Springfield Armory’s race gun in 9mm Luger was very accurate and extremely fast. It was enough to make the author wish he owned an ammo factory.

7. S&W M&P 15-22
From a distance the new M&P 15-22 looks like an AR-15, and up close it feels about the same, but it was designed from the ground up to shoot .22 Long Rifle ammunition. Of all the guns I shot, this one ranked among the top five as the most fun to shoot.

Built around upper and lower receivers made of high-strength polymer, it has a 16-inch barrel with a rifling twist rate of 1:15 inches. Other features include a 25-round magazine (with AR-15- style release), six-position collapsible stock, and flat-top receiver with Picatinny-style rail extending all the way to the end of the handguard. Fully adjustable iron sights consist of an aperture on the receiver and a post up front. Smith & Wesson will sell zillions of this one.

8. Stoeger X50 Airgun
The modern airgun is a whole lot different from the Daisy Red Ryder I was mighty proud of as a kid, and the X50 in .177 caliber is an excellent example of how far airgun design has progressed.

Of spring-piston, break-action design, it reaches a muzzle velocity of 1,500 fps with a 10-grain lead pellet and 1,700 fps with an aluminum pellet of slightly lighter weight. Like other members of the Stoeger family of airguns, the X50 has a two-stage trigger, wears fully adjustable fiber-optic sights, and has a grooved receiver for scope mounting. Stock options are wood and synthetic.

This, my friends, is no toy. Last year our neighborhood was practically overrun by gray squirrels that not only played havoc with our bird feeders, but also they gnawed into the attic of a neighbor's house while they were on vacation and caused extensive damage. So, with airgun in hand, I declared war on marauding bushytails, and the problem went away. A pellet to the head out to 20 yards worked every time.

S&W’s new M&P 15-22 in .22 Long Rifle was one of the author’s top five fun-to-shoot guns.

9. T/C Icon Precision Hunter
The Precision Hunter I shot on steel targets at 600 yards was chambered for .308 Winchester, but it is also available in .204 Ruger, .223 Remington, .22-250, and .243 Winchester. Guaranteed to shoot inside an inch at 100 yards, it has a laminated wood stock, a 3.5-pound trigger, an integral Picatinny-style scope-mounting base, and a heavy 24-inch barrel with 5R rifling.

I was shooting Black Hills ammo loaded with the Sierra 168-grain MatchKing, and the fellow standing behind me on the spotting scope was Jeff Hoffman, who just happens to own Black Hills Ammunition. In other words, I was well outfitted and in good company. Acting like a greenhorn, I ignored the flags waving in the wind downrange and completely missed the target with my first two shots. Paying more attention to the flags, I squeezed off another round and found the exact center of steel. The next four snuggled close to the first. According to Jeff, all five could have been covered by the bottom of Grandma's fine china teacup with room to spare.