.22 guns for EDC?

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Revolvers being more reliable is a generalized statement but not always the fact. My S&W 586 on 2 occasions had the cylinder lock up while firing full power .357 magnum loads. What caused the cylinder to lock up was never identified but it did take a bit of force to get it freed. On the other hand, my Glocks and HKs have been completely reliable over thousands of rounds fired.
 
Is there a reason, other than your super accuracy you want a .22?
You should be able to achieve similar accuracy with a .380 or 9 mm
 
I bet if I mention a bow, I bet you have had malfunctions with those too?
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Not the bow, but my arrows ....... they have a per shot failure rate much higher than even my flintlock muzzleloader ...... mostly b/c they are re-uasable ..... they eventually fail..... from nocks falling apart to inserts coming out, feathers earing out, shafts splintering ..... yeah, not the most fool proof system, there ...... :D
 
Jimbob86 said:
Because wearing body armor, while even more uncomfortable than carrying a gun and much harder to conceal, will not stop an attacker ..... at best, it'll buy you a bit of time...... maybe enough, maybe not. Without a gun, wearing body armor is just betting you are a tougher punching bag than the attacker is prepared to deal with.
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But you were talking about WHAT WAS AT STAKE, and not about comfort or ease of concealment. Your defense of your position suggests that more than just WHAT IS AT STAKE is also a concern. (And I didn't suggest using body armor instead of carrying a weapon.) My concern--dog attacks--wouldn't be helped by wearing body armor, either -- as dogs tend to tear at limbs, necks and faces when they do their thing: stuff not covered by body armor.

One of the points I was trying to make was that our words and logic can have an almost magical quality and can take take on their own reality. That's the power of words and logic -- they can convince us and they can fool us -- when there are no real facts or proofs at hand.

Most of the stuff upon which we base our judgments about weapon and round effectiveness isn't definitive. The data from the Buckeye website -- based on a large number of gun-related shootings (both police and civilian) suggests that a clear answer is yet to be found. All this said, I'm not sure that a larger caliber is better... but readily agree that it might be.

If you compare the results in that Ellifritz study, link above, you'll see that 9mm and .45 were more similar than dissimilar in terms of effectiveness. But that insipid little .22 round (which included short, long, and LR) had a higher percentage of fatal hits (34%) than either .45 (29%) or 9mm (24%). The same data showed that people shooting .22s stopped the other person with fewer shots than the .45 (.22=1.38 rounds vs. .45=2.08), and had a surprisingly similar percentage of fatal shots (.22 = 25% vs. 45 = 29%). One-shot incapacitation for the .22 was 60%, while it was 51% for the .45.

That last result could be skewed by the fact that many folks using a .45 are going to fire more than one round before assessing. That might not be the case with a person shooting a .22.​

One big advantage of the .45 was the percentage of people NOT incapacitated (in which a lower % is better), but the .40 round did better than the .45! Results: .22=35%, 9mm=19%, .40=13%, and .45=14%. If the other guy is shooting at you, the .22 may not be your best choice.

Is better data available? I keep looking, but until we find that better base of data, I'm unconvinced that anyone has the right answer, yet.
 
Walt, wearing body armor and going about my daily life is just not practical.

Carrying a small 9mm pistol, is.

Carrying a 22 I have no confidence in ...... you do it if you want to. It's still a free ....... well, free-ish country.
 
I think many miss the point. The poster is not seeking out an intentional toe to to gun fight. In most SD situations after the first shot, most have wet their pants and running to hide. As I have also said, most SD situations are easily over once a FA is shown, without a shot and I never have heard anyone say "its only a .22 go ahead and shoot".

I do not not normally carry a .22 (but occasionally my Beretta .22 short with cci min mags) but I am completely confident that even at 56 years old, I can absolutely get away from most any dude after I empty 6 rounds into his head or chest, or even one round into his leg. If your objective is to kill your opponent from a distance, yes it would take some precision shooting and possibly several holes from a .22 to do so.

If you are just trying to save yourself and get away, a .22 is more than adequate. If you want to intentionally go to a gun fight, I agree that bigger is better.
 
jimbob86 said:
Walt, wearing body armor and going about my daily life is just not practical.

Carrying a small 9mm pistol, is.

Carrying a 22 I have no confidence in ...... you do it if you want to. It's still a free ....... well, free-ish country.
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I guess I didn't make my point in a way you understood: I wasn't advocating body armor. I was addressing the logic of the argument you made and pointing to how the FORCE of words and logic can cloud our thinking and mislead us.

We've got remarkably little data to support any of our arguments about which rounds are most effective.

I'm also not comfortable carrying a .22 handgun for self defense -- but part of that is based on the fact that I don't KNOW whether it'll really do what needs to be done. Some of the data cited says it MIGHT, but other parts of the same data suggests otherwise.

My original comment earlier in the message chain was about the .22 WMR round. I wondered how it would do? It's a more powerful round than the standard .22 LR.

That said, I'm pretty sure that those tiny little NAA revolvers with short barrels (some not as long as the cyclinder) that fire .22 WMR aren't going to do much good if you need a gun. Too much of the powder goes out the barrel before it can power the bullet. The results might be different for a higher-capacity gun firing .22 WMR from a longer barrrel -- a gun that can be fired with good accuracy.

We'll probably never find out.
 
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That said, I'm pretty sure that those tiny little NAA revolvers with short barrels (some not as long as the cyclinder) that fire .22 WMR aren't going to do much good if you need a gun. Too much of the powder goes out the barrel before it can power the bullet.
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Pocket flamethrower?

Might be intimidating on a primal level ..... I wouldn't bet my life on it, though.

Walt, I get the gist of what you are saying: you have a problem with my logic backing my argument, not my decision on what to carry.

....

Seems you are pickin' fly poo outa pepper, there.

I'll keep packin' the 9 ..... despite the odds, the stakes and the logic/illogic.
 
jimbob86 said:
I'll keep packin' the 9 ..... despite the odds, the stakes and the logic/illogic.
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I'll be doing the same -- I cary a PF9 when I carry. I don't really know what the odds are, as the evidence supporting any given gun or caliber choice seems pretty slim. Most of the PROOFs offered in these discussions are anecdotal, at best. The Ellifritz study is helpful and has more real-world data than other studies I've seen, but it's hard to know the details, and some of the details could be telling.

More importantly, I'm not sure that 9mm is what I'll need if I ever run into a couple of determined Rottweilers -- and that sort of attack has happened a couple of times here in this area. But, until I know more I'll keep what I've got.

All of this said, I'd really like to know more about the effectiveness of the .22 WMR through clothes and ballistic gelatin. I'm not going there, but am curious.
 
Local cop carried one as a off-duty BUG, shot an attacking drunk redneck with a knife, BG stopped with a single stomach shot.
Would he have stopped if he was on Crack, Ice or Meth? Probably not.
but at that point you probably need to send the next two shots into the skull...aim for the nose.

I practice triple-tap with all my pistols, good old Rhodesian pattern.
Folks generally don't get back up from that, no matter what you use.

I've carried a 30-round Grendel P-30 with the barrel extenders removed as a CCW before.
It was light enough and very concealable...giving more than adequate round count to solve a variety of issues.
Much like any other pistol, if you get a dud, you rack & go again...which happens far less with Quality ammo than one would think.
I've actually had more 9mm duds than I have had with Federal .22WMR ammo, which is Zero Duds for 50-grain Gameshoks.
The pistol & two spare 30-rd mags are enough to get one thru a lengthy scoot & shoot if needed...
more than enough to get to the Van and the Carbine within ;)


It is very important to have a variety of carry pistols...what one can hide in winter is completely different than summer.
Wintertime you can hide a G-20SF with ease...not so much in summer ;)
Spring & Fall you can easily Multi-carry more than one pistol...
Summer, one has to get inventive in Southern Climes...smaller/lighter then better.
IN SHORT, BUY A BUNCH OF GOOD PISTOLS!! :D There's your excuse!
 
If I am not mistaken, a .22 is not legal to carry in some states with your carry permit. Some states mandate a larger caliber.
 
I have been shooting my .22 awhile now and will say that is has been just as reliable as me other handguns. Why do I chose it over other guns? Recoil and its inherit accuracy. The .22 does nasty things when it hits bone. People get stuck on caliber and energy. Handguns are all pretty weak when compared to rifles. I have read many real life stories of .45, .40 and 9mm failing to stop an attacker. I aim from throat to eyes.
 
Besides...when I carry my Beretta 71, I know I am as well armed as an average Mossad agent or El Al sky marshal from the '60's...probably with better ammo.
 
I'v carried a Ruger MKII before and felt comfortable with it if I would have had to use it . I was going to mention the Israeli MOSSAD used Beretta when I noticed someone else did .
 
"These new .22 is a great SD round here's why I am right" threads are hilarious.

To each his own but I'll take something with a CF primer at the very least.:rolleyes:
 
Sigh, more of the usual silliness.

There is data, and there are studies, and we have a good deal of knowledge about wound physiology, and none of it supports the notion that a .22 lr is a particularly good choice for self defense.

What the data 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" 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....
      Click to expand...

      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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  • But take special note of the quote in the third bullet point in item V., above:

    • In In Defense of Self and Others... (pp. 95-96, with my emphasis):
      ... 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....
      Click to expand...

    • So a sub-caliber, .22 lr, .25 ACP, or similar, can kill and can, under some circumstances, stop an attacker. But the odds are that something larger will be more likely to be effective. A sub-caliber might fill a special need, such as a need for deep concealment or if one can't handle something larger; but if someone has a choice, a sub-caliber will not be the best choice.

....If you compare the results in that Ellifritz study, link above, you'll see that 9mm and .45 were more similar than dissimilar in terms of effectiveness. But that insipid little .22 round (which included short, long, and LR) had a higher percentage of fatal hits (34%) than either .45 (29%) or 9mm (24%). The same data showed that people shooting .22s stopped the other person with fewer shots than the .45 (.22=1.38 rounds vs. .45=2.08), and had a surprisingly similar percentage of fatal shots (.22 = 25% vs. 45 = 29%). One-shot incapacitation for the .22 was 60%, while it was 51% for the .45....
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But that is not a fair summary of the Ellifritz findings. You're ignoring Ellifritz' "failure to incapacitate" data. See my discussion, above.
 
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