Couple of things to consider on that innacurrate 10-22. 1, has the barrel been cleaned properly 2, is there a burr at the end of the barrel 3, head spacing may be off as this is a mass produced gun and mistakes can be made at the factory.
My Remington is not an accurate rifle IMO. I had a bench gun made specifically for match shooting so nothing really compares in stock form. However, for a plinker with junk ammo it was shooting all over the place and would not group under 3" at 30 yrds. So I tried a rimfire specific bore cleaner and worked that barrel over big time. I took it to the range and it was shooting .75 to 1" at 25 yrds. Not very accurate but a big improvement and the ammo sucked. I would have roughly 1 out of 10 rounds that did not fire correctly or at all.
I will say though the 17 has my attention when it comes to varmits. As far as cost though, there is no comparison to the expense in ammo. The 17 will cost at least 4x what a 22 will run. At the range the price for 50 17's was $15 and the cost for match grade 22 was $4.5. Cheap 22 ammo is about $2 per 100 or $1 per 50. At least that is what I found.
