Adamant about a .22

Everyone has an opinion. A .22lr can certainly kill you, but in the heat of moment it certainly pays to have a gun that can that's capable of doing lots of damage. To me, that isn't a .22lr.

A .22 isn't without merits mind you. Every one should own at least one .22lr. They are great range guns, ammo is still cheap(ish) and you can shoot one all day without beating your shoulder up.
 
I shoot my 1911s more accurately than my Neos, and I'd rather have a .45 "bouncing around" inside a perp's body than a .22.
 
I don't doubt that a .22 rimfire has killed plenty of people. But the point of firing your gun in self-defense is not to KILL the attacker, but to STOP the attacker. If they then later die, well that's neither here nor there. And for stopping an attacker before they get to you, a .22 is woefully inadequate.
 
Per him, .22lr bounces around inside the body, causing mass destruction. .22lr has killed more people than any other caliber. .22lr is about shot placement.
Click to expand...

Did he also insist you invest in a wheelbarrow too??


(oldie but goodie)
 
I am confused by the premise of the question

I read this blog and I am confused by the premise of the subject.
All things being equal the .22 LR is never going to be as deadly as a more powerful round. by all things I mean round placement, range, etc. all being the same.
In personal defense event I am not going to worry about a single shot however. I am going to fire until:
1. No threat exists
2. I am out of bullets
3. I am incapasitated
In other words I am going make a mess.
It is not going to matter if the bad guy is shot everywhere 18 times with a 22 or 7 times with a 45 or 10 times with 12 gauge. and if he moves another magazine will be loaded.
There are going to be many many bullet paths through his body and bullets bouncing randomly. He will have many many leaks, bones shattered organs ruptured etc.. If the threat is real and deadly force is what is needed then I am not going to fire one round.

I can say though I can accurately empty my Ruger Mark III much faster than the 1911. and it will not have as many problems with over travel especially with hollow points.
A 9mm seems to be in the middle. I don't own one but they seem to be a good balance. I would not use a 44 mag for home defense especially in the city.
It is a very powerful round and would travel into the nieghbors house for sure. It has too much recoil for me and I would only have one shot.
It is not just the round size or the gun it is also the composition and mechanics of the round being fired that has to be considered. Some rounds just don't cavitate well at close range ,but instead make a clean hole.
the caviation is what you want. All this talk of magical complex bullet activities tumbling etc. is for the birds. a .38 or .32 with reloads and the correct bullets can make a big mess.
The 22 hollow points cavitate with very little penetration this is both good and bad. the good thing is they usually will not go completely through but they may not get past the rib cage. You can test many of these things at the range using clay, or fruit, or a large slab of beef. many of the bullets avalible that are fired go through cleanly at close range. In you house where the longest room is 20'-50' to my opinion this is close range. You want a nasty bullet. one that penetrates 4"-6" inches and will break large bones and penetrate smaller ones. I doped up perp cannot run if he has compounded fractured femer, a broken back, etc. I don't care how much dope you are on once the body mechanics (bone structure) is structurally broken you are on the ground. I have heard of dopers continuing with there heart shot for up to 45 seconds, maybe this is true I don't know. I do know you are down if limbs are blown off or mangled. and once the spine is tramatized you will just flop around not matter what.
There should be a 9mm round that is satifactory. I would be more concerned about getting a barrel 4"-6" and practicing good markman practices, so you can quickly draw down on the target and put a group of rounds in a decent group.



J



J
 
Let this be a lesson to you: not all gun nuts are as friendly, stable, or interested in knowledgeable, well-reasoned discourse as those who frequent TFL. Many gun nuts are crass, opinionated, paranoid, and always right. You frequently find them in the big room which is sometimes blue and sometimes black with little white dots. Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean the government isn't out to get them - and they'll tell you that as well, but in many more words.

But seriously, we have what may be the cream of the crop of gun nuts. The friendly kind. The whackjobs you mostly need to ignore, or at the leastlook very closely at what they say, with many cups of salt.

They can occasionally be entertaining, though.

Jamey
 
Jimnan, think again

Jimnan,
If the chap that shot me with the 0.22 had used a stronger caliber, it is very likely that I would not have been typying now (at least not with my right hand)

As for using more than the first bullet, he did not get a chance to fire more than 1.

As I put in my first post in this thread, 0.22 may only serve you in SD only if your first shot is in the brain.

I am not trying to put you down or tease you, but to (hopefully) put in perspective that one should not trust the 0.22 with his life.

As for other calibers, 0.380 is very marginal, but from 9mm and up all of them are a better choice (and I am referring to handguns only, not to .223 rifles etc)

Brgds,

Danny
 
Interesting...very interesting discussion. Again, the mission is to end the threat, not to kill the perp. Believe me, you don't want to kill unless it comes to a kill or be killed situation. You will have to live with that decision the rest of your life. Do you remember the scene from Crocodile Dundee when a thug pulls a switchblade and Dundee pulls this huge Bowie knife? I would think you would want to do the same with a gun; pull out the biggest cannon you have that you can safely control. One round into or near the perp will end the threat unless he is a complete and total idiot in which case you may have to use another round or two of persuasion.
 
45Gunner, you are asuming a person is not bent on hurting you

Hi,
What you say is true and works in many instances. and no one here advocates killing anyone, even when he is an agressor.

The debate here is whether or not the 0.22 will stop an attack. that asumes a scenario when all other measures have been exhausted and you are forced to shoot as a last resort.

This is where one needs to consider that for many reasons shot placement may not be ideal, so under this conditions is where one (IMO) should judge the merits of a SD caliber. It should be reliable and powerful enough to stop an attack fast enough to prevent the agressor from harming you, even with a not so-good-shot placement ( I am talking from the belt line and up, we are not going to waste time arguing that a bullet in the toe cannot stop an attack, we all knot that) . For instance, if you shoot a person in the arm and he is still able to shoot back with the same arm, we can agree that the damage / trauma caused by the bullet was insuficient.


I will not pass comment on the myriad of calibers available, but I do not recommend relying on anything below 0.380 (which is a very marginal caliber) for SD.

If the only firearm available to you ( or that you can control) is a0.22, it is obviously a better choice than being unarmed, but one needs to be aware of its limitations.

Brgds,
Danny
 
Youse guyz are picking on my favorite caliber! I say the .22LR has a unique and very useful role, in the event that one is forced into a shooting altercation.
Consider this scenario: You're out in the sticks, doing something other than shooting. Let's say rock-hounding, and/or photography. Because you are concentrating on the primary activity, you want to keep your defensive load pretty light. For this, I am confident that my CRR 10/.22 carbine with a 4x scope is fine, with a fanny pack that holds 5 factory mags and a couple hundred rounds of ammo.
Let's say a group of yahoos comes along, zooming around on their ATV's and shooting up the place with semi-auto pistols. This has happened to me. You get the carbine at the ready (it's already loaded), and announce that shooting in your direction will stop. In my situation, the shooting did stop, and they zoomed off to some other place. What if it didn't stop?
If you're in pistol range for them, they're in easy range for your .22 carbine. You really and truly don't want to kill anyone here, but you want to change their priorities. This is where shot placement becomes king. Within 75 yards, it's a simple matter to pick a joint; any joint: ankle, knee, wrist or elbow. Ankle or knee will ensure that he can't chase you. Wrist or elbow will keep him from shooting back. Any of those hits will divert his friends' attention from messing with you to taking care of him. They don't know what he was hit with, or how bad, but he's bleeding all over the place, and screaming his brains out. While they're sorting thru these things, I'm bugging back to the car, and putting my recreational gear away. Then I'm breaking out the 870, with 3" mags in 00 Buck or slugs. Then I'm taking the road less traveled, back to the freeway.
This applies almost the same to a SHTF situation. The .22 RF can be very effective against roving bands of street zombies, but the anatomical choices change, and shooting style is modified. I have found that a fast double pop with a 10/.22 produces a wound channel very similar to a 9mm 124 gr. HP in wet phone books. The aforementioned joints are good, if that's the target of opportunity, but better by far is the neck or groin. Just one shot, almost anywhere in the neck will make your aggressor very sick, and very quick. 2 quick ones to the groin will wreak havoc on his neural messages regarding mobility, and if you connect with a femoral artery, he's not going very far.
Oh, oops! This is guerrilla speak. Please excuse me for making sense of the lowly .22 LR.
 
For what its worth

I read an interesting statistic (although can't vouch for its veracity) which said that of all the people shot by a .22 (including all the dumb-arses who shot themselves in the foot etc), half of those shooting were fatal.
Which you can read either way... half the time it is completely inadequate... or ...it is perfectly capable of snuffing you, you had better hope like hell that you are one of the 50% who take the hit in a limb and not center mass...
 
Regular Joe

Maybe you are able to keep a zooming ATV rider within FOV of your scope for more than a second or two at pistol range, but I don't think I could.

I also don't think I could pick specific body parts on somebody moving around on an ATV, regardless of range, with any reliability. This scenario would seem to me to almost force me to look over the top of the scope and point fire at COM.

Also, deliberately shooting to inflict relatively minor wounds (as GSWs go) might imply to a prosecutor and jury that you weren't in that much fear for your life, since you could take the time to try to do that - especially against multiple BGs.

So far, the only up-side I see to the .22 carbine in your scenario is that having a lot of bullets would be a plus. This part is true. Running to your car would also make sense, but if you could do that the next rational step would be to start it up and drive away. Most ATV's won't keep up with a car on a road.

Your scenario just doesn't work for me, on several levels, sorry.
 
+1 with Mleake,
Regular Joe,
I also love the 0.22. I learned to shoot with it and competed at national leage level between the ages of 14 to 17(In Israel). I have also tought my son since the age of 8 to shoot with the 0.22' that I have. At least twice a month we go and spend time at the range, and we always shoot with my 0.22 rifle, pistol and revolver. we also shoot 0.22 Silouhette in a club.

It is a great caliber, within its limitations. great for target shooting, not so good to try and stop an agressor fast enough to prevent him from harming you or the one you are defending.

The debate here is not to bash the 0.22, but to discuss whether or not it is
capable of reliably stopping an attack when fired from a handgun ( please refer to the initial post in this thread), and I still maintain that (thanks goodness) it is not.

Indeed, if you have a semi-automatic rifle in 0.22, with a large magazine, you are very likely to protect yourself agains the ATV chaps. but without going into issue of the legality of that (remember, one may only use lethal force as a last resort) you must admit that this would only be possible if you have that rifle with you when this attack occurs. I doubt that many will consider carrying a carbine (any carbine) as a SD firearm.

Regarding a choice of a lightweight firearm (carbine) to carry in the sticks as you say, I believe you guys are fortunate (I mean VERY fortunate) to be able to own versions of the AR15. I would think that an AR15 or Mini-14 with 2 or 3 mags will not weigh too much, and it certainly outshoots a 0.22 for defense.

Brgds,

Danny
 
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Three rules to remember.

Everyone should own a .22

A .22 is only good for self defense if it's the only thing you own or the only gun you can handle.

Some people are jackholes.
 
.22 is an offensive weapon! (no pun intended)

I love .22LR - it's a great in inexpensive practice caliber. .22LR also makes a great assassin gun. It's also the easiest weapon to make a silencer for.

However for defensive purposes, where you need to incapacitate immediately rather than kill eventually but preferably soon - it's one of the worst possible choices of firearm (while still infinitely better than no gun). Previous posts gave plenty of explanations why.
 
I love taking my .22 to the range, its fun and inexpensive. But for reliability I rather be holding my 9mm or.40
 
If you're in pistol range for them, they're in easy range for your .22 carbine. You really and truly don't want to kill anyone here, but you want to change their priorities. This is where shot placement becomes king. Within 75 yards, it's a simple matter to pick a joint; any joint: ankle, knee, wrist or elbow. Ankle or knee will ensure that he can't chase you. Wrist or elbow will keep him from shooting back. Any of those hits will divert his friends' attention from messing with you to taking care of him. They don't know what he was hit with, or how bad, but he's bleeding all over the place, and screaming his brains out. While they're sorting thru these things, I'm bugging back to the car, and putting my recreational gear away. Then I'm breaking out the 870, with 3" mags in 00 Buck or slugs. Then I'm taking the road less traveled, back to the freeway.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the nonsense.

First, if you have reason enough to use a gun (deadly force), then you have reason enough to kill. Period.

The only justifiable reason for using deadly force is to end the threat of death or serious bodily injury to you or another person. The only way to do this is to shoot to stop the threat, and to do that you must shoot to kill. Using deadly force to disable someone's elbow, or using deadly force to "change their priorities" is not a justifiable reason for using deadly force.

Then, you HOPE his buddies care enough about him to help him rather than retaliate agaist you. More nonsense. Maybe they will, maybe they won't, but the threat hasn't ended if you have to run away. Remember, you shoot to end the threat?

Even so, and ignoring the nonsensical scenario, a .22 LR can be used for SD if that's what you have. I STILL think there are better options, but if that's what you have, then it'll help you stay alive.

A gun is a tool like any other. Some are better for certain jobs than others. You can take a screw out with a knife tip, but a screwdriver works better.

Again, I'd still carry something bigger than a .22.

A handgun in a holster is always with you, and can be grabbed quickly if needed. Rifles tend to get set down, or leaned against a tree, and might not be with you when you need both hands for something else.

In the outdoors, I usually carry a revolver powerful enough to handle whatever I might face. Around here that might be a mt lion, or more likely a drug runner or human smuggler from Mexico. I wouldn't want to shoot at a guy armed with a full-auto AK using a 10/22, but if that's what I had...

For a carbine in the hills or desert, I usually carry at least a .22 mag, and more likely a 16" barreled lever gun in .45 Colt. Still not a great choice if I happened to get on a drug runner's bad side, but at least if I had to use it and hit the guy with a 300 grain bullet from a .45 Colt at 1650 fps (rifle), he'd know he'd been hit.

I'm not sure a .22 LR in the elbow would do the trick.
 
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