Thoughts on 22 for self defense?

Has the OP heard of Gunbroker? It's an enormous online gun auction place. After you win an auction, shipping is usually about $25, and your local FFL will usually charge you about $25 for paperwork. I have won a LOT of auctions for good and reliable used firearms for under $200. I will take a good quality used firearm over a brand-new "cheap" one every time. Gun shows are not as good a deal as they used to be, but there are still deals there to be found.
 
CoffeeShooter -- You really need to find a range that rents and get some trigger time with various handguns. But perhaps even before that, you might consider attending some beginner firearms training classes.

There's a lot of great guns on the market and we can make suggestions all day long, but until we know exactly what you are looking for in a handgun, our suggestions are really irrelevant.
 
My thoughts are that it's far better than generally appreciated (assuming a pistol that is optimized for the strength of the .22 -- rapid fire accuracy -- and assuming proven reliability), with shockingly little difference in effectiveness between .22 and the usual defensive calibers. Here are the relevant shooting stats, which invariably surprise people on first reading: https://www.buckeyefirearms.org/alternate-look-handgun-stopping-power

Essentially, many of us brainwashed ourselves with the search for the ultimate bullet. We spent time worrying about the relative advantages of Silver Tip vs. Gold Dot vs. HST, when at the end of the day the difference is microscopic compared to other variables like "how many times was he hit in the thoracic cavity in the space of three seconds?"
 
True true. I may just buy a 22 starting out for practice and getting familiar with semi autos cheaply and then upgrade to 45 or 9mm few months from now. Problem is I’m stuck in middle of no where town. Only range that lets you rent has crappy selection
 
One of the thing's important to me in a self defense gun is ability to conceal it. Shorter barrels are easier to some degree, to conceal. I think the barrel on my shield is maybe an inch or so. Hides away very well. 9mm is also as small as I'd go on cartridge. I believe that should I need to use it it will be a close range, short not as accuarte but more than accurate enough. Also for ammo I see fmj stuff in some store's for about $9 to $10 a box. I reload for mine and I have two magazines loaded with 124gr JHP but for practice I use 124gr cast, pretty inexpensive.
 
Dufus is this the one you are referring to? https://www.academy.com/shop/pdp/smi...dCatid=4602279

https://www.academy.com/shop/pdp/smi...ldCatid=618721

Im seeing a few 9mm pop up within my budget and some dipping to 240 range. Tempting but dont want to end up with junk either
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That is the one I referred to in my post. If you don't get in a hurry to get one, they go on sale and you could save some money.

Also, don't think the 22LR would not work. I had my MIL setup with a
Ruger (before any of the Marks came out) that I bought for her in 1975. I paid $79 for that one back in 1975. I have it back again as she is in assisted living and needs no firearm any longer. We (the family and I) shot a lot of rabbits, turtles, and other odd assortment of game with it as well as a lot of cans and paper. I wouldn't wanna be in front of it with a pissed off shooter behind it. It was reliable.
 
Yeah I may go ahead and get the 1911 22. Two main reasons is most of time the threat of a gun alone deters and second is the cost of ammo. Maybsay there’s no price worth paying to save life but you still have to train with the weapon. I believe a small caliber in hands of someone who’s trained with thousands of rounds will be more effective than someone who’s trained with hundreds of rounds in larger caliber. I feel that I should start here and once a confident shot upgrade to a 45 where training needed will be less frequent.
 
Like others, on a tight budget - I suggest you look at a lot of used guns. There are a lot of good deals out there....on .22's and other calibers.

But sure, if you want, start with a .22 ....even though it may work for defense, its not optimal. But I also suggest you transfer from a .22 to something in a 9mm...( a 1911 in 9mm is fine, but there are a lot of options out there in 9mm today ). Even the .380 is a little on the marginal side for defense in my view.

If you shop the used gun market in your area / visit a few shops, hopefully you will find someone you can trust and work with to educate yourself on what is out there...but I think you will quickly see what guns are retaining their value...and that is as good an indication of durability and reliability as you will find. Guns that won't hold up ...even with marginal use...will be very cheap.../ but may not be the value you are looking for long term. The trends on unreliable guns...gets around in the market pretty quickly...and the good used gun shops know what is good - and what is marginal. All shops want to sell guns...but the good ones want you to come back as a repeat customer - you just have to find the shops that have knowledgeable people and owners that you can trust.

In my area -- we have quite a few shops that handle used guns...the best ones reject the junk ...and the junk shows up in the less reputable shops. I suspect its the same all over.
 
a .22 lr is a good training round, inexpensive to purchase and use and easy to learn because of the low impact of the round. It is the second worst cartridge available for self defense, with the most worthless one being the .22 short. The .22 short can barely be relied on to kill anything bigger than a rabbit without an absolute perfect hit in a vital region. A .22 lr isn't even great on twenty pound game without an immaculate hit.

You really can't use expanding bullets in the .22, it isn't going to penetrate and expand, one or the other, and penetration either way will be problematic.

In all seriousness, being shot by a .22 isn't much physically worse than being stabbed by a screwdriver. It's not going to cause a quick bleed out, that won't disturb the attacker. It isn't likely to tear big holes in organs such as heart, kidney, liver, again, only marginal wounds to them. Even a shot to the spine might fail after pushing through the entire body, it may deflect on the vertebra. A shot to the skull will be rather unlikely to kill immediately,either, it's simply too small, too light, too slow, again, it's going to be like being stabbed. There isn't enough energy being used to destroy tissues.

A .22 is better than nothing, and you have the chance of a series of hits, as opposed to a single or double tap. Remember, imo, it is better than nothing, so is a .177 pellet gun.

Myself, when I cant carry a centerfire, I carry a knife. A knife is a lot less likely to let you get a good first strike in, but a good blade will do more damage than a .22. You need a sharp, wide blade. It should have a curve to it, and it should be five to six inches long. A needle like point, a thin dagger blade, refer to the screwdriver. the curved blade, even a slight curve will allow the blade to sharpen better and slash better. A well built knife will do far more damage than a rimfire.
 
There are still lots of used .38 Special revolvers out there.

The .22 ammo supply dries up sometimes for years at a time. If you have to (or just like to) you can reload .38's for about the the same cost as .22LR, and .38 is a good round.
 
zxcvbob said:
There are still lots of used .38 Special revolvers out there.

The .22 ammo supply dries up sometimes for years at a time. If you have to (or just like to) you can reload .38's for about the the same cost as .22LR, and .38 is a good round.
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That's true, but if you stock up on .22 before panic buys and supply demands, you can be alright if you ration its use during those panics. With the low prices now and the uncertainty of the future, now is the best time for people to stock up on .22. $25-30 for 500 rds... it may be worth getting 3000 rds just in case because in a panic, 3000 rds will either be impossible to get or cost $500.

As for reloading during a panic, I wasn't into reloading during the Dark Times, so idk how bullet prices, powder, primers, etc. cost or how much they go up.

IMO, and this is a shout out to the OP and everyone, it's not a bad idea to own a single stage press, die sets of your preferred calibers, a pound of powder, 1000 primers, and a scale to measure. Even if you don't reload now, it's better to be able to make your ammo then not have any at all.
 
A well placed 22 round will kill almost anything, BUT stopping a threat instantly is something else again.

I've been trying to find a book I have about a "prove a point" article on the killing of two Elephants by 22 shots placed (I think) behind the foreleg soft parts into the vitals...took a couple hours for the beasts to finally succumb from internal blood loss. An irresponsible stunt for sure but supposedly really happened.

And as was said, .22 reliability is questionable, There always seems to be a failure to fire dud in a box of 22 ammo...if I was going to field a .22 for self defense it would be a Ruger SP101 revolver...the newer 8 shot model being preferable...an utterly reliable weapon and if there is a dud just squeeze again to bring the next round up...no fiddling with semi-auto jams.

If I was going to carry a .22 auto loader for SD it would be the long out of production Beretta 70S.The open top strap seemed to eliminate stove pipes and failure to eject problems common to some .22 autos.
 
killing of two Elephants by 22 shots placed (I think) behind the foreleg soft parts into the vitals...took a couple hours for the beasts to finally succumb from internal blood loss.
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I wouldn't believe that unless I saw it myself and witnessed the post mortem examination by a dependable pathologist. on the scale of an elephant, even a shot to the heart would be too small to be of any serious consequence. Healing starts quickly, clotting starts quickly, bleeding out an elephant's sixty or so gallons of blood to the point of killing it would be literally impossible through a hole that size unless the clotting factor was completely eliminated, and even at that point, it's entirely possible that the wound would start to close up on it's own before the thing managed to completely bleed out.

Remember that even a well placed shot anywhere with anything can still be survived. A hundred miles or so north of here a boy was on his bike, and a punk with a super powered BB gun shot him and hit him in the jugular vein. He was a cop's son. he was examined, the vein had already clotted shut and was healing, and the BB had dropped into his heart. It was left there to rust away, the risk of going in with a scope and retrieving it was too doubtful.
 
Beats fists, feet and foul language. I firmly believe in the 22 for training and learning how to shoot. A conversion unit makes the transition to centerfire smooth.
 
Eh if 22 is meh then I’m guessing 9mm is the round to go. Originally wanted wanted a micro 380 like a spectrum, lcp2, Pico ect but so many advise against. I dunno I have no way to test it weapons before I buy, can only go out in country and shoot after buying sadly. Any reason 380s are so terrible when micros can be bought at 220-300? Of course 380 ammo is pricey
 
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