Flame suit on: 22LR semi-auto for home defense.

[MedWheeler]

Regarding .22WMR, doesn't Speer also make their "Short Barrel Gold Dot" round in this caliber?

 

[Reloadron]

So generally the thought is that 38 Special or 380 ACP is the absolute minimum for defense. I get that and understand why.

However, some shooters do not shoot these calibers well, especially in the firearms most typically associated with them. Small frame revolvers in 38 Special are notoriously difficult for shooters with limited experience to shoot well, and the recoil even from 38 Special is difficult for shooters with little experience to shoot well. Same is true for small frame semi-autos.

I would propose that a Ruger or Browning semi auto 22 LR might be as good a choice as any for home defense for people with limited shooting experience, are recoil sensitive, and do not have hours (or the interest) in significant training. These pistols are relatively accurate (I would say more so than most small frame revolvers and autos), controls are easy to manipulate, recoil is essentially nothing, and in my experience are reliable. The 10 round magazine has twice the capacity of a J frame, and nearly twice as much as most small semi autos in 380 or 9mm.

The 22 LR is no doubt a poor stopper, but I would rather see a few hits on a target with a 22 than five misses with a J frame.

Well since it is 22 LR then 22 LR it will be. My read on the home defense scenario is pretty simple. Most of the NRA published data on such shootings points to no more than two or three rounds being fired, this is in most shootings and is the average. Obviously some shootings are more and some a single round is fired. The average distance is a few feet and again some shots covering twenty or more feet but on average a few feet. So really on average you do not need a 30 round or even a twenty round magazine as ten rounds well exceed the averages and obviously long distance shots are not common place in home defensive shootings. Pretty sure a Google will bring up some of the NRA statistics.

As to a 22 LR? While it is not my choice I would not underestimate it. Several years back we had a school shooting in a local community. A deranged student stole his grandfather's Ruger MK II from a barn and went to school with a single ten round magazine loaded. The results were horrifying:
Chardon High School Shooting.

On February 27, 2012, a shooting took place at Chardon High School in Chardon, Ohio, in which three male students were killed within two days following the incident. Two other students were hospitalized, one of whom sustained several serious injuries requiring extensive rehabilitation, and the other suffered a minor injury. The seriously injured victim has since been declared permanently paralyzed. A sixth student sustained a superficial wound.

While rumors of a warning of the event having been posted on the Internet circulated, student witnesses identified the shooter as Thomas "T. J." Lane III, a 17-year-old juvenile.[1] Although police were initially hesitant to publicly identify the juvenile after he was apprehended, by the evening of February 28, authorities confirmed that the suspect was Lane.

The weapon Lane used in the shooting was a .22 caliber handgun. At an initial court hearing, the prosecutor revealed that he admitted to shooting 10 rounds of ammunition from the gun during the shooting, which began in the school cafeteria at approximately 7:30 a.m., shortly after school started. Although Lane told police that he did not know the victims and that they were chosen randomly, witnesses stated that it appeared he targeted a specific student and the group he was sitting with in the cafeteria.

He managed to kill 3 male students and a fourth remains permanently paralyzed in a wheel chair as of today. These kids were all hit inside of ten feet of range. Talking to a few familiar with the case the rounds were just basic Remington 40 grain hollow points. When a 22 LR pistol is all you have it can be a very formidable gun, obviously very capable of ending life. There is no shortage of 22 LR handguns killing people very effectively. I agree there are better, much better choices but with a focus on the original post and only the original post. The Chardon School Shooter was not a marksman and hardly familiar with the pistol.

Ron

 

[Confederate]

The capability of a firearm to effect a stop other than a psychological one will depend in a large extent on what is destroyed inside the body. The first prerequisite is penetration.

Quite so. Damage is one of the most important aspects in stopping an assailant. Much of what stops people in the U.S. is psychological. We see movies and are conditioned to fall down when we're shot. The .22LR can really mess someone up on the inside when it begins zinging around the internal organs. My father grew up in the country in the 1930s. Dirt poor. He depended on the .22LR for meat and became an expert shot. His dad gave him the only four dollars he had so my dad could buy the Remington 34 he wanted rather than a single shot rifle that he would otherwise have to buy. And of course there would be the occasional person who, for one reason or another, would be shot. And most often it was either a .22LR or a .38 Spc that was involved in the shooting. He told my brother and me early on that if we had to be shot, try not to be shot with a .22LR! (In those days, doctors didn't have the x-rays they do today, and exploratory surgery trying to find the paths of .22LR wounds tended to be highly problematic.) He gave us some first-hand accounts that were gruesome, and some were accidental self inflicted. He carried his gun to school, checked it in at the principal's office and picked it up at the end of the school day. And if he saw a squirrel or possum, he'd shoot it and take it home. He also had an experience with one of his favorite dogs that seemed to come right from the pages of Old Yeller. And shooting your favorite dog is something no one wants to go through.


This is a very old Remington 34 that I bought for my dad. Unable to find one, this was
broken, had a great barrel but needed bluing. I refinished it, had it blued and
gave it to him as a birthday present. He never fired it, but he took it out and looked
at it a lot.

Anyway, seems like I got carried away. It's just that life seemed to revolve around your dog and your .22. And back then the ammo wasn't the hi-velocity, polished stuff you get today. It was dirty, waxy and it dirtied up up your gun. I know because I shot some of it in the early 60s. He actually had some that was very old.

Precision accuracy won't matter. The defender cannot see the critical internal body parts, and if he or she could, he would not have time to try to target them. Hitting them is a stochastic matter. Velocity only matters insofar as it affects penetration and expansion.

YES, it is, especially with the .22. With a Ruger Mark II, I can more accurately place my shots, though, more so than larger calibers like the .357 or .45. For home defense, the .22LR is fine for me, but if I were traveling cross country in a car or hiking or camping, the .22LR wouldn't be for me. If I were Dennis Weaver in Duel, a .357 would be my choice.

One other thing, Confederate: your "don't talk to the police" links provide good advice for incidents other than defensive shootings. But not for persons who will end up truing to mount a defense of justification.

Thanks. I warn people about making rash statements in public about shooting someone and dragging their body inside, or having some of these signs about survivors will be shot again. I think it's okay to give a basic statement at the site of a shooting, but when cop begin interrogating you, you might want to have an attorney handy.

..

 

[Big7]

Say what you want..

I can tell you for SURE you DO NOT want to be on the business end of
my RUGER SR22 22LR..

My carry is a 9MM but a face full out of any good 22LR will do the trick.

Bet the egg money on that one.

Just sayin'

 

[Panzerschwein]

I think a chest full of 40 grain Mini Mags from a 10/22 carbine would ultimately not be ineffective for the task.

The real fly in the ointment is reliability. The setup above is generally reliable, but we're still talking rimfire here.

 

[CornCod]

.22's are certainly not optimal and I would prefer the overly recoil shy to look at .22mag .32acp or .32S&WLong. Charter Arms still makes the Undercoverette in .32 H&R magnum, which can take .32 S&W Longs or even the tiny .32 S&W as well as the magnum. But if it HAS to be .22LR it can serve. An unsuitable gun is certainly better than none at all.

 

[hdwhit]

Kleanbore wrote:
The defender cannot see the critical internal body parts, and if he or she could, he would not have time to try to target them.

And even if the shooter could see inside the target, how many can tell a pancreas from a spleen?

And even they have time to target them, do they know which one is more likely to incapacitate the target?

 

[Kleanbore]

And even if the shooter could see inside the target, how many can tell a pancreas from a spleen?

Well, Massad Ayoob advises keeping a copy of Gray's Anatomy on the bookshelf--and studying it.

And even they have time to target them, do they know which one is more likely to incapacitate the target?

No one would know, but most of us would have a pretty good idea about where hits would not be likely to do much good.

Your questions are good ones, and they illustrate that effective defensive "shot placement" cannot reasonably be achieved through precision marksmanship.

 

[Kleanbore]

Say what you want..

I can tell you for SURE you DO NOT want to be on the business end of
my RUGER SR22 22LR..

My carry is a 9MM but a face full out of any good 22LR will do the trick.

Bet the egg money on that one.

Just sayin'

Whatever an attacker may want or not want, there would be a lot more than the egg money at stake if deadly force were in fact immediately required, and no one is responsibly or competently advised to train to defend himself by trying to do anything with a "face full", out of anything.

 

[John_R]

From Greg Ellifritz' study:

.22 (short, long and long rifle) data from actual non-accidental, non-suicide shootings

# of people shot - 154
# of hits - 213
% of hits that were fatal - 34%
Average number of rounds until incapacitation - 1.38
% of people who were not incapacitated - 31%
One-shot-stop % - 31%
Accuracy (head and torso hits) - 76%
% actually incapacitated by one shot (torso or head hit) - 60%

 

[JD Pinardi]

I bought a beretta 21a bobcat about 15 years ago as I was teaching my new spouse to shoot, she didn't like the recoil from any of the 9mm I had but loved the 22lr, so my thought is anything is better than nothing. One thing we found was that sometimes with all 3 mags we had, was occationally the second round wouldn't feed. We found if we only put 8 rounds in the clip......never a misfire.

JD
PS it really likes those old CCI Stingers, lucky I stashed a couple of cases.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

So generally the thought is that 38 Special or 380 ACP is the absolute minimum for defense. I get that and understand why.

However, some shooters do not shoot these calibers well, especially in the firearms most typically associated with them. Small frame revolvers in 38 Special are notoriously difficult for shooters with limited experience to shoot well, and the recoil even from 38 Special is difficult for shooters with little experience to shoot well. Same is true for small frame semi-autos.

I would propose that a Ruger or Browning semi auto 22 LR might be as good a choice as any for home defense for people with limited shooting experience, are recoil sensitive, and do not have hours (or the interest) in significant training. These pistols are relatively accurate (I would say more so than most small frame revolvers and autos), controls are easy to manipulate, recoil is essentially nothing, and in my experience are reliable. The 10 round magazine has twice the capacity of a J frame, and nearly twice as much as most small semi autos in 380 or 9mm.

The 22 LR is no doubt a poor stopper, but I would rather see a few hits on a target with a 22 than five misses with a J frame.

My first question is, why?

You say "Small frame revolvers in 38 Special are notoriously difficult for shooters with limited experience to shoot well, and the recoil even from 38 Special is difficult for shooters with little experience to shoot well." Okay. Since you specify "Home defense" in your subject title, you establish a situation where you can have any home defense weapon you want -- I personally choose a 12 gauge shotgun, not a handgun at all.

If you can't shoot a small frame .38 special well, and don't want to use a shotgun, get a bigger frame revolver. Or a rifle.

 

[knot4reel]

I've mag dumped this one enough to trust it, especially if it was all I had at my disposal.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

I've mag dumped this one enough to trust it, especially if it was all I had at my disposal.

But WHY would it be all you had at your disposal? Why not -- before your home is invaded -- get something more suitable, like say a short-barreled 870 Remington?

 

[knot4reel]

But WHY would it be all you had at your disposal? Why not -- before your home is invaded -- get something more suitable, like say a short-barreled 870 Remington?

If your home was invaded and this was the only weapon you had, would you not use it because it's a lowly 22? We are talking about one in hand not what one should have. I'm sure a lot of people would have the means to have only one firearm. Might be one they have had for years and didn't feel a need to get another. Also thought this thread was about using a 22 for home defense not a blank or blank is better. Everyone is not planning for a zombie invasion.

 

[MedWheeler]

This thread has been going surprisingly civilly. It will continue to do so as long as it doesn't turn into yet another ".22 isn't good for defense" argument.

In over 135 responses, I think the idea that anyone who can't effectively deploy a centerfire handgun should be roped into a centerfire long gun has already been covered. Someone responded to another poster that his elderly other should consider an AR. The below was my response:

I can readily imagine my mom grabbing a handgun, such as my Taurus PT25, or even my 3-inch Taurus 85, and getting shots off rather easily. No slide to rack, no safety to disengage, just "pull, point, and press to play."

I can almost imagine her grabbing a Mossberg 702 or Ruger 10/22, remembering to charge it (or deactivate the safety if she already had) and get shots off, but I see it as a bit more cumbersome in the little mobile home in which she lives, and not always in the same room with her.

I cannot, in my wildest imagination (and it can be pretty wild), see her handling the charging handle on an AR-15 and/or fiddling with its safety, nor can I imagine her getting a second shot (or set of shots) off, if needed, after the first one is let go at night, indoors, and without hearing protection.

But that's just mine. YMMV (Your moms may vary.)

 

[Vern Humphrey]

If your home was invaded and this was the only weapon you had, would you not use it because it's a lowly 22?

But WHY would you have only a "lowly .22?"

We are talking about one in hand not what one should have. I'm sure a lot of people would have the means to have only one firearm. Might be one they have had for years and didn't feel a need to get another. Also thought this thread was about using a 22 for home defense not a blank or blank is better. Everyone is not planning for a zombie invasion.

There is an old saying, "No one plains to fail. But a lot of people fail to plan."

 

[Manny]

I've heard/read quite a few positive reviews of the Ruger SR22. Given the parameters the OP outlined, I think I'd start my search there. If he's willing to go to a rifle, I'm a huge 10/22 fan. Regardless of the gun chosen, the ammo would be CCI. Velocitors are my favorites and I don't ever recall having a failure with one.

 

[Sarge7402]

But WHY would you have only a "lowly .22?"


There is an old saying, "No one plains to fail. But a lot of people fail to plan."

Vern: Sometimes that is all one can afford. Not everyone can afford to spend $300 - $600 for a handgun for self defense.

Jennings and Phoenex .22 handguns can be bought new all day for right at $100 or thereabouts.

Granted the lowly 22 isn't as great as say a 9mm or 38 special, but I still remember using the only revolver I had back in 71 to check a suspicious noise outside our trailer in Kileen. Maybe I drove off the scum bag, but no one was killed in our trailer park til after we moved on post.

And yes, it was all we could afford - thankfully I'd purchased it before we got hitched

 

[Walt Sherrill]

If money is the issue (and not recoil) those ugly old Hi-Points are available in 9mm for about the same price as a Jennings or Phoenix handgun, and they are far better weapons. They are surprisingly accurate, hold up better, and come with a good warranty. (They're NOT "carry" weapons, but for home defense you don't need a holster.) A 9mm version's recoil isn't as bad as some small revolvers.

They ugly stories about them you read about Hi-Points on the 'net are generally told by folks who have only seen them -- not by the folks who own them or shoot them.

 

[Ignition Override]

Two Arkansas brothers were frequently beaten up by their father. "Justice Files" Crime & Invest. (CIHD), Direct TV channel 571 tonight.

They used a pair of .22 rifles to ambush the monster. One brother fired a single .22 rd. The other then fired about four rds. The father immed. went a few feet to the house porch, collapsed and died.
No idea what type of .22 ammo was used nor where the bullets penetrated. Totally unrelated, but for info on their manslaughter sentence, send me a pm.

 

[Walt Sherrill]

No idea what type of .22 ammo was used nor where the bullets penetrated.

I don't doubt that story. That said, it is my understanding that .22 LR rounds shot out of a rifle are quite a bit more potent than the same rounds (which are loads typically intended for rifles, not handguns) are quite a bit more potent when fired from a rifle than when fired from a shorter-barreled revolver or semi-auto. (And a LOT more potent than when the .22 LR or .22 WMR is fired out of those small .22s the size of a belt buckle.)

Any of these rounds can all kill someone, but the odds are in the other guy's favor if the shooter isn't a very good shot or very lucky.

 

[John_R]

This thread has been going surprisingly civilly. It will continue to do so as long as it doesn't turn into yet another ".22 isn't good for defense" argument.

In over 135 responses, I think the idea that anyone who can't effectively deploy a centerfire handgun should be roped into a centerfire long gun has already been covered. Someone responded to another poster that his elderly other should consider an AR. The below was my response:

My mom is 88. She gets around, albiet more slowly these days. Back and foot problems, I don't doubt she would have a lot of trouble hefting and shouldering most rifles. I suspect she could wield a 10/22, Charger, or a .357 lever gun with their light weight and easy actions. She's talked about arming up, but hasn't done anything about it. I'd rather she grab a .22LR revolver that she'll actually practice with painlessly, than expect her to manage a less "lowly" caliber.

As to why someone would only own a .22? Plenty of folks just like to have fun plinking, and that's it. Not everyone is an "operator" or wanna-be LEO.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Vern: Sometimes that is all one can afford. Not everyone can afford to spend $300 - $600 for a handgun for self defense.

Jennings and Phoenex .22 handguns can be bought new all day for right at $100 or thereabouts.

Granted the lowly 22 isn't as great as say a 9mm or 38 special, but I still remember using the only revolver I had back in 71 to check a suspicious noise outside our trailer in Kileen. Maybe I drove off the scum bag, but no one was killed in our trailer park til after we moved on post.

And yes, it was all we could afford - thankfully I'd purchased it before we got hitched

The problem is, we aren't discussing the PRICE of the gun, but rather its suitability.

 

[knot4reel]

Here you go Vern.