Powerful little bullet

dropped a few 2000 lb bulls, very possible.

I've read about that before and it seems to be documented well enough. At close range from the side a 22 long is able to penetrate the thinner part of the skull there and reach the brain. Years ago I did lots of woodchuck culling with a 22 for a friend of mine. At 50 yards a 22lr will penetrate a woodchuck skull and I figure from about the 30 ft. distance a 22 long would go through the side of that bear skull near the ear without too much problem. Granted that it was a very risky thing to do but it seems that she thought she had no other choice, as the bear may have got a whiff of human scent. She gave her best shot at what she knew was a vulnerable spot and wisely put more into the same area as "insurance" . Sometimes you get lucky. If I were in that position with just a single shot 22 rimfire rifle I'm sure I'd also be wishing I was wearing adult diapers.

Not powerful, but a 22, especially a FMJ, will penetrate MUCH better than most people realize. If you can put it in the right spot it will do the job. The bear in question was shot in the side of the head at very close range. That bullet anywhere else, even in the head would have had a different outcome. Had the shot been taken from the front it would have likely not penetrated to the brain.

Plenty of large animals up to 300+kg bulls have fallen to my .22s (culled in the yards, not hunted)
Anything shot in the brain will go down.
Taken 60kg pigs at 30yards, goats etc. My uncle used to cull dogs out at 100yd.
Beware the man with one gun, he probably knows how to use it!

The key to the article is that she was highly knowledgeable about a Grizzly's skull, and knew the thinnest possible point....NOTE even she wasn't convinced that the bear was dispatched by the single bullet that caused it to drop, so she pumped a bunch more rounds, at the same weak spot in the skull, at point blank range, just to be sure.

So I think she did do what she claimed to have done.

LD

LRDGCO said:

Karamojo Bell killed 50,000 elephants with a Daisy pump gun, so...

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I thought it was a Red Ryder...

Sure, it can be done. This is known as a "trick", or a gamble. No real margin for error. Deer are successfully harvested in the same way. The 22 definitely has its place, but this isn't it. Many squirrels I have shot with them in the body are still kicking, and on larger animals like coons, possums, foxes, and coyotes, a head shot is a must if you want to put it down fast without a likely chance of either looking for it all night or losing it altogether.

.22LR is my favorite all around utility caliber and has dropped LOTS of small game for me over the years. But, if we had bear and I was worried about 'em, I have far more appropriate firearms. I really don't care what some berry picking girl did, I'd want HORSEpower.

I wouldn't wanna be without my various rimfire rifles and handguns, though. Occasionally, I have to teach that steel gong in my back yard a lesson or three. I grew up a rifleman with a good .22. Nothing has changed, though I hunt birds with shotguns and deer with a .308 and hogs with a 7.62x39. I've put hogs down in my trap using a NAA mini revolver in .22LR. I know the little round is capable of far more than folks give it credit, but it DOES have to be applied to the right spot. Heck, I even head shoot my squirrels when I can.

jmr40 said:

Not powerful, but a 22, especially a FMJ, will penetrate MUCH better than most people realize. If you can put it in the right spot it will do the job. The bear in question was shot in the side of the head at very close range. That bullet anywhere else, even in the head would have had a different outcome. Had the shot been taken from the front it would have likely not penetrated to the brain.

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I own a variety of rimfire and have been shooting 'em for 60 years and have YET to see a FMJ round. .22LR either comes in lubricated lead or copper washed/plated. .22 magnums are available in FMJ.

The first shooting I ever responded to involved a .22 pistol, a bar and two drunks. Upon arrival, we discovered that the bad guy had already fled and found the victim sitting on a bar stool with a chest wound. He was alert but refused to tell us who had shot him. He died about fifteen minutes later. 22s will kill you dead.

When I was a kid we would take steers to the slaughterhouse for processing. They would whack them with .22 to the center of the head. DRT. I sincerely doubt that a bears scull is any tougher than a 1,000# steer

I think a lot of shooters don’t really understand the potential of .22. Tend to think of it as a plinking toy

Also, solid lead tends to penetrate exceptionally well, and I suspect the .22 has a high SD

Read a thing Year’s ago about a guy that used very heavy for caliber hard cast lead bullets in a .45 Colt to kill a Cape Buffalo. They would penetrate about 4 feet of newsprint. I think the key is SD, and the fact that they don’t shed energy expanding

FL-NC said:

Sure, it can be done. This is known as a "trick", or a gamble. No real margin for error. Deer are successfully harvested in the same way. The 22 definitely has its place, but this isn't it. Many squirrels I have shot with them in the body are still kicking, and on larger animals like coons, possums, foxes, and coyotes, a head shot is a must if you want to put it down fast without a likely chance of either looking for it all night or losing it altogether.

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.22lr standard and hi-V solids, and even hollow points, don't cause alot of tissue damage.
Wack a squirrel in the body with a Stinger, and the results will likely be different.
Can't say for the larger critters, only things like that I've shot we're squirrels.

Shot quite a few deer with .22lr solids, head and heart shots are doable on Axis, again haven't shot anything larger than 2-250lbs so can't say beyond that.

H&Hhunter said:

Walter Dalrymple Maitland Bell,

Providing justification for poor caliber choices since 1902.

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Whoa...
No wonder he had to have a nickname...

H&Hhunter said:

Dalrymple

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So, somebody remembers that dill weed besides me? He wrote all kinds of fictional outdoor related stuff.

MaxP said:

I thought it was a Red Ryder...

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Guys, please... He just stared em to death. Sheesh.

The 22 can kill WAY over its weight class, but let's face it, it isn't ethical at all. I have shot a few coyotes with the old 22 though, never felt good about it...

Well, I've never had a coon walk away from a body shot even with a .22 pistol let alone a rifle bullet. Stories of .22lr bouncing off a squirrel is about as stupid as .177 BBs killing elephants.

I made a post about this a while ago. My father actually killed a deer with a Benjamin pellet rifle. Which is about a 12 gr projectile at 550fps and negative sectional density. Only meant it to sting to scare it out of the garden. Instead it was a lung shot.