Been having a blast shooting lever action silhouette. I wanted to get into .22 BCPR. Looking for recommendations.  It seems what I find are:
Winchester Japanese 1885’s  reasonable but sell fast
CPA 44 1/2 beautiful but a little more than I wanted to spend
Or
I found a couple of guns listed on Gun Broker as 44 1/2 Ideals in not bad shape but been re-lined buy who knows who for buy it now of $1500 but no one is bidding on them. It seems something is screwy if a new cpa is $3120 and these aren’t selling at $1500
Please enlighten me before I make a mistake
Btw I have a deadly accurate bsa martini I shoot in open .22 silhouette.  It is a kick and what got me into this stuff, but it isn’t legal in the bcpr shoots

The simple answer is that those 44 1/2's on gun broker are over priced for what they are.

My advice would be go to a match look at all the different types.you might even be able to try a few.

If you can find a high wall Winder musket with the ‘eject’ spring extractor then you don’t have the issue of picking the spent case out.  I also have a low wall , 2 Ballards and a Stevens 44.  The Ballard action is the only one of those 3 that is easy to manually pluck the case out without the ‘danger’ of it falling into the action.  My Stevens will not tolerate a case in the action guts but the low wall will manage to keep going with 1 inside but not 2.  The case gets crushed but the rifle keeps functioning.  The last time I removed the block on that low wall a mushed case fell out that i didn’t even know was in there. 

Kurt, is the .22 high wall I sold your friend still going strong?   

Jack

I  have a Japchester that has a Badger barrel on it and shoots great.  I also had another Japchester that had the stock barrel on it.  It shot well, but I think that the chamber was a little too generous.  My buddy had CSA make him one and it shoots great.  They do offer low walls.

Cheers,
Steve

Thanks fro the posts, keep them coming
Re: those on gun broker..
Things Fishy are unknown who put the liner in, but it is new un-fired????
Look at the the case colors vs the rest of the rifle, might be a torch job or chemicals
I must say the seller did respond to my questions about it, weight, trigger pull etc.
But I just sold a CZ Safari Magnum for a lot of money, more than I expected... the CPA is looking better all the time.
Jerry

Some good originals come up from time to time.
I watched this one, should have bid but let it go.

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Google GunAuction Stevens 414
Heading: Stevens Model 414 Target Rifle C&R Eligible 17365689

I own and have shot the cpa, good rifle but their chambers are a bit wonky
Steven’s 44 works good but that deep crescent is a bit uncomfortable on the lay downs
The first generation miroku lowall plenty capable rifle with a good trigger job
Had CSA build a lowall on a barrel I ordered from McGowen. Super accurate , had to send it back 3=timesto fix crap that never should have left the factory. Still has its issues
Bottom line when you find a rifle test as many different ammo as you can to find what it likes, and do the testing at 200 meters on a windy day. Don’t scrimp on sights good quality sights are a must

22 Hepburn isn’t that the truth, when this game first really took off you could get in to a competitive rifle for 500 or so. Lots of us simply used the cross o inserts in our bpcr’s

Some things mitigate CPA expense. If you shoot CF & RF same action  substantial saving on action stock sights etc vs two guns They used to deliver unfinished stock at a lower price my first one came that way. Its BPC legal 38/55 & .22 LR 

2nd one was essentially free. Sold off number of guns I owned to pay for it highly finished from CPA. Saved even more later, it was a full offhand Schuetzen Pope style high comb palm rest 32/40 & .22 LR. When offhand competition dried up my area sat unused so converted it to a sporter style stock, now it’s allowed in a number of local offhand matches & would not be a disadvantage at ASSRA offhand matches. Grandsons shooting it well.

Most of my build on something original projects have been money losers when sold. If I had bought the very best condition original would not have been that way. The pair tof CPA’s I own would probably sell for more than I paid . Not as much more than Original Stevens high grade unaltered target gun though.

Boats

Don't forget C. Sharps who makes a very nice Low Wall.  Here's an article I wrote on the subject some time ago.  Page down to the section titled, Options for 22 BPCRA.

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Wayne

I think you should buy a 44 1/2 off Gunbroker.

My CPA .22 with Douglas shoots the Eley Match very well also

Caveat to my advice:  I don't shoot silhouette, haven't had the chance until lately, would like to more.  My wife as my spotter has difficulties, so limiting that.  However, I have shot BPCR rifles a lot, and have gone through a lot of .22 shooting in silhouette type conditions.  I shot many thousands of rounds for about 5 years using a variety of single shot .22's.

My first choice would be a .22 custom built to match my bpcr rifle.  Just for consistency.  Second choice is a liner in the bpcr rifle.  I built my own, for my rolling block .45-90 primary rifle.  Was pretty simple, just turned a steel case out to match my chamber and soldered in a liner to it.  Went to McMaster Carr and purchased teflon tubing that was a tight slip fit onto the liner, and a nice sliding fit into the .45 barrel.  Cut the tubing into irregular length chunks an inch or just over long.  pushed them on barrel.  Slide the liner into the barrel; I don't have extractor, just pry them out with small pocket screwdriver.  The key to my liner is that it is tunable by moving the tubing spacers.  I space them irregularly, and then move the last one and try it, until it shoots small groups.  I've shot many 5 shot groups with iron sights at 100 yards with it that averaged between .75 and 1.25 inches for 50 shots.  Best groups have been around 1/2 inch.   

My third choice (actually almost my first) would be to build a custom Ballard.  I've shot a double set pacific made into a .22 several thousand rounds and it's very accurate and dependable.  I built a couple of standard trigger ones last year, but havn't tried them out yet.

I have also built a couple of Stevens 44's, and they're okay.  Have two of the Miroku winchester low walls, they're barely okay, they're not as accurate as my other rifles, and you can't easily disassemble them to maintain them.   

H&A 922's are a bit light, but the best of the boys rifles.  Stevens favorites are too light.  Remington #4's are a bit light, but if rebuilt with bigger stocks and heavy barrels like Curt Hardcastle did are quite nice.  Remington #2's are nice if rebarreled a bit heavier.   

CPA's are good rifles, I just personally have never liked them.  If you go with multiple barrels and don't have other rifles to complete against them, they're a lot of rifle for the money.  If you have dedicated rifles in different calibers, they pale in comparison being a convertible compromise between all the calibers.

Shooting .22 BPCS is an extremely fun thing to do. Down side is a .22 RF barrel is probably the most fickle thing you will ever have to deal with. Second is .22 RF ammo. I have been  following this thread with a lot of interest. Testing ammo is very important to find out just what your barrel likes. One thing that is not mentioned is shooting on paper at 200 yds. Most good ammo will shoot surprisingly well at 100, but when you start to go beyond that, that is where things really change. I have shot some Eley at 100 that was superb, under an inch. but after that the wheels fell off. At 200 it was hard pressed to stay on a ram target.  What worked out to be very good in my rifle was SK Pistol match special. Best I can figure out what made it Special was that it was just a little bit faster than the pistol match, but it shot very well, down side is I haven to been able to find any more of late. Also don't discount less expensive ammo. I tried some Fiocchi at $6 a box and out to 100 it didn't shoot bad, would make good practice ammo. 
Sam

Sam take on the fickleness of 22 ammo in a rifle is spot on. One of our lo walls will shoot Norma tac into bug hole groups out to 100 meters, but at 150 it gets dicey and by the time it gets to the ram line it's a crap shoot with many of the bullets leaving full profile on the target. That same rifle will also spray anything sk to the point that you'll be better off with a full choke 410 and buckshot. 
The Winchester/miroku with nothing more than a trigger job will shoot master scores using Sk rifle match.Have the ram and turkey 10 pins to groove it.
My CPA with it's Douglas barrel holds the x count record at the creedmoor matches that used to be held in Casper shooting Norma match. That rifle and ammo combo also was the high iron sight score in the 22 midrange match at the Desert International a couple of years back.
None of our rifles think that the Lapua center x or Midas lives up to the billing  of internet praise.
So again once you decide on a rifle, test ammo at 200 meters and do it on a windy day as well as calm days to confirm it's choice and then buy that ammo by the case lot.

Wow great info
I already know that with a .22. Ammo preference s everything.  I shoot .22 silhouette open already and have done well with my custom ruger 10/22
I sold a bunch of rifles and etc so I am going to look further into the CPA’s
Thanks for all the input
Keep it coming 
Jerry

Don't rule out the Stevens 44 as a starter gun. I have two of them that I picked up for way less than $400 and relined using TJ liners. One started as a .22 RF and the other as a .25 RF. They both shoot sub-MOA 10-shot groups at 100 yards with RWS Match ammo.

I am treading into this conversation with a great deal of trepidation. Let the fireworks begin.
In short, from everything thing I have read over the years Winchester never called them high wall or low wall. They were just plain 1885 single shot. 🙏🙏🙏🙏

Started off with a very old Mossberg 26B and that thing would shoot
Then had a Ballard #3 built with a new barrel and MVA sights lots of fun

Gunlaker, sorry for the typo, old eyes and fingers typing on the little keyboard on my phone.

Another vote for a CPA. You won't regret the purchase.

if you haven't found a gun yet ,i have several ballards, a couple of stevens in 22 lr.  we shoot to 400 yds out here and i shoot an original ballard 3f that has got me more than a couple of trophys at that distance. contact me .   tony<><               check out my website for a few     (You need to Login or Register to view media files and links)

Tony, you have some very nice looking Ballards there !

thanks bob, i'm electonically challenged so thia crap don't usually work for me.   tony<><