Even though they don't pack a whallop, the Ruger 22/45 is a nice gun. Extremely accurate.
I was at an outdoor range once, and this old guy at the next bench had one, and big boxes of ammo, accessories, tools, trinkets, you name it. So, he says "C'mere, boyah, try this'un." It was the Ruger 22, with a big fat optical luminous red dot scope on it, about as fat as a toilet paper tube, which contained two overlapping dots if I remember correctly. No clue about the magnification, maybe 5X maybe 10X. Whatever it was, it worked great.
The recoil is literally nothing, like getting high-fived by a 5 year old, and it was tricked out, mods on the trigger pull there was almost no resistance to the trigger at all, it would just snap by touching it. When you would cock it after putting a fresh clip in, it made this "schwing-schwing" noise when you drew back on the slide and released it, the thing was very loose all around, well balanced and expertly kept and maintained.
So, after a few practice shots which are often hesitant when you've got an unfamiliar weapon in your hands, it became like an extention of my arm, hitting everything I pointed at, I was hitting soda cans at well over a hundred feet away, because of that scope. Sure, you're still missing every other one, but on the first try, thats still good. The bench was probably twenty yards away from the target stand, and the mountain behind it had to be thirty feet beyond. Fuckin thing was cool. Quite the difference when you're firing a short pistol with open sights at a silouhette and half arent even staying in the center mass.
They'd make a good varmint gun with hollowpoints in it. Say what you want about small calibers, you still dont want to get whacked five times with one.