I recently traded a .357 Magnum handgun for this .22 rifle. It is in great shape, and has very minimal wear on the wood stock. Does anyone else have one of these, and can anyone tell me the pros and cons of this rifle? I had a Remington 512 years ago, and think it was one of the better .22 rifles ever made. This one is very similar in the design and usage, except it is semi-auto instead of bolt action. It shoots .22 Short, Long, and Long Rifle, making it very versatile. I am going to finally be able to shoot out my several thousand rounds of older .22 shorts I have had for around a decade come Spring. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated, regarding knowledge and any quirky behavior this rifle can have.
I inherited a 552 speedmaster from my father in law. Overall it's been one of the more reliable .22s I've owned, I haven't had anything break on it in the 20+ years I've had it, other than the 4x weaver scope that came with it wouldn't hold a zero.
It has some interesting features that makes it seemed like it was designed for left handers, the bolt handle being on the left side takes some getting used to. While it's ability to take multiple .22 sizes seems useful, truthfully I really haven't seen any size other than .22lr or CBs locally, so I can't comment on how it works with other sizes other than the lr.
Feeding reliability seems to be it's strongest feature, mine will eat just about anything, even Remington's Thunderbolts or Golden Bullets which will choke any other .22 I own ( with the exception of my Sig 522 ) and will tolerate being neglected as far as cleaning goes. At most I might pull a boresnake down the barrel, wipe down the bolt and give it a shot of CLP every so often, but it keeps going, so I've never done a detailed cleaning on it.
It's a fun plinker, about the only thing negative I could say about it is when compared to some of the newer .22s out there, IMHO it seems a bit pedestrian in appearance and isn't as easy to break down and clean.
That has been my problem so far, as taking it apart for cleaning seems much more of a job compared to the 10/22. When I had the Remington 512,simple take out the bolt and you were in business. Anyway, I am happy so far with it, and knowing it is dependable makes me feel pretty good.
Here's a link that has a lot of good info on various firearm manuals. The Speedmaster 552 has a pretty good breakdown instructions, I've never got that ambitious to do it yet, but I've printed out a copy for future reference. page7b
