22 for self defense?

A .22lr is a fine carry choice if that is what you have. I would certainly save up and try to eventually pickup at least a .380 down the road though.
 
If I were to use 22LR for self defense, I'd use match quality rounds. Solid, 40gr, then test the heck out of it in the pistol. If it's all you have, then by all means use it, because it is better than a lot of non-firearm weapons. Learn to shoot well with it.

With that said, I would at least go with a revolver and the above.
 
"I think some form of mace would be a more effective SD weapon than .22lr"

NateKirk- this is a very irresponsible statement, and it makes it obvious you have very little experience in these matters.
 
I don't know what matters Bill is talking about, but I carry a Beretta model 21 that works best with hyper velocity ammo and a Smith 317 that works with everything. Very handy shooters. I have lotsa carry guns but usually end up with one of those two. Now, does anyone know how often rimfires are used in social situations?
 
How many deer have been killed with a 22lr? A few
If a minimag could do that then it should just maybe do the job
 
^^If it functioned reliably Velocitors would be my choice also.
How many deer assault, burgle, rob, people?
 
My Buck Mark does not like pointy hollow point ammo. It seems happy with anything else. I usually use inexpensive copper roundnose.
 
As one should know - blanket statements that a shot to the CNS, forehead, heart, etc. will kill or incapacitate are incorrect.

The CNS is definitionally quite big. The forehead can bounce off 7.62 x 39 rounds depending on the angle of hit. The heart doesn't necessarily bleed out fast enough, depending on the wound.

In fact, aiming at the forehead is not recommended. Look up folks who walk into emergencies rooms with big knives or multiple nail gun hits in their brain.

If you put a round into the area of the cortex that processes color vision, you just disturb the fashion sense of your opponent. So what - you have to shut down the areas that control motor processes and action.

So can we please drop the cliches and study up a bit.

If all I could get to was my 10/22 or Buckmark, I would rather shoot with that than wave a frying pan at a bad guy.
 
As one should know - blanket statements that a shot to the CNS, forehead, heart, etc. will kill or incapacitate are incorrect.
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In general those are the most effective places to incapacitate or kill an attacker (though I'm not sure where people mentioned forehead specifically as opposed to just CNS, which includes more than the forehead). If you want us to add caveats that they're not effective 100% of the time I imagine we can do that. It's a fair point that there are no true guarantees in terms of what a bullet will do when it enters the human body and we can find many such examples.

Edit: I see the OP mentioned forehead explicitly.

The forehead can bounce off 7.62 x 39 rounds depending on the angle of hit.
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Sure, but you're talking about the exception and not the norm. I don't think too many people would volunteer to test that (that's meant as a joke, not argumentum ad populum).

So can we please drop the cliches and study up a bit.
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I'm not sure I really consider them cliches. Where would you prefer we aim?
 
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Well, do folks know what the CNS actually is? It is the spinal cord and the brain in your head.

When folks say the CNS for an instant stop they are usually unaware that it is really the hind/brain stem systems towards the back of the noggin that are the switch off areas. There are web sites and classes that teach the shooting and aiming areas for targeting these. You have to visualize a shot from the angle you are given that will hit the hindbrain systems. From the front, right below the nose is a good path.

As far as the forehead, for the always popular what pistol for a bear - folks shoot at the bear's forehead and the skull structure diverts from these areas and you get eaten up.

Even COM as in the standard IDPA or IPSC targets is seen as a tad too low as the major blood dump structures are higher up.

Someone might have the time to come up with diagrams. I took a class on such, so the info is out there.
 
There's a good reason to be more afraid of a 22 than a 38. 22s are nasty suckers and once entered can go helter skelter inside the body.

I like Stingers for SD and that's what I used to carry with my 22. MiniMags are always a good choice too.
 
There are exceptions, but most handgun projectiles that penetrate into the cranial cavity will result in unconsciousness regardless of the precise area penetrated, whether or not they are immediately lethal.

Most penetrating skull injuries from firearms are also lethal since they typically produce enough bleeding to either increase intracranial pressure to the point at which cerebral circulation is cut off, or result in brain stem herniation.

Some projectiles that hit the skull without penetrating it will also result in unconsciousness, although many will not.
 
Well, do folks know what the CNS actually is? It is the spinal cord and the brain in your head.
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From the front, right below the nose is a good path.
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I hope in the age of easy access to information that they can find that, but it's fair to point that out.

Even COM as in the standard IDPA or IPSC targets is seen as a tad too low as the major blood dump structures are higher up.
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True, which is why I tend to avoid saying center of mass when I remember to be specific (I mentioned center mass before to illustrate that under stress aiming for even a large target can be difficult). Instructors I've had will say the thorax or thoracic cavity. There are targets you can get that now that emphasize the higher up position of the heart/aorta/pulmonary artery and other blood vessels.

This is all good information and I'm not opposed to sharing it. You're also right that people should educate themselves. I just feel you could have made this post rather than the one before chiding others, or combined the two, and been better off in terms of helping the OP. But that's just an opinion.
 
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There is data, and there are studies, and we have a good deal of knowledge about wound physiology. What all that shows with regard to self defense could be summarized as follows:


  1. Pretty much every cartridge ever made has at times succeeded at quickly stopping an assailant.

  2. Pretty much every cartridge ever made has at times failed at quickly stopping an assailant.

  3. Considering ballistic gelatin performance, data available on real world incidents, an understanding of wound physiology and psychology, certain cartridges with certain bullets are more likely to be more effective more of the time.

  4. For defensive use in a handgun the 9mm Luger, .38 Special +P, .40 S&W, .45 ACP, .357 Magnum, and other, similar cartridges when of high quality manufacture, and loaded with expanding bullets appropriately designed for their respective velocities to both expand and penetrate adequately, are reasonably good choices.

  5. And that's probably as good as we can do.

I've posted the following before and might as well post it again here:

Let's consider how shooting someone will actually cause him to stop what he's doing.

  • The goal is to stop the assailant.

  • There are four ways in which shooting someone stops him:

    • psychological -- "I'm shot, it hurts, I don't want to get shot any more."

    • massive blood loss depriving the muscles and brain of oxygen and thus significantly impairing their ability to function

    • breaking major skeletal support structures

    • damaging the central nervous system.

    Depending on someone just giving up because he's been shot is iffy. Probably most fights are stopped that way, but some aren't; and there are no guarantees.

    Breaking major skeletal structures can quickly impair mobility. But if the assailant has a gun, he can still shoot. And it will take a reasonably powerful round to reliably penetrate and break a large bone, like the pelvis.

    Hits to the central nervous system are sure and quick, but the CNS presents a small and uncertain target. And sometimes significant penetration will be needed to reach it.

    The most common and sure physiological way in which shooting someone stops him is blood loss -- depriving the brain and muscles of oxygen and nutrients, thus impairing the ability of the brain and muscles to function. Blood loss is facilitated by (1) large holes causing tissue damage; (2) getting the holes in the right places to damage major blood vessels or blood bearing organs; and (3) adequate penetration to get those holes into the blood vessels and organs which are fairly deep in the body. The problem is that blood loss takes time. People have continued to fight effectively when gravely, even mortally, wounded. So things that can speed up blood loss, more holes, bigger holes, better placed holes, etc., help.

    So as a rule of thumb --

    • More holes are better than fewer holes.

    • Larger holes are better than smaller holes.

    • Holes in the right places are better than holes in the wrong places.

    • Holes that are deep enough are better than holes that aren't.

    • There are no magic bullets.

    • There are no guarantees.

  • With regard to the issue of psychological stops see

    • this study, entitled "An Alternate Look at Handgun Stopping Power" (yes, the very study referenced by boltomatic) by Greg Ellifritz. And take special notice of his data on failure to incapacitate rates:


      ​


      As Ellifritz notes in his discussion of his "failure to incapacitate" data (emphasis added):
      Greg Ellifritz said:
      ...Take a look at two numbers: the percentage of people who did not stop (no matter how many rounds were fired into them) and the one-shot-stop percentage. The lower caliber rounds (.22, .25, .32) had a failure rate that was roughly double that of the higher caliber rounds. The one-shot-stop percentage (where I considered all hits, anywhere on the body) trended generally higher as the round gets more powerful. This tells us a couple of things...

      In a certain (fairly high) percentage of shootings, people stop their aggressive actions after being hit with one round regardless of caliber or shot placement. These people are likely NOT physically incapacitated by the bullet. They just don't want to be shot anymore and give up! Call it a psychological stop if you will. Any bullet or caliber combination will likely yield similar results in those cases. And fortunately for us, there are a lot of these "psychological stops" occurring. The problem we have is when we don't get a psychological stop. If our attacker fights through the pain and continues to victimize us, we might want a round that causes the most damage possible. In essence, we are relying on a "physical stop" rather than a "psychological" one. In order to physically force someone to stop their violent actions we need to either hit him in the Central Nervous System (brain or upper spine) or cause enough bleeding that he becomes unconscious. The more powerful rounds look to be better at doing this....
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      1. There are two sets of data in the Ellifritz study: incapacitation and failure to incapacitate. They present some contradictions.

        • Considering the physiology of wounding, the data showing high incapacitation rates for light cartridges seems anomalous.

        • Furthermore, those same light cartridges which show high rates of incapacitation also show high rates of failures to incapacitate. In addition, heavier cartridges which show incapacitation rates comparable to the lighter cartridges nonetheless show lower failure to incapacitate rates.

        • And note that the failure to incapacitate rates of the 9mm Luger, .40 S&W, .45 ACP, and .44 Magnum were comparable to each other.

        • If the point of the exercise is to help choose cartridges best suited to self defense application, it would be helpful to resolve those contradictions.

        • A way to try to resolve those contradictions is to better understand the mechanism(s) by which someone who has been shot is caused to stop what he is doing.

      2. The two data sets and the apparent contradiction between them (and as Ellifritz wrote) thus strongly suggest that there are two mechanisms by which someone who has been shot will be caused to stop what he is doing.

        • One mechanism is psychological. This was alluded to by both Ellifritz and FBI agent and firearms instructor Urey Patrick. Sometimes the mere fact of being shot will cause someone to stop. When this is the stopping mechanism, the cartridge used really doesn't matter. One stops because his mind tells him to because he's been shot, not because of the amount of damage the wound has done to his body.

        • The other mechanism is physiological. If the body suffers sufficient damage, the person will be forced to stop what he is doing because he will be physiologically incapable of continuing. Heavier cartridges with large bullets making bigger holes are more likely to cause more damage to the body than lighter cartridges. Therefore, if the stopping mechanism is physiological, lighter cartridges are more likely to fail to incapacitate.

      3. And in looking at any population of persons who were shot and therefore stopped what they were doing, we could expect that some stopped for psychological reasons. We could also expect others would not be stopped psychologically and would not stop until they were forced to because their bodies became physiologically incapable of continuing.

      4. From that perspective, the failure to incapacitate data is probably more important. That essentially tells us that when Plan A (a psychological stop) fails, we must rely on Plan B (a physiological stop) to save our bacon; and a heavier cartridge would have a lower [Plan B] failure rate.

  • Also see the FBI paper entitled "Handgun Wounding Factors and Effectiveness", by Urey W. Patrick. Agent Patrick, for example, notes on page 8:
    ...Psychological factors are probably the most important relative to achieving rapid incapacitation from a gunshot wound to the torso. Awareness of the injury..., fear of injury, fear of death, blood or pain; intimidation by the weapon or the act of being shot; or the simple desire to quit can all lead to rapid incapacitation even from minor wounds. However, psychological factors are also the primary cause of incapacitation failures.

    The individual may be unaware of the wound and thus have no stimuli to force a reaction. Strong will, survival instinct, or sheer emotion such as rage or hate can keep a grievously wounded individual fighting....
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  • And for some more insight into wound physiology and "stopping power":

    • Dr. V. J. M. DiMaio (DiMaio, V. J. M., M. D., Gunshot Wounds, Elsevier Science Publishing Company, 1987, pg. 42, as quoted in In Defense of Self and Others..., Patrick, Urey W. and Hall, John C., Carolina Academic Press, 2010, pg. 83):
      In the case of low velocity missles, e. g., pistol bullets, the bullet produces a direct path of destruction with very little lateral extension within the surrounding tissue. Only a small temporary cavity is produced. To cause significant injuries to a structure, a pistol bullet must strike that structure directly. The amount of kinetic energy lost in the tissue by a pistol bullet is insufficient to cause the remote injuries produced by a high-velocity rifle bullet.
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    • And further in In Defense of Self and Others... (pp. 83-84, emphasis in original):
      The tissue disruption caused by a handgun bullet is limited to two mechanisms. The first or crush mechanism is the hole that the bullet makes passing through the tissue. The second or stretch mechanism is the temporary wound cavity formed by the tissue being driven outward in a radial direction away from the path of the bullet. Of the two, the crush mechanism is the only handgun wounding mechanism that damages tissue. To cause significant injuries to a structure within the body using a handgun, the bullet must penetrate the structure.
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    • And further in In Defense of Self and Others... (pp. 95-96, emphasis in original):
      Kinetic energy does not wound. Temporary cavity does not wound. The much-discussed "shock" of bullet impact is a fable....The critical element in wounding effectiveness is penetration. The bullet must pass through the large blood-bearing organs and be of sufficient diameter to promote rapid bleeding....Given durable and reliable penetration, the only way to increase bullet effectiveness is to increase the severity of the wound by increasing the size of the hole made by the bullet....
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  • And sometimes a .357 Magnum doesn't work all that well. LAPD Officer Stacy Lim who was shot in the chest with a .357 Magnum and still ran down her attacker, returned fire, killed him, survived, and ultimately was able to return to duty. She was off duty and heading home after a softball game and a brief stop at the station to check her work assignment. According to the article I linked to:
    ... The bullet ravaged her upper body when it nicked the lower portion of her heart, damaged her liver, destroyed her spleen, and exited through the center of her back, still with enough energy to penetrate her vehicle door, where it was later found....
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  • In the FBI Miami Shootout, the criminal Platt was effectively "killed" by the first bullet that hit him. It was a mortal wound. But he still managed to live long enough to survive several more wounds, to kill at least two FBI agents, and to wound a few more.
 
I hope you're not considering carrying a Browning Buckmark as that's far bigger and weaker than uh, any .380's that are out there.

I would say that if it shoots well in your gun, use Aguila Sniper SubSonic. That is a 60 grain bullet loaded on a .22 Short case, but the length of the bullet is so long it makes the overall length the same as a .22 Long Rifle. The penetration will be good and because the bullet is so long, it's likely to tumble in the body and have greater surface area tearing through tissue and organs thus increasing blood loss and chance of a CNS hit.

If it doesn't shoot well in your gun, CCI makes a load called CCI Suppressor. It's supposed to be used as a subsonic round for shooting with a can, but the bullet is 45 grains and has a lead hollow point. It may or may not expand from a handgun, but I would say the extra weight will add half an inch to penetration. It's tough to find that .22 ammo though and thus the next best stuff is CCI Velocitor or other hyper velocity 40 grain .22 LR bullet. By Hypervelocity, I mean any .22 that is stated on the box to have over 1400 fps.

For a smaller handgun like the NAA mini revolvers or a little autoloading mouse gun, I think the light and fast principle is best and so Aguila Supermaximum and CCI Stinger are the way to go. Stinger is almost made to be a defensive .22 LR ammo as it's nickel plated and extracts very easily.

Other than CCI, Aguila, and Winchester Super-X, I really don't trust the ammo enough to suggest using it for defense.
 
Im a paramedic in a big city. Im in a rare position to observe ballistic effects on real people. Obviously taking care of my patient is first but once were to the ER or the patient is declared dead on scene I get a moment or 2 to see. I just had a guy sat that was shot just to the left of the sternum but practically center chest with a .22. I was a block away. I had to stage for 3 min for pd to clear the scene. By the time I hit the scene he was dead. 1 entrance no exit. From what we could tell just on scene it hit at least his heart and left lung if not both lungs. From a practical standpoint I was impressed. The issue is repeatability. If the shot placement is off then the outcome is different.

I had another a few years back that gets me. Dude was shot center chest with a .380. He puts his arms up. Bullet shreds the meat of his forearm and goes on to the chest. Bullet deflects and rides a rib up and over the clavicle and comes to rest on top of the scapula. Dude should have been dead. The only thing I can figure is he wasnt squared up to the shooter, he was bladed just a little.

20 years worth of stories on this. Sorry for the minor hijack.
 
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