Looking for first long gun

[ChillyBill]

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

[Gunnr]

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'...

[MP Gunther]

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.

[Iwap_Evile]

Everybody should have a 10/22

[ChillyBill]

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!

[alisamifarooq]

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