Earlier this year, we attended Range Ready’s “Plinkapalooza,” a celebration of all things rimfire. There were “friendly” competitions, devious challenges and straight-up feats of marksmanship on display, with most firearms chambered in .22 LR, but also some .17 HMR and .22 Mag. represented. Firearms, both handgun and rifle, as well as various ammunition offerings, sound suppressors and even a few super-secret new products were unveiled.
Smith & Wesson brought a number of firearms to the event, two of which we discussed with Dave O’Connor, Smith & Wesson’s media partnership relations manager: the FPC in .22 LR and the new M&P22X handgun, the latest iteration of Smith & Wesson’s polymer-frame rimfire pistol. These two M&P offerings share 20-round magazines (10-round versions are available for restricted locales) in addition to threaded barrels for suppressed operation if desired.
The FPC extends Smith & Wesson’s folding-pistol-carbine line to the rimfire world, bringing a lightweight, easily portable .22 LR rifle alongside the longstanding M&P15-22 AR-15-based rimfire carbine. Coming in at a weight slightly more than 4 pounds and measuring 16.38 inches folded, the M&P FPC is both easy to shoot and easy to get to and from the range.
The M&P22X brings a host of upgrades to Smith & Wesson’s polymer-frame rimfire handgun, such as a bladed-safety trigger, updated sights and an optics cut for RMSc- and K-series footprints. Like the previous iteration of the M&P22 pistol, the barrel is threaded for a sound suppressor, but uses a thread adaptor so that the barrel is flush with the slide when a suppressor is not attached.
We had a chance to run both the M&P FPC and M&P22X at Plinkapalooza, including shooting the pistol on the 100-yard NRL rifle course-of-fire. Both functioned as expected, and accuracy was impressive for both the carbine and the pistol. The 20-round magazines are a great help with going head-to-head with other gunwriters, too.
