The ISSC MK22 is an Austrian-made semi auto 22LR rifle that looks very similar to the SCAR family of rifles. I reviewed this rifle 4 years ago, but Blue Line Solutions reached out and let me know they worked with ISSC to update the rifle and improve reliability. So, the rifle has been tweaked for reliability AND the price has dropped significantly (under $500 instead of around $600 when I did my initial review.) Blue Line sent this rifle new in box for this review.
Features
- Semi auto
- 22 round magazines
- Comes with backup iron sights (BUIS)
- Stock
- Folds
- Telescopes for length of pull
- Cheek rest raises
- Barrel shrouded with flash hider
- Non reciprocating charging handle with 3 positions on each side
Extreme Flexibility
As the M16 series of rifles evolved, their flexibility was ratcheted up. Instead of a fixed carry handle rear sight, they started making them with flat top uppers that you could affix different optics or iron sights to. Instead of a plastic handguard, the stocks started to be telescoping to adjust for length of pull on the fly, they’ve started using handguards that free floated the barrel and offered a variety of mounting points for flashlights, lasers, night vision equipment etc. The SCAR was a modern day design attempt at creating a highly flexible rifle from the ground up. In imitating the design, the ISSC MK22 is also incredibly flexible.
The folding stock, lovingly referred to as an “Ug boot” for its visual similarities, offers a lot of adjustment out of the box. It folds, it telescopes in and out with 3 different stops so you can adjust length of pull, and it has a cheek piece that can raise 1 stop. The length of pull adjustment actually made this rifle great for my kid to use. He was easily able to get his face on the correct place on the stock for the scope, something that has been difficult with other full size 22LR rifles.
The charging handle is also super flexible. There are 3 different positions you can set it to on both left and right sides. It also is non-reciprocating, which means that it stays put as you fire the gun.
Continuing with the theme of flexibility, the safety is large and ambidextrous, and the magazine release is also ambidextrous.
This is one of the very few semi auto rifles that can be easily used by left or righties. In fact, other than 3 seconds to remove the charging handle and move it to the other side, there would be no downtime swapping this rifle between left and right handed shooters and there are no tools required.
Reliability
From new, I fired 1200 rounds through the rifle. I encountered 4 failures. The first failure was a round of Winchester Wildcat. I tried to fire this round in my other rifle. . .several times. I think the priming compound was missing, which is typical awful quality for Winchester 22LR bulk ammo in my experience. I also had this experience with some Winchester 555 bulk (which also failed in a few other guns)
The other 3 failures were all related to how rounds stacked in the magazine. If the bullet tip drags on the front channel or the rounds don’t stack quite in-line, the nose of the bullet can be too far down to correctly feed. This issue can be resolved entirely by loading the magazine with the bullets facing down (see video), and by using copper washed bullets rather than bullets that are waxed or otherwise lubricated in a way that could attract dirt and cause stoppages.
The action itself worked great. Ejection was strong, the firing pin had lots of power, and feeding was positive. The rifle came with a cool 90 degree cleaning brush that you could use to clean the chamber after it gets too crudded up.
