Review: Derya TM22 LA-20 lever-action rimfire

Who doesn’t love a lever-action rimfire? They’re fast, fun, cheap to shoot and just plain cute, and now the Derya TM22 LA-20 adds an affordable choice to the very short list of rifles in this popular but under-populated part of the market.

The TM22 is every bit as much fun as you’d expect but before we get into it, it’s worth looking briefly at who and what Derya Arms is.

Derya TM22 lever action rifle — Except for its detachable box magazine and colourful finish, the Derya is very much an Old West lever-gun in style

Derya Arms has a three-hectare factory in the Konya region of south-western Türkiye. It has a partnership with one of the nation’s largest defence businesses, Aselsan Konya, which is nearby.

The factory was established in 1998 and houses a swag of CNC machinery. The company has more than 250 employees, claims the capacity to produce almost half a million longarms a year, and is exporting to well over 60 countries.

The majority of Derya’s rifles are semi-automatics but the TM22 lever-action is a significant part of the overall line-up. The aluminium-framed lever-action draws on some elements of the semi-auto’s design — they both use the same magazines, for example — but, of course, it is a very different thing.

There’s plenty of traditional lever-gun style to the Derya. Its profile is almost pure 19th Century winning-the-West cowboy gun, with its straight grip, rectangular receiver, hammer, fore-end held on by a barrel band, open sights and tubular magazine.

Ah, but the tube isn’t a magazine, it’s there just to look the part. Instead, the Old West profile is interrupted by the banana-shaped 10-rounder plugged into the bottom of the receiver.

Other modern variations on the theme include the Picatinny-style rails, the synthetic stock, the adjustable comb riser and the many colours the TM22 is finished in.

You can get a walnut-stocked version with all-black metalwork that looks much like an old lever-action should, but you can also opt for black-stocked variations with their metalwork finished in in sorts of ccolours, from black or grey through blue or pink to Muddy Girl pink camo and Stihl Orange. There’s virtually no limit to what the factory might do. The test rifle is burnt bronze.

You certainly can’t accuse Derya of being stuck in the old ways. If you want a bit more colour in your shooting world, here it is.

The Derya’s lever pivots from a hanger pinned into the bottom of the receiver. It’s pretty standard in the way it works: cranking the lever open pulls the bolt back, and the bolt’s travel pushes the rebounding hammer back into the cocked position. Pull the lever closed and the bolt comes forward, pushing a round from the magazine into the chamber.

Squeeze trigger, hammer falls, rifle fires. Repeat.

The ejector is a fixed pin in the receiver that the spent case hits when you’re working the lever open. The bolt features two extractor claws in typical rimfire fashion.

The Derya has a short, smooth and very light lever throw, making it a delight to use. Juniors will love it and learn quickly with it. The only thing I’d note is that the lever is best worked reasonably quickly to ensure reliable chambering of rounds; go slow and bullets sometimes catch on the top rim of the chamber mouth.

The shallow angle of the straight grip is true to the original lever-guns of the 1800s and looks the part, and the fore-end is equally svelte and attractive. The rifle is comfortable to hold and shoot. The synthetic stocks have grip panels for both hands, while the walnut pieces are smooth. The stock profiles are identical left to right so the rifle is ambidextrous.

There’s one caveat on the comfort of the grip. The Derya’s safety is a trigger block that is only disengaged when you hold the lever hard up against the stock with your firing hand. The angle of the straight grip makes it awkward to do this when shooting off a benchrest or prone, but in all other shooting positions it’s something you never have to think about.

In addition to its light lever, the Derya’s light weight is delightful. At 2.5kg, it’s an easy-handling rifle. It’s also fairly compact so will fit junior shooters very well. The length of pull is 340mm or 355mm, depending on whether you have the 15mm spacer inserted, putting the Derya on the small-to-medium scale, suitable for full-size adults and juniors.

The trigger lets off at 2kg and while it has a bit of creep before release, it’s amazingly consistent in weight and feel.

The Derya was designed with only the front barrel-mounted rail, which incorporates an elevation-adjustable V-notch rear sight. The Australian distributor, Hunt’s Shooting Supplies, specified a second rail be mounted on top of the rifle’s receiver, a logical request since it’s the most suitable place to mount a standard rifle scope. For most people, this will be the way to go.

The front rail is still there and it’d be the perfect place to mount a red-dot sight, an optic that pairs very well with quick-shooting lever-actions. If you prefer the open sights, just unbolt the rear rail and away you go. The lack of windage adjustment may hinder you, though.

I used two optics: an Aimpoint red dot for some fast-paced plinking practice and a bit of hunting, and a little Leupold 3-9x for more successful rabbit hunting.

With the optics mounted low I didn’t need to raise the comb height but the ability to do it will be welcomed by smaller adults or children. I faced the opposite situation when it came to using the open sights: I couldn’t quite get my head low enough.

The accuracy tests brought good results with a number of .22 LR brands and loads, and the rifle didn’t show much of a preference for a particular bullet style or velocity — it was all pretty consistent. The worst group of all was caused by a lone flier, and the best was an uncharacteristic one-hole cluster that showed it is possible.

Overall, the Derya produced typical lever-action accuracy and just about every shot meant a dead rabbit or skittled can at 50m.

Hunting with the rifle was as much fun as you’d expect. Get among a few bunnies with this lever-action and you can make lead fly almost as fast as they can run. Several times I dropped one with the first shot and was able to hit another one as it ran for cover. Even if I didn’t hit the runner, I had a great time cranking the lever as fast as I could to get two or three shots off before the rabbit dived unhurt into its burrow.

After that happened, I resolved to do more practice, setting up swinging targets in a line and moving my aim from one to the next, or chasing a flipping target down the paddock as quickly as I could. It’s not hard to go through a few 50-packs of .22 ammo doing that!

The magazine stop is a neat carry-over from the semi-auto. When you’ve emptied the magazine, the lever cannot close because bolt travel is blocked by the rear face of the magazine follower. Not only does this give you an immediate signal that it’s time to reload, it puts an end to unintended dry-firing of the rifle, something particularly damaging for a rimfire.

To drop the magazine, there’s a very large lever on the lower right side of the receiver, within easy reach of your trigger finger. Press the end of the lever and the magazine springs out into your left hand. It’s quick and convenient, but the lever is liable to be pressed accidentally, particularly if you carry the rifle slung over your left shoulder or you lay it on its right side.

That box magazine is a neat trick, though, and it’s one of several features that sets the Derya apart from other lever-action rimfires. You can’t go wrong with that wide choice of colours, too. This is a rifle that works reliably, shoots consistently and doesn’t cost a lot of money. It competes for your dollar against a small number of other lever-action .22s and it has clearly made things difficult for them.