Mossbergman,

I understand your desire to pick something up. In today's market, the gun is the cheap part, and the ammunition is what will cost you. Ammo for the .410 and .22 magnum will put you in the poor house if you can only scrape up $250 dollars and you like to shoot. The easy answer is get yourself a .22. Now the savages and marlins are just fine, but lets face it, they aren't too pretty and are a pain in the butt if you want to do some serious plinking. You absolutely can't go wrong with a ruger 10/22. If it were me (and it was 23 years ago), I'd shell out the extra $ for the deluxe model. It has some better wood and adequate checkering, plus just looks much nicer. The 10 round rotary clip functions flawlessly, and is flush to the bottom of the gun so it won't get snagged on branches etc. Mine has always been quite accurate out of the factory, and still shoots great after 10's of thousands of rounds. I love my .22 magnum (Ruger 77/22mag), but at $14 a box of 50, it will take the fun out of high volume shooting. I enjoy my .410, But would never hunt deer with it even if it were legal in my state, and the you'd have to be really close to a coyote to even have a chance to hit it with the .410. If you were that close, then you'd be close enough for a .22 LR.

Anyhow, just get the Ruger 10/22 deluxe and be done with it.

Regards,

KJ