I bought a used S&W 22A around the turn of the millenium when my sons were young teenagers and got more interested in shooting. I have a lot of nice firearms and wanted something inexpensive for the kids to learn on. Over the next seven years, we shot over 110,000 rounds through that gun. We had firing pins break regularly around every 20,000 rounds, the old style sight rib claw broke around 40k and the frame cracked around 60,000 rounds. I changed all springs and the gun continued running on its original magazines. My oldest son has the gun now and has fond memories of his childhood attached to it.

Change the buffer when it starts looking mangled and your gun should last for a long time!

The Nill grips did cost more than the whole gun.