Lipsey’s,
Incorporated, is a large firearms distributor located in Baton
Rouge, Louisiana. Every year, they contract with some of the
better firearms manufacturers to produce variations of their
weapons exclusively for Lipsey’s and their dealers. These
firearms have unique features or chamberings that can only be
found from gun dealers who buy their firearms from Lipsey’s.
For many years, Ruger fans have wanted a .44
Special Flattop Blackhawk built on the old smaller .357
Magnum frame size. Everyone has talked about it, but Lipsey’s
got it done, and are the exclusive distributor for that dandy
sixgun until it becomes a standard catalog item in 2010. They
also brought us the Boddington
series of Ruger Number One single shot rifles, and many
other exclusive firearms from Smith & Wesson, Bersa,
Beretta, and others. Now, they have really hit a home run with
this newest version of the excellent Browning Buck Mark .22
caliber pistol, their Camper Model, but with a threaded barrel
to easily attach a sound suppressor, muzzle brake, or flash
suppressor.
The Browning Buck Mark was introduced in
1985, and is the natural progression of a long line of Browning
.22 Long Rifle pistols. The internal design is not far removed
from the grand old Colt Woodsman pistols, which are beloved by
many. The Buck Mark series now includes about twenty-four
different variations, including pistols and carbines,
and the Buck Mark Camper is one of my favorites. The Camper
model is finished in a handsome matte black, and wears a five
and one-half inch heavy barrel, just slightly tapered. For
Lipsey’s, Browning lengthened the barrel by about .390 inch,
to add a threaded portion for the attachment of accessories. Like the other Buck Mark pistols,
this one wears a superb set of sights; a fixed post front,
with a fully click-adjustable rear, the base of which is
integral with the top rib. The rear sight has a fine sixteen
clicks per revolution, for precise adjustment. The rear face of
the sight is serrated, and is arguably one of the best pistol
sights made for accurate shooting, whether the target be paper,
steel, or flesh. The sight does not move with the slide as
it does on some .22 pistol designs, but is rigidly mounted, and
the sight picture is not disturbed when shooting, with an
appropriate muzzle brake or suppressor. More on that later.
The grips are black synthetic,
soft, but not too soft, if that makes any sense at all. They are
soft enough for a good grip, but not so soft as to be of the
spongy-feeling type. They are just right. Each grip panel has a
moderate thumb rest, and work equally well for both right-handed
and left-handed shooters. The thumb safety and slide release are
on the left side, and work best for a right-handed shooter, but
can be operated by a left-hander also, using the trigger finger.
The magazine release is on the left side, just at the rear of
the trigger guard, exactly where God and John Browning intended
it to be. The magazine is made of steel, and holds ten
rounds, for a loaded capacity of eleven. There is a button on
the left side of the magazine to facilitate the easy loading of
the mag. The magazine uses a coil spring for reliability.
The Buck Mark Camper has a magazine safety, which
disconnects the trigger when the magazine is removed.
The slide is dished and serrated for a secure
grip, and it locks in the open position on an empty magazine.
The slide has a large claw extractor, and a fixed-blade ejector
is attached to the frame. The pistol has the familiar Browning
gold treatment on the trigger, and releases crisply with four
pounds, three ounces of pressure on my sample. This Buck Mark
Camper has a very, very comfortable feel to it, in my
hand. The grip feels just perfect to me, and the slightly
muzzle-heavy balance makes for a steady hold. The
combination of a machined aluminum frame and heavy steel barrel
adds up to a solid weight of two pounds, three ounces on my
scale, which is enough weight for a steady hold in the field or
on the range, but not so heavy as to be a problem to pack in a
good holster. To me, the pistol feels just right. I like it more
than I thought I would, and the more I shoot it, the better I
like it.
Shooting proved to be a real pleasure. The
trigger makes it easy to predict when the shot will fire, with
no perceptible creep or overtravel. Reliability was one
hundred percent. I had one failure-to-fire, and that was traced
to a bad cartridge. The rim was properly dented by the firing pin, but it failed to ignite the powder
charge. No fault of the pistol. Every other cartridge fed,
fired, and ejected perfectly. From standard velocity target
ammo, to high velocity hollowpoints, to the hyper-velocity
varmint rounds, everything worked perfectly in this Browning
pistol.
I was interested to see what effect, if any,
barrel attachments would have on the accuracy of the pistol.
The pistol displayed excellent accuracy with a variety of
ammunition with no attachment. I did not have a Ransom
Rest insert for the Buck Mark, so I rested the pistol atop
my Target Shooting,
Inc. pistol rest. This makes for a very comfortable and
steady position for accuracy testing, but is dependent upon the
shooter’s ability to uniformly line up the sights and press
the trigger. I hand-held the pistol on the rest, and proceeded
to shoot five-shot twenty-five yard groups as a base line from
which to compare groups subsequently fired with a Primary
Weapons Systems muzzle brake. This excellent brake is made for a
5.56mm AR-15 rifle, but the pistol has identical 1/2x28
threads, so I wanted to give this brake a try with the .22 LR
cartridge. The first thing noticeable was the reduction in
muzzle jump, compared to the bare pistol. While the .22 Long
Rifle cartridge in a two and one-quarter pound pistol has very
little muzzle jump, attaching the brake reduced it dramatically,
allowing quicker follow-up shots. However, besides the reduction
in muzzle jump, the group sizes were cut almost in half, with no
changes except screwing off the thread protector and screwing on
the brake. This performance was best noted while using the
already-accurate PMC Rifle Match ammunition, and the brake also
improved the accuracy with almost every other load tested as
well.
I realize that many shooters either are
prohibited by state law from owning a sound suppressor ("silencer"),
but there are also many who can, and want to. Tactical Solutions
makes some excellent suppressors that rival the performance of
cans costing twice as much, and more. I have owned one of their
Cascade .22 LR cans for over a year now, and find its
performance to be superb, reducing the weapon’s sound
signature, and most always improving the accuracy at the same
time. The can weighs just a little over three ounces, but is
very effective. Such was also the case with this Buck Mark Camper. Performance was improved, and the pistol was very
quiet, sounding more like a pellet gun than a cartridge-firing
pistol.
With the simple addition of the threaded
barrel to the Buck Mark Camper pistol, Browning has added a
feature that should have been available on the pistol from the
beginning. Threading on a brake or suppressor is a very easy and
inexpensive way to greatly improve the performance of the
pistol, making the excellent Buck Mark pistol even better. As
mentioned above, this Camper model is only available
through your Lipsey’s firearms dealer. To find the location of
a Lipsey’s dealer near you, click on the DEALER FINDER at www.lipseys.com.
If your favorite gun dealer is not a
Lipsey’s dealer, he can contact Lipsey’s and correct that
problem by calling 1-800-666-1333.
To order the very effective Primary Weapons
Systems muzzle brake, go to www.primaryweapons.com.
For more information on the Tactical
Solutions sound suppressors, go to www.tacticalsol.com.
To order the pistol rest shown, go to www.targetshooting.com.
The entire Buck Mark line consists excellent
.22 Long Rifle caliber pistols, offering accuracy and a lot of
shooting fun with low-priced ammunition. The Lipsey’s Buck
Mark Camper is, in my opinion, an upgrade to the
Browning line that was way overdue. It offers a great
deal of versatility to an already great pistol. It is built with
quality materials, built right, and built in the USA. I highly
recommend it.
Jeff
Quinn
| For a list of dealers where you can
buy this gun, go to: |
 |
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Author tested the Buck Mark with the superb Tactical
Solutions Cascade sound suppressor...
...and Primary Weapons Systems' very effective muzzle
brake.
For accuracy testing, Jeff used a Target
Shooting, Inc. pistol rest.
25-yard handheld rested groups.
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