Some people want a plinker. Some people want a Star Wars blaster. The good news is now you can have both at an affordable price.
A relative youngster in the competition between the plinkers, the Beretta U22 Neos is a weird gun. Clearly made with optics in mind and equipped with only the tiniest of iron sights (that are almost useless), the weaver-style rail that makes up the entire top surface of the pistol can handle basically any size or style optic from red dots to scopes. The drastically dramatic angle of the grips presents even more of an adjustment to anyone used to shooting a “regular” gun – even pistols with already dramatic angles like the Ruger Mark III. Comic-book looks aside, the Neos comes with a standard 10-round magazine that looks and loads like any other .22 mag on the market today.
Shooting the gun was okay. We thought the trigger was very decent and the accuracy was pretty much there after getting used to holding the pistol. While we didn’t get to shoot hundreds of rounds through this gun, from what we understand, the filth-factor does not alter the shooting of the gun all that much.
Takedown and cleaning is easy. The gun breaks into 3 pieces and this is where we saw some questionable issues. When all together the gun looks and feels sturdy enough, but broken down we’re worried about the “plastic-ness” of the whole thing. Let’s just say we would not want to accidentally drop any of the disassembled parts for fear of the resounding “snap” and the resulting bill from Beretta for the replacement.
The controls and safety were easy enough to find and utilize.
Overall, it was a fun-enough gun to shoot once you get used to the grip. It’s kind of like stretching out your arm and pointing at something and then a bullet shoots out of your finger. We aren’t a huge fan of the space-gun design, while looking cool and all that, we like to shoot a .22 that has the look and feel of a real gun, but that’s just our opinion.