Everybody should have a 10/22

I do like the 10/22 Takedown model, the price is certainly good, and the few YouTube videos I've seen don't show any (or rare) misfires. Plus that 50-round magazine looks like fun!

I was at the range a while back and suddenly had brass raining down on me from the guy in the next lane, accompanied by some rather impressive "bangs!", so of course I stopped and talked to the guy about what he was firing. He called it a "baby AK" but I wasn't able to get much more info as a crowd of other shooters was gathering; I wanted to find out what the caliber was, who made it, etc. It did look like a blast to shoot!

As per my opinion Ruger 10/22 is best, so you can try this ~ Ali sami Farooq