Most of the .22 hunting that I do is for squirrels. A lot of times, you can be in sight of more than one at a time, so an autoloader is nice to keep movement between shots to a minimum, and subsonic ammo doesn't scare everything in the woods. A short gun is a lot handier in the woods, and light weight is a good thing, too. So this is what I came up with:
It weighs an ounce under six pounds with scope, sling and magazine, about like a stock 10/22, and it's even shorter. Slung muzzle down, it's out of the way and doesn't snag on stuff in the woods. The trigger pull is 2 pounds, and from the bench it will put Eley subsonic hollow points into a third of an inch at 50 yards. The daily limit on squirrels around here is six, and this thing has come home a couple of times with a perfect six for six record.
Of course, it's kind of ugly and stumpy. It would still be kind of ugly in a nice walnut stock. Due to the Bentz chamber, it won't extract an unfired round of a lot of kinds of ammo, including what I hunt with. It also won't shoot the first hand chambered round to the same point of impact as the rounds cycled by firing. So the routine is, load a magazine, chamber a round, and fire one into the ground before going into the woods. Then drop the magazine and fire the chambered round into the ground to clear the thing after coming out. Kind of a nuisance.
So it's not the best, but it's the best that I've come up with so far for what I do. You can set up a 10/22 for just about any purpose, and they are as much fun to build as they are to shoot.