Marlin sells more .22's than anybody else in the world if they were junk I doubt they would be able to sell so many. People like the 10/22 because you can modify it. Personally I just shoot my guns the way they came from the factory. If you have to do a lot of modification to a gun to make it shoot like you want it to then it must not of been very good. I'm not saying anything bad about the 10/22's they are great guns. Though I prefer my Marlin's over the 10/22's. I also shoot a Ruger Mark II target pistol that I would put up against any other model made.