Having decided that there was after all a place for a .22lr in the cabinet, on renewal of ticket I put in a variation & started looking.
I handled everything on the shelf in various dealers & decided that nothing really stood out, when there on the cover of Aprils Shooting Sports was a Ruger American Rim-fire.
Spoke to the RFD (Country Sports Shop, Newton Abbott) who agreed to order one sale or return.

It comes in a solid feeling synthetic stock with a very nicely shaped fore end that gives plenty of grip even when wet, and I think is clever, in that you get two stock cheek inserts one with a low combe for the fitted open sights, & one with a raised combe for use with a scope (held in place by the rear sling stud).
The mag is the normal Ruger 10 shot rotary which has so far been flawless, I'm told the mag release is larger than previously (?) & the 18" barrel comes screw cut for a mod.

For me the safety catch is in the perfect place right behind the bolt for a flick with the thumb, and I really like the Accu-Trigger within trigger set up.
The bolt was a bit stiff out of the box but a splash of dri-slide & a bit of action has it running nice & smooth.

Initially I fitted a Hawke Vantage 3-9x40 with the .22 subs reticle, which was very nice but fixed focus so no use with a NV add on, It now wears my trusty Mamba-lite 3-12x44.

So far I've only put about 300 rounds through it and the accuracy seems to be improving the more use it gets, 1/2" at 50yds & 1"-1.25" at 100yds in the field with fiocchi subs, and its put plenty of rabbits in the freezer already.

Best of all it weighs about half what the HW60 HMR does at a smidge over 6lbs, so is a joy to carry on a walk around the fields.

pics.