TANFOGLIO APPEAL: A NON-RESTRICTED BULLPUP .22 WMR

  Are you one of our shooting fraternity that find the nearest gun shop is a long drive, and when you do visit there is nothing new? There is an alternative, and you don't even need access to the internet. Out there is a whole world of vendors offering their wares by mail-order, right to your door (usually courtesy of Canada Post) with shopping through magazines or the web. If you're attracted to something out of the ordinary, this can be the only way to go...

I recently became interested in a shooting club sport/competition called “Close Quarter Battle,” so I looked for a small magazine-fed semi-auto rifle, and came across the Tanfoglio Appeal in .22WMR, which means “Winchester Magnum Rimfire.” That means it is still relatively cheap to feed but has at least twice the punch of a .22LR for knocking down steel plates. Made by Italian manufacturer Tanfoglio, it's available in either .22LR or .22WMR and I can add accessories for even more fun, but more on that later. A simple call to the rifle’s importer Freedom Ventures in Halifax and it was done. A $250 deposit went on my credit card to hold the rifle until it arrived at Freedom Venture’s shop, and the balance was due upon final shipping to my door. But Tanfoglio is located in Italy, and glitches in the manufacturing and exporting permits delayed shipping, so there was a slight delay.

However, when the non-restricted rifle arrived in its own hard case with four 10-rd magazines (I ordered an extra two at $25 each) and a cleaning kit, it makes for a compact package. Styling is a tad radical, but it's growing on me. This rifle is solid, with no 'give' anywhere. This is no toy! The first thing I did was remove the forward muzzle-brake/flash hider; it's a little too 'Star Wars' and removing it shortens the rifle by almost three inches. Not that the Tanfoglio Appeal starts out as a very long rifle, though, being a bullpup design.

Bullpup designs for rifles have been around for decades, essentially since the advent of the semi-auto 'self-loading' rifle, though the design of the gun's action being 'set back'  into the butt behind the trigger group also lends itself to any pump/slide action such as the recent Kel-Tec KSG shotgun. The newer trend in military service rifles is leaning toward bullpups (witness Austria and New Zealand with the Steyr AUG, Israel with the Tavor, and the UK with their L85) for the advantages they offer.

The bullpup design makes possible a short, compact rifle package with a full-length barrel. This makes them ideal for clearing houses in urban fighting and marine operations on ships because they still have the penetrating 'punch' in dealing with walls and bulkheads. The American M4 with a 16” barrel has a surprisingly high muzzle velocity but uses a faster burning powder to do it, with chamber pressures around 60,000 psi and the accompanying increased muzzle flash and noise.

This cutting-edge thinking in design is filtering down to us lowly civilian shooters as well, even to the rimfire community. Short rifles are a joy to carry in the bush, whereas a normally-barrelled rifle will feel like a heavy hockey stick by the end of the day in the thick stuff. To illustrate, my Marlin 782 in .22WMR with a 22” barrel is 41“ overall, while the Tanfoglio Appeal with an 18” barrel in the same chambering is only 27“ in length, a whopping difference in length of 14 inches.

The shorter barrel makes far less difference than you might think. Rimfire cartridges tend to use fast powders because they are very often used in pistol-length barrels, and anything over 19” will use up the powder charge but will enter barrel friction into the equation. Experimental research has borne this out, showing that muzzle velocities actually can go up when the barrel is shortened.

The typical downside to the bullpup rifle format is that can prove impossible for left-handed shooters to use, as some bullpup rifles have fixed ejection ports on the right side of the stock, where a left-handed shooter’s check would reside. The Tanfoglio Appeal, however, is quite ambidextrous. For true south-paws the ejection-port cover and ejector can be swapped side-to-side with the removal of a few pins and partial dis-assembly. The cocking handle can also be swapped as well.

In terms of features, the picitinny rails between the open sights and below the fore-end means accessories are easily mounted. Two removable spacers adjust the stock for length for pull. I'm right-handed, so I easily swapped the charging handle over to the left side, so I can use my weak hand while holding the pistol-grip with my right. Furthermore, the action locks back on an empty magazine, somewhat uncommon in a rimfire. There is also a bolt-release above the trigger on the left side, and a shotgun-style cross-button safety forward of the trigger.

I told my wife this rifle is like a street-legal go-kart; not hugely powerful like a Ferrari, but unique, a lot cheaper and a blast to drive. Half the fun in shooting is modifying what we use, so I added a simple sling, a red-dot 1.5-6 scope and battery caddy to the top rail( for carrying a spare CR2032 battery), and a foregrip with a built-in bi-pod to the lower. A tiny pistol laser attaches to the side-rail on the fore-grip. Close to the bore, it is so small it barely shows up in the photos. I'll find a place to mount extra sling mount studs, too. This gun is going to be great fun for plinking cans, steel plates or competition, but it still has enough power for small game at 100 yards making it very versatile. Overall, the Tanfoglio Appeal is well, appealing, if you're looking for a rimfire rifle apart from the rest of the field.

...And it came in the mail!