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[i]”the .22 is quite deadly, it just usually takes longer to bleed out.”[/i]

The .22 LR is a rather curious hunting round, being a mix of incredibly dangerous to almost harmless. I will try and provide the basic details of each.

First, no, you can’t stop an elephant with a heart shot. The standard hollowpoint round will flatten to about 2 cm in diameter max on impact with bone. If fired from a pistol, distance, or failing to contact bone, the bullet is unlikely to mushroom at all due to insufficient velocity. If it doesn’t mushroom on contact and if the target/victim has elastic skin characteristics, the entrance hole will only be about 3mm (which is less than the diameter of the bullet.). This small opening can make “bleeding out” a rather unlikely possibility unless the targeted victim is very small (Hence, no elephants). If the bullet doesn’t mushroom, the damage is limited to about the equivelent of stabbing the victim with a sharp pencil (albeit with tremendous force.). If it mushrooms, then it would be like striking the victim with four pencils held in one hand. However, unless you hit a plated bone surface, such as a skull, the odds of hitting bone are small, meaning a pencil sized wound track with a small entry hole is the most likely result. This is why many shooters have reported, absent a head, neck, or heart shot, of shooting gophers and racoons without stopping them.

You can improve your chances of the bullet mushrooming without a bone hit by using high velocity ammunition as it is the lack of velocity that causes the bullet to fail to mushroom on contact with flesh. A longer barrell on your weapon will also increase bullet velocity (The short barrell of a pistol will generally not produce enough velocity to cause a .22 hollowpoint to mushroom.). If you can get your bullet to mushroom, it’s the equivelent of hitting the target with 2-4 non-mushrooming rounds.

The CCI “Stinger” has nice mushrooming characteristics.

The .22’s lack of velocity is due to its light bullet weight. Hunting velocities are generally not achieved with bullets under 60 grams and most .22’s seldom exceed 40 grams. The bullet simply lacks sufficient momentum to maintain speed and rapidly loses velocity after 100 yards. This means that, at a point past 100 yards (usually about 110 but often more) your bullet is not going to mushroom on impact even if you hit the target. In that case, your chances of an instantly fatal hit are less than halved - And they weren’t that good before.

For the above reasons, neither gun companies nor ammunition companies will recommend a .22 handgun for self defense. With it’s lack of bullet mushrooming, even on bone contact, defending yourself with a .22 pistol is rather like defending yourself with an icepick. Your bullets are going to do about the same amount of damage.

Now let’s make the .22 LR lethal. It has killed a lot of people and prey. You can even use it to kill cattle. The trick is to use head shots.

The .22 is an extremely lethal round when applied to the brain. This includes the .22 Short which does an enormous amount of damage to the brain. A .22 Short can easily kill a deer with a headshot at up to 50 yards. The reason for this lethality is that a .22 transmits 100% of its energy to the brain. A .22 Short will penetrate the skull on one side of the target, fully transit the brain, but then lack the energy to penetrate the other side of the skull to exit. Instead, the round ricochets back into the brain again. In effect, the bullet literally bounces around inside the victim’s brain. The target is dead, killed by a .22 short.

The .22 LR performs somewhat similarly. Having twice the powder charge, it will penetrate both sides of the skull at up to 50 yards, but will also “bounce around” in the skull between 50-100 yards, creating a lethal mess.

Even if the .22 LR passes through both sides of the skull, the bullet generates a sufficient shock wave as to render the target unconscious on the spot. While unconscious, the body will increase blood pressure, swelling the brain, which leads to death within hours.

Thus, the .22 LR can go from being relatively harmless to almost certainly fatal. If you’re a very good shot, you can kill pretty much anything you want, up to, and even over, 100 yards. Otherwise, expect to wound it at best.

Another area the .22 targets effectively is the neck. The neck provides the brain with blood, the body with air, and contains all nerve cords for the lower body. A neck shot can interfere with one or even all three of these functions.

From the survivalist perspective, one can’t afford to hit the target and then have it run away to die elsewhere. Therefore, unless the target is small (rodent or bird sized) you must make head and throat shots routinely. This is best achieved by sighting your rifle in for shots of 60-70 yards. Try several brands of HP ammunition and look for the ones with the tightest pattern (Also check for mushrooming.). You should find you can still hit the target at 100 yards by aiming about 3-5 inches over it or hit targets at under your sighted range by aiming 1 inch under it (A mil dot reticle scope will take care of most of this automatically.).

If you have a .22 LR pistol for home or self defense then by now you should know the problem. No velocity equals no mushroom. Stay with a longer barrel and use high velocity ammo (such as Velocitor or Stingers). Use head or throat shots. Maintain maximum distance between you and the target (Stay yards away from him and not “feet”.). If the situation is dark and does not allow you to see the sights, use the middle finger to pull the trigger while the index finger is placed on and parallel to the barrel. The weapon will now shoot where your finger points (Practice this in daylight first.).

In the hands of a skilled and knowledgeable shooter, the .22 LR is a very lethal round. In the hands of an amateur it’s pretty harmless.