JPS, thanks for the great review. You've pretty much echoed all else that I've read about it. Quite the value, apparently. 
In the interest of full disclosure........
As for the Chiappa 1911-22 being "quite the value," it is and it isn't. As long as it keeps on ticking, I am inclined to agree. But the question of whether it will or won't is still unresolved in my mind. So far, so good, and all of that, but I am still skeptical about how well this little pot-metal wonderkind will hold up to the volume of shooting I'm accustomed to doing.
I know this reads like tale-telling, but paranthetically, I'll have run well over 10,000 rounds through the Chiappa by the time the month of June is history, and I haven't even had the thing 60 days yet. This is easy for me to do because I work the overnight shift and live just 15 minutes from a nice public shooting range. I take advantage of these two facts to shoot an average of 3 days a week outside of hunting season. I run a brick of ammo through the Chiappa, or more, during each session. It adds up pretty fast when you shoot like that.
And it isn't just the round count that "adds up." 10,000 rounds of ANY ammo ain't exactly cheap. Even with .22LR, you're talking 20 bricks of ammo at $20.00 a pop for a total capital outlay of $400.00 for the privilage of shooting a "cheap" gun. Imagine the fun I'd have sending $400.00 worth of lead down the bore of something like a tight-grouping old High Standard target pistol, and you'll see where I am going with this train of thought.
For me, the cost of the hardware isn't where my shooting budget gets blown. Its the ammo and other consumeables that puts big, gaping holes in my checking account balance. Ammortized over time, I can easily justify the expense of "nice" or "high quality" guns because they'll give a lifetime of high-volume service and you only have to buy them once.
I'm 45 years old. If I make it another 30 years, and my Chiappa actually lasts that long, it will have only cost me about $10.00 a year to buy, ammortizing the purchase price over time. But if I keep on shooting it the way I currently do for the whole of those years, it isn't inconceivable that I'll spend close to a grand on ammo per year shooting just that one gun. If I keel over at 75, I'll have spent $30,000 for the privilage of enjoying a cheap, sub-$300.00 pistol the rest of my life. That's just counting ammo cost and not other things like cleaning supplies and so on, and its just counting it for ONE gun. I routinely take more than one toy to the range.
So is it really such a hot deal? I kinda doubt it, and I love my Chiappa 1911-22 to death -maybe literally. Time will tell.
If there were something readily available on the market in a .22LR pistol with a quality fixed barrel, made from traditional proven gunmaking materials, AND made in the 1911 style, and if that something shot as good as the Chiappa does, I'd rather have whatever that might be -even if it costs several times what the Chiappa does.
Let's say I found something for a cool grand in a dedicated .22 LR 1911 pistol that caught my fancy. I'm not a math wiz, but if I buy today and shoot the pee out of it for the next 30 years, that grand, ammortized over time, still isn't a lot and pales to the money I'll have spent on ammo shooting the thing my whole remaining life. If I should have the good fortune by God's grace to live to see 80 or 85, the ammortized cost of the hardware goes down even more, while my lifetime ammo expenditure goes up another 5-10 grand just counting ammo for the Chiappa.
Dedicated clay target shooters will tell you that life is too short to shoot cheap guns for reasons similar to the above, and by and large, I agree with them.
So, on the one hand, I HAVE been enjoying the Chiappa immensely. In the back of my mind, though, I can't help but wish that someone would take the basic concept (1911 style pistol with quality fixed barrel in .22LR) but execute it in a far more traditional way out of more traditional gunmaking metals. I'd pay more for a pistol like that, and with a pistol like that, I'd be more confident that I'd only have to buy it once.
My Chiappa is still ticking right along and I am still having a ball with it. But I am not totally convinced it can withstand thrity or forty years of the kind of volume shooting I am doing with it now. The practical man in me thinks that I should have put the money I spent on the Chiappa toward a true "heirloom quality" piece of equipment.
Yeah, a dedicated .22LR in 1911 style is kinda cool and loads of fun.
The same can be said for old High Standard target pistols, too. Or Ruger "Marks," for that matter.
-JP
