Interesting comment from Sherrif's deputy

[Officers'Wife]

If they nick an animal with a .22, they will just wait for another one.

People in the 30's, at least in rural areas, had a different mindset than that. The main was they were given dominion over the animals of the field and responsible for fair and gentle treatment of them. You are mistaking the commercial hunters of the time with the table hunters. Completely different mindsets.

 

[Avenger29]

.22lr copper jacked round nose bullets

Those aren't copper jacketed, just copper washed. So, it's pretty much a simple lead nose bullet that fouls the barrel a little less due to the coating vs. a plain lead nose .22 round.

 

[mljdeckard]

Officer's wife,

It doesn't get any more rural than where I grew up. These are the guys I grew up with. It was all about practicality and survival.

 

[GRIZ22]

One of the reasons a 22 is so deadly is the bullet glances off bone and heavy muscle. It fragments and the erratic path taken by the round and fragments create wound channels that a surgeon would have to do more damage than the bullet did in order to remove it.

 

[Hatterasguy]

Yep he is correct. I was doing research for a paper in school a few months back on school shootings. Most of those are done with the .22LR.


Think about it and it will make sense. .22's are the most commen round and dirt cheap. So by defualt they are going to be used.

 

[Officers'Wife]

Hi mljdeckard,

Perhaps the people in my neighborhood are just cut from different cloth. The depression era hunters I've met would no more wound an animal and let it suffer than they would hurt themselves. Every day a few more of that generation is lost to use. So much the pity.

 

[mljdeckard]

All the more likely, they didn't use .22s. (30-30s much more likely.)

 

[toivo]

All the more likely, they didn't use .22s. (30-30s much more likely.)

It depends. My father grew up on a farm in the UP of Michigan during the Depression. The only gun they had was a single-shot .22, and he told me that he and his brothers used to poach deer with it.

 

[Voimakas]

It depends. My father grew up on a farm in the UP of Michigan during the Depression. The only gun they had was a single-shot .22, and he told me that he and his brothers used to poach deer with it.

Hyvä päivä Toivo! Suomalainen poika?

My grandpa always told stories of his oldest brother poaching during the 20s and 30s. The game wardens looked the other way the few times he (my great uncle) was caught.

What part of the UP was that farm situated in? It wouldn't be down by Wakefield by any chance, would it?

 

[Vern Humphrey]

One of the stories my mom and dad told was of a friend of theirs who used a .22 for deer hunting during the Depression. They said he lost about as many deer as he harvsted.

 

[Dain Bramage]

From My Blue Heaven

Vincent 'Vinnie' Antonelli (Steve Martin): Richie loved to use 22s because the bullets are small and they don't come out the other end like a 45, see, a 45 will blow a barn door out the back of your head and there's a lot of dry cleaning involved, but a 22 will just rattle around like Pac-Man until you're dead.

 

[nathan]

Bec its too small to locate , the surgeon will have a hard time finding it. All the while internal bleeding sets in which could lead to losing the battle to survive .

Like in combat a lot of shrapnel wounds account for more deaths than actual KIAs.

 

[Guns and more]

I have heard for years that the .22 is the weapon of choice for professional assassins. They walk up behind someone and shoot them in the head. The .22 is known to tumble and follow bone in any shooting so the puny round can do a lot of damage.

 

[toivo]

Hyvä päivä Toivo! Suomalainen poika?

Hei hei! Kyllä. (In spite of my username, that's about the limit of my Finnish--I'm the "next generation.")

My grandpa always told stories of his oldest brother poaching during the 20s and 30s. The game wardens looked the other way the few times he (my great uncle) was caught.

That was my father's experience too. They would say "Don't let me catch you," and then wouldn't try very hard to catch them. People had to eat.

What part of the UP was that farm situated in? It wouldn't be down by Wakefield by any chance, would it?

No, it was way up in the Keweenaw area, near Ahmeek, Allouez, and Seven Mile Point. I actually visited there with my folks a few years ago. The farm itself is all overgrown now, gone back to woods, but the house is still there. Some people from downstate bought it as a summer cabin. Kind of funny when you think that a family of eight was raised there!

One of the stories my mom and dad told was of a friend of theirs who used a .22 for deer hunting during the Depression. They said he lost about as many deer as he harvsted.

Back to topic, yes, that's probably accurate. My father didn't mention how many they lost. I think ethical hunting took a back seat to putting food on the table back then.

 

[myrockfight]

But remember also, that people poaching to survive in the great depression weren't under pressure to make it count.

-MLJDeckard

MLJ, can you quantify that statement? Because from what my Grandfather has told me about my family's lifestyle/hunting practices, it couldn't be further from how he and his brothers operated.

They wouldn't take a shot unless it was a a virtually guaranteed kill/incapacitation because they could barely afford the cost of ammunition. They also couldn't spend a lot of time hunting because they ALL had jobs outside of school which were started at the age when they were physically able to ride a bike for paper routes, etc. Furthermore, if they were unsuccessful in their hunts, they didn't eat meat at all. Only potatos. Quite often they had neither.

I honestly can't think of a situation, that I have heard of, when anyone was under MORE pressure to make it count other than people surviving out in the wilderness. Honestly, your statement sounds absolutely ridiculous when looked at it from that perspective. And there were an awful lot of families that were in the same situation.

On another note, I think the prevalence of .22 injuries/deaths can be attributed to not only to the large numbers held by the population, but how many people have them that aren't trained properly, the amount of those handed to kids at a young age (how many people's first firearm was a .22?), and people's lack of respect for a firearm in that caliber.

The latter of the three is easily demonsrated easily. Not only on this board, but this thread! And I'd like to think that we here have more respect for firearms than the general public.

 

[Avenger29]

I have heard for years that the .22 is the weapon of choice for professional assassins. They walk up behind someone and shoot them in the head. The .22 is known to tumble and follow bone in any shooting so the puny round can do a lot of damage.

Assassins don't use .22 because it's special in the damage department. It's quiet and easy to suppress.

 

[U.S.SFC_RET]

For the most part ehis is a decent thread concerning the 22LR. Yes they are dangerous. Much more than most think.

 

[west aussi shooter]

sorry but not bs .two my mates ambos picked up a guy who shot himself he lived for 4 hours

 

[theotherwaldo]

I helped to butcher a deer that my dad took when we were broke down and snowed in in the Siskiyou Mountains. Spent almost a month up there before we could hike out.

Dad used an AR-7. Tried for a neck shot on a doe. Bullet glanced off of the bottom of the jaw, then off of the base of the skull, travelled diagonally down the neck, hit a shoulder bone, punched through both lungs and the heart, and wound up in the intestines. The doe took two steps and dropped.

Admittedly, that shot could have failed badly. That bullet might have ricocheted in any direction. A heavier caliber, though, would have merely shattered the jaw and passed on. The deer would have died a miserable death and we might have, as well.

My take: the .22 is relatively unlikely to kill quickly, its penetration is unpredictable, but it beats going unarmed.

 

[gym]

More civilians own 22's than any other gun, so it stands to reason that more get killed with them. I have heard the same thing for 50+ years now. Is it true or just legend at this point. I remember when my uncles went for Moose to Canada about 30 years ago, and took all their fancy rifles and scopes with them. They had an Indian guide who carried a 22 rifle. My uncle asked him how he killed those big animals with that little rifle, and the guide said "I sneak up on them and shoot them in the ear", so who knows.

 

[SMMAssociates]

Art's Grammaw's going to be all over me, gym, but....

Guy was telling his son how to catch fish in the winter.

"Cut a hole in the ice, and then scatter some peas around it.

Grab the fish by the ice hole when he comes up to take a pea...."



(Got that from a Greek guy who used to work with me. He had about 400 jokes - mostly as bad as that one, and he'd tell 'em in sequence. Then he'd start again....)

See you guys again when my ban wears off .

Regards,

 

[mljdeckard]

Poachers, regardless of the justification, aren't bound by seasons, bag limits, or boundaries. They never have to take a difficult shot because it's sunset on the last day of the hunt. They don't have to freeze the kill because they won't have another chance until next year.

 

[Palehorseman]

A .22 rf 40 grain solid will travel through 16 inches of thigh muscle. (don't ask me how I know this is a fact)

 

[Elmer]

I have very vivid memories of conversing with one guy shot in the abdomen with a .22. Almost no blood, and he wasn't in that much distress.....until just before he died....

 

[Officers'Wife]

Hi US SPC,

For the most part ehis is a decent thread concerning the 22LR. Yes they are dangerous. Much more than most think.

Anytime you have an object with mass traveling at a velocity there is a danger.It's not the .22LR that is dangerous anymore than a semi-truck, John Deere tractor or Abrams tank is dangerous. As I've heard repeated over and over since I was 11- it's not the machine, it's the operator.

(sorry for the rant but you pushed my rant button.)