A .22LR should fit.
Not really. It will not be of much help as a self-defense weapon with or without ammo.
Study the ballistics of the rounds. Go for the hottest. I went with the most ft/lb in a fragmenting bullet.
/johnny
All of the wise-acres on this thread seem to have forgotten (or are unaware of) Jeff Cooper’s advice. Paraphrased by me as “if you can’t shoot a .45 well, get a .22 and learn to put four rounds in each eye socket”.
With the right shot placement, a .22LR will drop the biggest mook like a rock.
As to ammo, get the hottest round you can find. I like the Remington “Yellowjacket” round, previously recommended on this thread.
Remington .22 LR Yellow Jackets.
But a .22 is for targets, varmints, or as a hideaway back up.
For realistic personal protection, use a .38 special or larger.
A .22 will most certainly kill a man, but the object of personal protection is to stop a man. And don’t kid yourself into thinking that you will sharp shoot that .22 into an eyeball in a combat situation. You will want to aim for center body mass with something that will make a big hole.
(http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/849728/posts) ... General Julian Hatcher, in the early 1900’s developed a good formula to determine the theoretical stopping power of a firearm cartridge. His formula has withstood the test of time and validation from other studies and data related to stopping power.
You want a handgun cartridge that has a Hatcher value of over 50 for the most effective stopping power. Values over 55 have diminishing returns in that you don’t gain any significant increase in stopping power for the extra recoil and control you must cope with. Handgun cartridges that don’t make a value of at least 50, should not considered for self-defense. If the rating of your handgun cartridge is under 30, it only has about a 30% chance of producing a one shot stop. Hatcher Ratings of 30 to 49 raise a one shot stop to approximately a 50% chance. Ratings of 50 or higher produce a one shot stop about 90% of the time.
Handgun Cartridge Type ..................... Hatcher Rating
.45 ACP full metal jacket 230 grain .......... 49.1
.45 ACP jacketed hollow point 230 grain ...... 60.7
.44 Magnum full metal jacket 240 grain ....... 92.3
.44 Magnum lead wad cutter 240 grain ......... 136.8
.44 Special full metal jacket 240 grain ...... 51.6
.44 Special lead wad cutter 240 grain ............. 76.5
.41 Magnum full metal jacket 230 grain ............. 54
.41 Magnum lead wad cutter 230 grain .............. 80
10 millimeter full metal jacket 180 grain .......... 50.3
10 millimeter jacketed hollow point 180 grain ..62.1
.40 S&W full metal jacket flat nose 180 grain ...... 53.4
.40 S&W jacketed hollow point 180 grain ....... 59.4
.38 Special full metal jacket 158 grain ...... 26.7
.38 Special lead wad cutter 158 grain ............. 39.7
.357 Magnum full metal jacket 158 grain ..... 32.7
.357 Magnum lead wad cutter 158 grain ............ 48.5
.357 SIG full metal jacket 147 grain ................ 36.6
.357 SIG jacketed hollow point 147 grain ..... 45.2
9 millimeter full metal jacket 147 grain ............ 32.3
9 millimeter jacketed hollow point 147 grain ... 39.9
.380 Auto jacketed hollow point 95 grain ..... 18.3
.32 Auto jacketed hollow point 71 grain ...... 11.1
.25 Auto jacketed hollow point 50 grain ...... 3.7
.22 Long Rifle jacketed hollow point 40 grain ... 4.2 ...
Some popular calibers didn’t do as well as expected.
This is a cut and paste from an earlier FR article and it does not quite agree with my knowledge of the Hatcher Relative Stopping Power Scale as I learned it 40 years ago. When I studied it, it was a scale of 100 where 100 was the theoretical maximum: the power necessary to put a man down with a single shot—stop him— in a fight situation with a hand gun round. At the time Hatcher made his study no handgun rated higher than 73. That was a .45 Long Colt fired from a 7.5” Army Single Action. I don’t remember the weight of the bullet. However no round could rate MORE than 100 on his scale because you could not DO better than stop the man! Some of the rounds on this chart rate higher than 100! Why? Someone is fudging, I think.
However, for the purpose of this thread, note the abysmal showing of the .22 LR. We have names for people who try to use .22s for self defense. They’re called victims and corpses. It is better than nothing. . . But not much.
The article also erroneously claimed Hatcher was a “forensic pathologist”. He was not, nor, IIRC, was he a general at the time he created the scale. He was an Ordnance officer specializing in all arms for the US Army charged with helping select a new official side arm for officers and a Colonel.