Posted on 06/04/2012 3:38:53 PM PDT by marktwain
Wade writes:
Foghorn, my Dad is planning on getting his CCW license, and is already thinking about the handgun to use. But he says that he is going to get a .22lr or something similar, saying that ‘accuracy is more important than force’. He has hunted his entire life, and is an extremely good shot with both rifle and pistol, but I think he is too cocky when he says “all you need to do is shoot someone in the head and the party’s over”. How can I convince him that he may not be able to hit what he’s aiming at in a high-stress situation, and that he needs to look into a more versatile caliber?
I’ve got some bad news — your Dad isn’t completely wrong. And, because I have nothing better to do today, we’re going to open up that whole can of worms . . .
Your dad is completely correct in that a properly placed .22lr round will take a man down for good. Despite the relative thickness of the human skull a typical .22lr round does have enough power to successfully penetrate and cause sufficient damage to kill a human from close range. And on the more fleshy bits of a human it is perfectly capable of inflicting some damage.
The issue we run into with the .22lr round, and one that you seem to have correctly identified, is that when you don’t hit a particularly useful organ it doesn’t do much immediate damage. The best example I can think of in this case is the wild hogs of Texas and the gulf coast, which have a nasty tendency to survive and escape if they’re not hit with a large enough caliber or in the right spot. Humans posess a similar ability to survive extreme punishment and damage without actually dying.
We could sit here all day long until we’re blue in the fingers discussing the relative merits of the different calibers, but the best solution is always the same: cold, hard data.
About a year ago Greg Ellifritz over at Buckeye Firearms concluded a pretty darn impressive analysis of gunfight data recorded over a 10 year period, the total count of incidents included in his analysis topping 1,800. It doesn’t give us a statistically significant look at murders in the United States, but the data is sufficiently large and normal to give us the ability to use his results to compare the effectiveness of different calibers.
Admittedly 9mm does take up a disproportionate percentage of the observations and .32 data is a little skimpy, but its good enough for our purposes. So, using his data, let’s take a look at how well the lowly .22 round does compared to other handgun calibers (and shotguns, just for comparison sake).
First things first, let’s see what percentage of observed gunfights ended in a fatality for the person on the receiving end.
The graph is pretty clear on this: .22 caliber firearms are just as deadly in a gunfight as any other handgun caliber. In fact, it beat the average (far right). Surprisingly, every caliber that begins with a 4 (.40 S&W, .45, .44 Mag…) performed worse than the .22 caliber firearms in terms of putting the opponent in the dirt for good.
The next thing I thought was interesting was the metric about how many rounds it took to incapacitate the opponent.
In case you were wondering, the smaller the bar in this example the better the round performed. And, in terms of performance in putting the opponent down, only a shotgun beats the .22 round. I get the feeling that in reality you can chop a round off the 9mm’s numbers, as the double tap has been trained into almost every shooter these days and probably means the numbers are artificially high.
Greg also includes something about a “one shot stop” percentage, but I don’t agree with his methodology on it and is not presented here. Go read up on it at the original site if you’re interested.
There’s a small fly in the ointment: the percentage of incidents where the opponent was not incapacitated.
Another chart where large bars are bad, and here the mouseguns aren’t doing so hot compared to the big boys. However, I get the feeling that this chart is somewhat deceptive with its results. Newer shooters have a tendency to get the smaller guns with smaller calibers, and also have a tendency to not be as well trained as those carrying the larger rounds. So, instead of this chart being an argument against the lowly .22 round I see it as an argument against poor training. As we saw with the last chart, IF you can hit the guy there’s a great chance he’s going down. But the issue is hitting him, and incorporating some of the accuracy results from the original study seems to back up my suspicions.
So, in short, what’s the answer? Is a .22 a good self defense round? According to the numbers, it looks to be among the best in terms of stopping the threat. Add in the fact that it’s lightweight, low recoil and uses firearms that are ridiculously easy to conceal and you can see where a .22 caliber firearm for concealed carry might be a winner.
So, in the immortal words of HAL, “I’m sorry Wade, I can’t do that.” According to the best numbers I could find, I can’t come up with a valid reason to convince your Dad to move to a higher caliber. Not only is it an effective round, but its size and weight means that your Dad is more likely to actually carry the gun instead of leaving it at home because it was too inconvenient to bring along. And, as we all know, its often the mere presence of a firearm that can save one’s life.
Does that mean I’ll be swapping out my Wilson Combat 45ACP 1911 for a Derringer? Hell no. But it doesn’t stop me from looking at some of those mouseguns for the hot Texas summer…
Ding ding ding! we have a winner.
Just a few observations on the grand old .22
A 300lb sow can be put down with a .22 short when placed in right section of the X you imagine on her head. (Grew up on a hog farm, know the routine.)
The mafia preferred (prefers?) the grand old .22. In their thinking, you weren’t worth the extra money for a “premium” round. The supreme insult, you got offed by a pi$$ant round. (Don’t know myself, but I’ve been told.)
According to what has been written, a lot of black and wet ops guys used the .22 for assassination work. The books The KGB and The CIA both mention it. The movie, Gideon’s Sword (based on a true story) made a point of referring to the Israeli preference for the round in their line of work. Easily concealed, relatively quiet, universally available. (Again, I don’t know, but I been told...)
What I do know for a fact is that once upon a different lifetime I knew folks who owned those small Beretta “flip top” .22s. (Never owned one myself, true beans.)
Those little suckers would spit 8 inches of flame, bark like a banshee, and scare the pi$$ out of everybody, even the guy shooting it. The street thugs with their big bad 9s would run and hide like rabbits. You didn’t need to hit a thing and you could always find the bad guys by following the pee trail.
Finally, I read an article saying that the number of people killed by the humble .22 is way high on the charts. (Now don’t some one of you go asking where I got that, I did NOT pull it out my butt, I remember reading something in Shotgun News [I think] about 15 years ago. They had a chart on the number of people known to have been killed by the different calibers in street crime.)
I like the .22. Versatile, light, easily controlled, [and that’s really, really important] deadly, and the best part, its usually under the anti gunner’s radar.
Wrong! Why would anyone use heavy bullets in the 9mm Luger cartridge, making it behave more like a 38 Special? The optimum 9mm Luger loading is the SPEER +P version using 124 grain Gold Dot bullets. In addition, almost any 40 S&W loading is terminal performance superior to the 9mm Luger cartridges.Why do you thing that most law enforcement agencies (including the FBI) have upgraded from 9mm Luger to 40 S&W?
"OK, I just wanted to get that in before my .45ACP friends arrived." Anyone still using that obsolete cartridge designation is too out of date to bring anything meaningful to the conversation. Read the headstamp, stupid!
Aye, that’s the rub. The metric isn’t eventual death, it’s stopping the threat RIGHT NOW.
It doesn’t do me any good if the guy who battered my brains out with my empty gun dies three days later of septic shock.
You: false. The most popular caliber carried by criminals is .380 auto. In really poor neighborhoods they prefer even smaller.
Keyword: OFTEN, Not "most" or "majority."
Also for many of us, the bad guys encountered aren't cookie-cutter statistical work-a-day criminals in poor neighborhoods you imagine.
Bad guys could be a jealous ex with a 12 gauge, a redneck with a nice collection or a real-world Hadji with an AK.
That said, I've also seen folks who simply can't manage anything bigger than a .22lr -- step 'em up to a .38 special or 9mm and the blast and recoil have them all over the target. For those folks, a .22lr is a fine choice, particularly those 8-shot revolvers with some CCI Stingers or Velicitors.
And don't even get me started on the .22WMR -- that 30-round pistol that Kel-tec sells would be hell on wheels. That's a lot of kbang for one magazine. $:-)
So we know there are at least two ladies with excellent taste in firearms and men out there. ;)
Agree. And with tiny packages like the LCP and LC9 available there just isn't any need. Another problem with the .22 is that it is rimfire which simply will not cycle as reliably as centerfire. All things being equal bigger is better. That said I frequently carry my LCP in the summer time.
It's worse than no value. It's dangerous or perhaps even deadly to those who heed it.
My old buddy is my old Ruger New Model Single Six .22 magnum.
A good old single action and the safest revolver ever made.
I’ve kept it beside my bed for the better part of 50 years and love to go out and shoot it from time to time.
That long barrel and a .22 mag really does some damage.
I've gotten pretty good out to 15 feet. The trick is not to zero in on the bull's eye, just squeeze the trigger when it's in the sight. It's a hoot to fire. People who have never shot a snub nose are deceived by its small size and are always shocked the first time they fire it, "I had no idea it was that powerful!"
I’m with you. Personally, all my weapons ended up on the bottom of the Allegheny river after a nasty boating accident.
Never could find any of them.
But WHEN I DID carry, I loved that little Colt Mustang in .380.
You go lugging around a big bad piece that keeps pulling your pants down, sooner or later the ladies in the coffee shop are thinking you’re flashing them.
I never looked to “win” a “gunfight”. Only stupid people do that. The FBI has done studies that prove that the mere presence of weapon in the hand of a so called “victim” ended the confrontation immediately.
What you’re describing is called “point shooting”.
I would really like to learn the technique some day.
Like everything, it probably only requires a lot of practice.
“I had no idea it was that powerful!”
Just becuse it has a lot of recoil doesn’t mean power. Most of the recoil from a handgun is due to the gas escaping rather than recoil from the bullet. This is even more pronounced with a snub nose.
I carry a S&W Bodyguard. 380 with built in laser. The darned ammo will break the bank though.. its plentiful but costs a fortune..
I didn't mean to imply that.
What I do with any other firearm is focus on the front sight with the target behind it, release my breath about a third, and squeeze the trigger. I look hard at the sight and the target. That doesn't work with the snubbie; I end up pushing up and left.
With the snub nose I still look at the sight with the target behind it, but without the intensity. I have to almost not care if it fires in order to hit it. It's hard to explain. Zen, maybe?
Maybe it makes a difference with the trigger pull. Smaller handguns have HEAVY triggers and I can't start being concerned about where it breaks.
I'm sure a professional, which I am not, could figure out what I'm trying to express.
You want a powerful snubby, get one like I got...
S&W K frame six shot 44mag with a 3” bbl and custom dinky little roundbutt grips. scandium frame. It kicks like you would not believe. You can’t shoot it 6 times fast without gloves on and even then it is brutal.
Its called a “night guard” something or other. I forget the model number. If I was home I’d get it out and tell ya the number.
Yo Dude!!
Thanks for posting that!
I was thinking of that all along.
A .22 damn near offed Ronaldus Maximus.
Forget history, it bites your a$$ every time.
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