After reading all the raving reviews of the accuracy of the little badger in .22LR, I couldnt wait to get one. I thought Id take a chance and get it in .22 mag, as I had a few .22LR guns already.
The gun looks fantastic and attracts a lot of attention. One odd problem is ho the bars of the stock basically two metal bars almost always press up against your cheek when shooting, which is a bit of a problem considering magnum rounds have a bit of kick. The magnum varient of the badger does have one advantage, however, and that is the ammo holders at the back. People commonly complained that the ammo holders on the .22LR variant of the rifle didnt hold the rounds well. The magnum variants holders fit WMR rounds securely, and can even hold WRF if you push them in from the front of the bullet first.
The first day of shooting, I ended up shooting WRF rounds through it, as I had no WMR available. I was missing shot after shot on a two inch target from about 20 yards. I figured it was the ammo, but upon trying WMR, I was still missing at embarrassingly close ranges.
For a while, I figured the .22 mag variant of the badger was junk. I later out of curiosity replaced its stock sight with a Red dot, and I was suddenly nailing bulls-eyes continuously from about 30-50 yards. I even took the gun long range shooting the other day and almost hit a target from 300 yards away.
As it turns out, the sight on the gun was made for the .22lr variant, and Chiappa didnt modify it for the .22 mag rifle. Put a bit of money into a real sight Which isnt hard, considering how many tactical rails the badger has on it, and you will have an incredibly accurate, neat little rifle. Definitely worth the money once a proper sight is mounted.
