10/22's are my favorite gun of all time. The people who say they aren't accurate must have gotten a bad one and that biased their opinion of them. i can shoot vines the size of my pinky finger out of trees all day long with mine. I've taken deer (yes it's legal here) with it, and countless squirrels.
Cheap magazines will mess you up every time, I had one that would chamber a round, then spit out 10 rounds at once... Go with good quality mags, and the stock magazine is the only one I would trust when hunting.
There may be better .22 semi-autos out there, but unless I get one for free I'll never know because mine isn't going anywhere. The fact that you can easily turn it into anything you want to is a big plus as well...
Not sure about texas, but here our wal-mart is selling the regular ones for $217.00 that's a pretty darn good deal!