22 rimfire guns

How does the Black Mamba line compare with the established "best 22"s for Bullseye?
Iron sights or Red Dot?

I don’t see them on the line very often, especially not at major matches. It’s more of a Steel Challenge gun—made for fast transitions and aggressive shooting on big steel targets.

Shrouded lightweight barrels are not helpful for shooting good scores in bullseye, where weight and balance minimize wobble and recoil. You’re infinitely more likely to see heavy-ish things like muzzle weights (especially, e.g., Hammerlis), full-lugged revolvers, and sight ribs on a bullseye line than guns with weight-reduction measures.

In that budget, you can get an old Hammerli 208/215 in great shape (or one of the newer models from Hammerli/Walther based on those guns) or put together a great converted 1911.

I only have 2 rimfire bullseye pistols.  A Hammerli 208s and a Volquartsen Black Mamba with 6" barrel and Horton grips.  They both have red dots.  There's no doubt that the 208s feels "just right" while the Mamba feels "almost just right".  However, the Mamba, being 22/45 mk IV based, has a bolt that can be replaced in about 15 seconds.  I bought a Ruger bolt for $35 and removed the firing pin.  With this I can dry fire with no worries.  I don't dry fire the 208s. 

At the range I slightly prefer the trigger pull of the 208s, but my scores are the same with both.  (I'm 79 yrs old and my scores are not very high.YMMV)

Lifehack = Ruger mk based pistols are safe to dry fire as is. Firing pin has a slot that does not allow travel further than preset (bottoms on a pin), so you will not be hitting chamber. In the unlikely event you crack the firing pin they are widely available and easy to replace. In the event you have light primer strikes you do not need to buy a VQ firing pin, just elongate that channel to allow further travel.

One thing that is very important to good shooting scores in addition to accuracy and function is trigger pull length and release. Hammerli 208/215 does have adjustments but is limited. Feinwerkbau provides more adjustment but I had to modify the internal set-up to get the slight roll I like. Pardini is good, Matchgun is perfect except the gun is quite complicated. Walther GSP also has great adjustable trigger, not sure about the new 208 lookalike. Russian Baikal IZH-35m has excellent trigger, good accuracy but function not the best. Seem like most of the International type shooing guns have adjustable triggers. None of the US made guns do. The .22 conversion is your best option is that various after market triggers are available, solid trigger is best as it is easily trimmed to desired length with 3/4 half-round file. However getting trigger release requires someone that knows what they are doing. Only smith I found that could do what I wanted was Jimmy Clark, after he passed I had to learn how to do it myself! (I only do triggers for few local shooters)

I have the following for competition; Black Mamba, Pardini SPE, S&W 41, Nelson conversion, Pachmayr/Peter Stahl conversion.  Black Mamba groups the worst of them shooting CCI SV's.  As someone else said about it is more a steel challenge gun and it does quite well in that shooting sport.

I’ve had good luck with my Volquartsen. This older full house conversion shoots well. They had a very wide trigger on early models that I wasn’t fond of. The current Volquartsen trigger design is superior in my opinion and fits me well. That said, I shoot better with other pistols and currently favor the Feinwerkbau AW-93 or Hammerli 208s. Most of my best matches were shot with a Dinan accurized S&W 41. If it feels right, work with it and you’ll likely do very well.