.22 RF Revolvers

A certain incident in Ferguson, MO, was interpreted in various ways. But I saw neither the cool, calm officer defending himself nor the cold-blooded murderer; what I saw was an experienced police officer become badly scared and go into panic when a man he considered a "bad guy" failed to fall down when shot/shot at.

My point is that nothing less than an immediately lethal wound can be guaranteed to "stop" anyone.* And unless you can stand, like a target shooter on a range and place all your bullets in a 2" group at whatever the range is, you need all the help you can get from cartridge power. A .22 or a .25 or a .32 ACP will kill, but the edge goes to more powerful cartridges and even they might not work every time.

And, IMHO, the very powerful rounds are not good, either. If the shooter misses or a hit fails to stop, then the shooter is even more inclined to panic. He thinks, "I shot him with my super power xxx and he keeps coming...." Then come repeated shots, more misses, and more panic.

*There are some exceptions, like breaking the thigh bone, but those are difficult shots.

Jim
 
If recoil is a problem, at least get a 32. My daughter is ten years old and she can shoot 32 S&W long easily like the recoil is nothing - because it is.
 
You are absolutely foolish, to put it politely, if you think you can depend on head shots in a dynamic encounter under full adrenaline dump with a Beretta .22 to prevail.

Not too long ago, I moved $28,000 in cash from one location to another.
In the car was an AK47.
On me was a Smith M&P 40. I was not wearing shorts. I did not look like I was carrying 28 grand with & on me.
You had other clothing choices, and if you deliberately restricted & handicapped yourself by not making them, you were viewing the world through far different filters than I do.

False comfort, in your case.

Saw too many incidents in 26 years of LE where people survived being shot with tinyguns (and even REAL guns) to maintain any illusions over the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of those things.

I've seen too many people shot with .22s that survived.

At one week-long session with Ayoob many years ago, we explored the reality of head shots, with unloaded guns in several scenarios, before the proliferation of plastic training guns.

It was quite clear that head shots are not as easy as far too many believe.
People do not just stand still & invite you to take careful aimed fire.

My wife, with 40 years at her PD, still laughs at the report she came across where a mugger was shot in the forehead with a .25 by his intended victim.
It did not penetrate the cranium. It traveled literally up & around the bone, held to something of a light arc by the scalp's elasticity, until it exited out the back through his hair.
He realized he'd been shot, reached a hand up to check, found the holes, front & rear, figured he'd been shot through & through, and literally fainted.
All while his intended victim watched, stunned that his blaster had not immediately dropped the attacker.

As a former firearms instructor for my PD, I've seen supposedly trained police miss a human-sized silhouette at 10 feet under the very mild stress of qualification.
That stress is multiplied by many factors in a real shooting scenario.

We all make our choices, but depending on a .22, especially a tiny auto with a velocity-robbing short barrel, is not a good one.

I've carried a .25 Beretta at times.
Total backup, no unrealistic expectations, because it was tiny & fit in a pocket.
A former colleague had a Baby Browning .25 Auto on him working undercover. On one buy, the deal suddenly went South, turning into a buy-rip where the dealers were in the middle of beating him to death when he managed to get his Browning out.
Could only get one shot off, struck one guy square in the stomach. The sound of the shot slowed the action down briefly before they grabbed his hand.

What saved him was his backup squad busting through the door, having heard the dialog & scuffle begin over his wire.
During the mop-up, the guy who was shot kept moaning about his stomach, but nobody took him seriously for several minutes of handcuffing & apartment clearing, till they checked closer & discovered he had, indeed, been shot. Very little blood, fully ambulatory, fully able to carry on and fully able to continue the murder attempt.

If such a gun is the only one you think you can carry, you're not being creative enough in your wardrobe & if you think it's all you need, you're deluding yourself into a false sense of security.

No sugarcoating here, take it or leave it.
Denis

To Add: Forgot to mention the informal experiment a buddy & I did a long time back.
He had a Sterling .22 (same class as the little Beretta), I had a .25 Beretta Jetfire.
On one desert outing we each took a single shot into a wooden telephone pole with our mouseguns.
My 25 penetrated deeper. Neither was impressive.
 
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I have seen a .38 spl. fail to penetrate a skull, too.
Here is the real deal: unless you make a CNS shot, NO HANDGUN is sure to "stop" someone. They may expire quicker from a .44 magnum, but not before they could kill you. A physiological stop with a handgun is impossible without a CNS hit-period. Anyone who tells you otherwise doesn't know what he is talking about. "Stop" means incapable of harming you.
Bigger, more powerful is better- but by how much? I doubt enough to really make a difference. If I KNEW I was going to have to shoot someone with a handgun, I would want the biggest, baddest one available. Since the chances are pretty slim that I'm going to have to shoot someone, I'm fine with a minor caliber.
 
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