I Learned Something At The Gun Shop Yesterday

J

Joe_Pike

New member
I was doing laundry last night and went across the street to one of the LGS to see what was new. There was a man and woman talking to one of the counter guys and I like to listen in to shop conversations for fun so I lingered a bit.

They were looking at tacti-cool long guns and the guy pointed to the S&W M&P 15-22 asking what it was. The counter guy told him it was a .22lr by S&W. The lady told the guy not to discount the .22lr as it was the overall choice of assassins. The guy behind the counter said he knew that it was the choice of assassins because it would bounce around in the head of the victim causing great damage.

So, see, you can learn from gun shop conversations.
 
Don't get me wrong, I know the lowly .22lr is nothing to turn your nose up at and that many people lose their lives to the cartridge every year. What I thought was funny was the way they were discussing the preferences of assassins like there is a forum devoted to the assassin lifestyle.
 
The guy behind the counter said he knew that it was the choice of assassins because it would bounce around in the head of the victim causing great damage.
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I've yet to see any proof of that. There is a record of it having been used a bit abroad for one simple reason: you can buy .22 ammunition almost anywhere in the western hemisphere without raising too much suspicion.

The choice of cartridge is due to availability and convenience more than it is some undocumented magical wounding effect.
 
Ummm... Another simple reason? Especially when used with a silencer, it's the most quiet... which (to state the obvious - please don't rag on me...) may be VERY advantageous for an assassin in some circumstances.
 
While I admit to not knowing diddly about MOB or MOSSAD assassin weaponry or cartridge choices, I do know .22s are fun and relatively inexpensive to shoot at squirrels, bunnies, old soda cans and such and have read that nefarious nightime hunters of deer sans license oft times find such devices useful... but like the assassin thing, have no real world experience to base that on. Just something I read on the net or heard in a gunshop. ;)

I am old enough to know that surplus Carcanos are, or can be, very very accurate on moving targets. (but that's another subject altogether)

One can learn a lot whilst hanging out in a gunshop, granted.
 
"The choice of cartridge is due to availability and convenience more than it is some undocumented magical wounding effect."

I saw autopsy photos to that effect from an accidental shooting. Bullet entered the side of the head on an upward angle just behind the right eye, fired from several feet away.

Bullet left a smear of lead around the top of the skull as it skidded and wobbled around before ending up lodged either against or near the Atlas vertebra.

Did it bounce per se? Probably not, but even at close range it didn't have enough velocity to break through the skull after it entered, and it made one hell of a hash of things.
 
As usual the clerk was wrong. Anyone with subscription to Assassin Quartly knows that the .22lr is out this year in favor of Ricin darts. LOL
 
Almost any cartridge will do the trick if fired point blank into someone's head. The only assassin I know personally dresses in all black, carries only a curved sword, never speaks and can leap from treetop to treetop. Next time I see him I'll ask if he ever uses a 22lr.
 
I've seen a few folks shot with the .22lr. It's no toy... Any round can deflect off of bone depending on the angle and density of the bone (According to an ME I knew) That myth that the Mafia use .22's to assasinate is in my opinion just a myth. I've worked a few dump jobs... cant remember ever seeing a .22 used. I kind of think that they use what ever is at hand...
 
I think this started in regard to Mafia assassins. They would make their victims kneel down, with their hands tied behind their back and then assassinate them with one 22 round to the base of the skull. Quick, cheap and quiet.I don't think it really relates to anything else and this probably came from old gangster movies.
 
I am a squirrel assassin.
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Boolits probably don't rattle around much in Rocky J Squirrel's noggin.

But I gotta ask. Squirrel Assassin... or Squirrel Sniper? :D
(I would suppose, if no scope, no sniper, but you never know)
 
Depends :) Often times in the spring I will use a shotgun, in the fall I will use a .22 handgun,or a .22 rifle with a 4x scope. Sometimes I go all 18th century on the critters and use my .40 flintlock longrifle. A Bucks county gun I built after a Andrew Verner example. The squirrels know my name and are afraid.
 
I'm 65, and can recall listening to a 78 rpm record in some elementary class back in the 1950s, that was a recording of an elderly gent recalling his younger years in the old west. The recording had a short story, how back in the old west, on how dangerous and feared a 22 pistol was. As I recall the elderly gent on the recording claimed the impact of a 22 bullet of the bullet wasn't the problem, but the the lead poisoning from it sure did kill you.
 
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