User Panel
Posted: 2/6/2006 5:38:25 AM EDT
Have heard numerous times that 22lr is quite deadly...........the worst myth is that the 22lr. will bounce around
inside you causing massive internal bleeding. I wish! Does anybody have any balistic info on the 22lr.? I am merely asking this because I don know myself........... I hate watching movies and getting duped into believing anything that they offer but, after watching the movie ASSASSINS with Stallone and Banderas trying to kill each other silenced Ruger 22's......... Is it really a killing round? I know that head shots would be fatal, duh, but what about the overall capabilities of the round? |
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One shot stops are probably not very likely, but you're not exactly going to shrug off a chest hit after taking a couple of aspirin.
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The first homicide I ever went to was a one shot stop with a .22. Drug dealer got robbed and was shot in the heart with sawed off .22 rifle. DRT. Other guy got shot point blank with a sawed off shotgun in the side/kidney area and he lived. Moral of the story ?. Shot placement is the key. |
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.22 is just as deadly as any other caliber... it just depends on where the shot is placed. Larger calibers will do more damage than .22 and would probably have a better chance of getting the desired results.
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I believe the poster is talking about human targets. |
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What he said. |
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my grandfather was shot in the chest by one. Bounced off the bone and exited. |
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A .22 caliber hole in the right organ can kill you as dead as a JDAM in the face. Nevertheless, the .22 lacks sufficient power to reliably hit vital internal structures, and is thus a rather poor option if you are trying to kill someone. |
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I know a guy who managed a radio station in Rome, Ga. His dad was a policeman, so between that and covering the police beat he had a lot of contact with the LEOs over there. He told me the old Chief once remarked that .22 LR killed more people there than any other caliber. Not a scientific study, just an anecdote.
ETA: on your bounce around myth- I also heard that .22 LR, entering the skull at the right point will meander around. I have no idea. |
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.22 lR rounds have killed more people in the US then any other round out there. According to alot of LEO's I have spoken with.
The .22 LR is round that is a poor stopper, but as good as a killer as any other round really. I would say that 90 percent of gunshot wounds would become fatal without treatment of some kind due to infection or blood loss. |
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Bingo. What the larger calibers give you is a greater margin of error in shot placement. I don't mind advising a .22 for defense if it means the person carrying it will actually practice to proficiency with it. My wife uses her buckmark to great effect. I can't imagine anyone that would withstand 10 hits from it even if only half were well placed. |
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plenty effective, apparently.
OT, but if you guys ever get to Seattle, you have to visit Yo Olde Curiosity Shoppe. All kinds of wierdness and odd shit in there... One of the items on display is the naturally preserved mummy of a cowboy who was shot in the chest in the 1800's. The desert preserved everything, even the blood stain. He didn't bleed much, and it wasn't a heart shot. |
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Short or Long? I don't think a .22 LR would just bounce off, unless this is at 50yrds. Eh, .22's do wierd things sometimes. |
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Deadly yes, a stopper, no. Been many a person killed with a .22, usually they die much later of internal bleeding. If you are defending against someone hyped up on meth, after being shot with a .22, they could kill you, your wife, your kids and die themselves a half hour later. I've seen video of someone gut shot with a .38 lift their shirt, look at the wound and take off running. Moral of the story is, any gun is better than no gun but it's best to use enough gun. I consider enough gun to be a 12ga with 3" Mag buckshot or a slug. Synergetic effect is what we're talking here.
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A .22 LR travels as something like 1,100 fps give or take. Some lightweight hyper velocity rounds are significantly faster. That much faster than a .45 acp or a .38 Special, that’s roughly on par with a 9mm.
The .22 bullet (40 grain) is much lighter than a 9mm (115-124 grain) so it might deflect off bone easier. But it has a much small frontal area than the 9mm too. Bottom line is you are dealing with a round that can easily penetrate deeply into the human body. The .22 will kill you just as dead as a .44 Magnum. It just might take it a little longer to do so. |
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Not sure. fired from a pistol, through a car side window, ~3ft |
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I don't know, but if someone ever shot me with one, and I found out, I'd sure as hell kick his ass!
In all seriousness, The only way I can see a one-shot stop is if you hit the guy in the eyeball. Also, I could see that if you were to shoot someone in the eyeball, from the side, I could see it skittering off the interior of the skull an making a real mess in there. |
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Just ask John Kelly. Fired from a converted 1911 or a Savage Model 54 bolt action (apparently the ultimate sniper rifle); its terminal |
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Shot Placement.
Killing a person can be done a number of ways. The quickest and most reliable way is to disable the CNS. Bigger rounds can effect that more easily than small ones, but small ones CAN do it as well. |
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yea but he was a SEAL so thats different. Guns kill faster if your specops! |
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one single .22 shot to the head killed my cousin.
Was messing around long ago with drugs / alcohol and a bad crowd. Will never know all the details / circumstances for certain ........ he's 100% dead. Guns - alcohol - drugs DO NOT MIX. RIP LLoyd Edward |
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I've seen it. Pretty cool. |
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Several years ago, a young guy was killed in our area while riding his dirtbike on private land. The landowner was elderly and borderline senile. Old senile guy shoots MC rider in the back, killing him with a shot to the heart. My Dad was one of the cops that helped carry the body out of the woods. He said the bullet travelled through a backpack, sixpack of beer, and into the guys heart. One shot, one kill. All from a nutty old man with a .22LR.
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Words of wisdom - and funny too! |
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I've killed a few stray animals with .22 LR
Typically only took 1 shot to the head to do it. |
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The reason for using a firearm in self defense (for us civillians) is to stop the situation immediatly, before your attacker can kill you or cause great bodily harm to you or your loved ones.
That said, the .22 will kill a person with a good hit but it may take a while depending where you hit your attacker. You want a gun that has enough power to stop the attacker in his tracks but not so much power that you can't control the gun for sucessive shots. I would not discard a .22 for personal protection if that's all I had. Remember the first rule of a gunfight is to have a gun and a .22 is certianly better than no gun. |
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Or maybe he just didn't like ATVers and dirt bikers tearing up his land and wasn't so nutty after all. |
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Is you grandfather Chuck Norris?? |
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Remember the old saying, "it's better to be missed by a 44, than to be hit by a 22."
The problem is that because of the low recoil of 22LR, people get complacent, and complecent gun people hurt or killed. |
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An old timer who accually shot deer to feed his family (reguardless of season or limits) told me the .22 works very good on deer. |
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Came close to killing Reagan. But, that was from a lot of internal bleeding.
I felt obligated to tell the truth. Otherwise, I was going to add "It'll buff right out." |
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I was working as a bouncer at a bar last year when a "patron" in the parking lot was shot with a .22. He took 4 rounds to the torso, and in the time it took for me to get from the front door, to the corner of the building where he fell after running a few feet, (all told, probably 15 seconds from the first shot) he was dead. Not a single round exited the body. Shot placement is key with any round.
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A hit with a .22LR is better than a miss with a .45 ACP
That said, a hit with a .45 ACP is better than a hit with a .22LR Like others have said, first rule of a gunfight is to have a gun. |
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You have to ask yourself about the type of weapon used as well. My .22 Beretta will imbed a round in a 2x4 across the garage. You can pick the bullet out with a pocketknife. That same ammo out of a Remington bolt gun penetrates a 4"x4" block and stop a couple inches into the block behind it.
2" barrel vs 22" barrel. Bigger IS better. A .22 rifle at close range can really mess someone up. It'll probably exit the body. A couple of those workplace shootings that were all the fad a few years ago were done with Ruger 10/22's. |
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The Reagan shooting someone alluded to. One round dropped a SS agent in his tracks, guess that counts as a one-shot stop (didn't kill him but put him totally out of the fight), another single hit almost killed the President of the United States. He came within maybe 10 min of dying if I remember correctly.
Small (light powered) calibers aren't AS lethal as large ones but that doesn't mean they're toys. If a .22 was all I had to protect myself, I'd make it do just fine. (just have to shoot straighter) |
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I have killed several animals with .22 LR, although most of my shooting is with shotguns or centerfires.
The conclusion that I came to was that .22 LR was deadly, but often not immediately. As such it is not suitable for self defense. This does NOT mean its not deadly! |
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A friend of mine was murdered by a .22 pistol. She was riding in a car, stray bullet from a gang fight went through the car window, into her head, and she was dead in a feww hours.
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According to some liberals it can take out a plane and should be banned before terrorist get this terrible round!
But seriously it’s about shoot placement; a 22 LR to the foot isn’t going to kill you unless it gets infected. A 22 LR to the back of the head at close range is another story. |
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Didn't some snipers in World War I use .22LR for taking people out? I remember someone talking about it, they said that if you shot someone in the head, the bullet would bounce around in the persons skull. I don't know the validity of this statement because I haven't looked it up on google, actually I think I will go do that right now.
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I once killed a bison at 800 yards with my 22 Marlin. Aimed for his eye and he dropped like a ton of bricks.
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Not to my knowledge. To my understanding full caliber weapons were used, due to the extreme range from trench to trench, and sometimes buffalo/elephant guns, to penetrate light steel armor. |
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During my LEO days , many years ago , I saw a young man that had been shot in the chest by a .22LR . He was flat on back and going into shock . The Paramedics were working on him . Hell , I don't want to get hit by a .177 much less a .22 . |
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When I was in high school, one of the guys in my grade got shot in the back with a .22 while running away from the boyfriend of the girl he was sleeping with. One shot to the center of the back killed him.
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