Saw one of these while perusing the website for a LGS. I did a quick Google search to learn more and saw it was designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro. As a car enthusiast I immediately knew that name. This guy designed so many things, but is most known for cars. He was named "Car Designer of the Century" in 1999! I think I'll have to pick one of these up and give it a new home. P.S. It came out in 2002, which would be a wee bit more than "nearly a decade ago".
I have the exact same pistol. Bought it in 2012 new for $251 It's a good shooter and eats almost any 22 ammo. I wasn't a fan of the grip or the sights so I put on a Hogue grip sleeve and a Truglo red dot. It's now my favorite .22lr pistol to shoot at the range.
I bought one years ago on a whim after seeing one at a gun store. I’d bought the CX4 partially because of the design and the U22 was from that same studio. I’ve always owned Ruger MkII’s bull barrels so this is quite different. This one shoot very well and is fun, but I haven’t really done target work with it or use a scope on it yet.
Thanks for doing a video on an under-appreciated and not super well known .22 pistol. It’s a great gun for plinking and teaching new shooters. I left some comments on the short video for this, maybe if I get on the computer I’ll copy and paste them over to here. Great gun, very reliable for a .22 handgun - have had mine for well over a decade and it ate through every cheap garbage type of ammo I could find, no FTFs or FTEs. Back in the ancient times, when .22 was affordable and available.... many of the .22 pistols were finicky and were prone to malfunctions unless you paid what was then ‘high dollar’ for stuff like CCI mini mags / or they may do well with a couple types of budget ammo but then wouldn’t tolerate a whole long list of other manufacturers. I specifically bought this fugly alien gun because the reputation was it would do fine with all the cheap ammo, and it (and the extra mags) were much cheaper than say, the Sig Mosquito, back then. If you do pick up one used, be advised there was a recall a handful of years ago re: some being able to fire while safety was on - I didn’t send mine in because I was taught from childhood - ‘don’t rely on a mechanical safety, ever’ and ‘don’t be an idiot when handling firearms’ - treat it like it’s always loaded and always chambered, just like with any gun, and recall thing shouldn’t matter from what my understanding of the issue was. Take care and happy plinking, everyone.
