The standard 10-22 Carbine makes one of the handiest field pieces imaginable. Very light, quite short, and a real joy to carry. Fairly inexpensive as well. Yes, dressing them all up is great good fun, but for plain old field utility, it's still hard to beat the original. Here's mine, an old pre-warning carbine with a real walnut stock, fitted with a Williams rear and an XS Sight Systems front. Pure hell on running jack rabbits:
Of course my old Marlin 39A Mountie is every bit as handy, and every bit as effective. It wears an XS Sight Systems "ghost ring" set-up now as well. Here it is, on the far left (big brothers are an 1894 in .45 Colt and an 1895 in .45-70) :
