Every Wednesday the local Range Volunteers and Staff have their day at the range. I am one of those. We have lunch and shoot 22LR.
Our usual thing is to sight in at 50yards on a grid of dots where each dot is 1/2". After that we mostly shoot "dum dum" lolly pops followed by shooting the sticks. Some of us, me, shoot out to 400 yards. Usually I spend a lot of time on a 3" x 12" silhouette popper at 275 yards. Wind reading practice.
What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?
That is background to point out that we are an accuracy based group. Sub MOA or better 22LR. Lot's have 17 HMR or 17 WSM as well. Those usually come out after the 22LR. We've gone through a lot of rifles and accurizing techniques and never stop looking for more from our 22LR.
No one shoots a Marlin xt22. Tube feed and accuracy do not usually go together. If you were going to stay sub 100 yards sure.
If it were me (IIWM)
Get a Ruger American Rimfire with a 22" barrel or a Ruger 10/22 with a 20". Then do a little accurizing.
- For a RAR, cut 2 inches off the barrel and put a quality target crown on it. Lower the trigger pull as far as you can.
- For a 10/22, polish the trigger mating surfaces with car finish polisher. About 3000 grit. Have it target crowned.
That is the minimum we do to accurize for any rifle. It will get you much more consistancy at 100+ yards.
The other thing you will have to do is the ammo search. What does that rifle like?
Every 22LR that I've known likes Eley Tenex but at $0.38 per shot the shooters don't. The challenge is finding the ammo it likes. Some guys have really good luck with their RAR and Feder 325 box. I use something else at $.013 per shot. CCI Standard Velocity almost always works.