.22LR, .25 Auto effectiveness throughout history

[TxFlyFish]

The thing is not whether 22 or 25 can be fatal, you need to consider the percentage of folks who won't stop no matter how many rounds u dump into them

[Double Naught Spy]

I do not understand why people underestimate the lowly .22lr let alone any other caliber.

Simple - failure to provide stops when needed.

[Fabiankitchen]

MHO, if you're an attacker, and you hear bang, muzzle flash and a thump anywhere on your body, you know you just got shot. Chances are you are running, or shooting back, in that case, you shoot more! A .22lr, especially multiple rounds might not cause you to bleed out necessarily but will cause a lot of internal damage that a doctor might not be able to take care of fast enough. Before you get that far you will have have some problems. I would say a .25 would be a little Better, but it just doesn't have the penetration of a .22. Like i said, like many others have as well, anything is better than a stick!

[Fabiankitchen]

Personally, I have my PT145. Love it. Can't go too wrong with a .45acp. Loud, but hits hard. Even then there are cases of people hit with higher caliber pistol rounds and not stopping. The REAL stoppers are 12 gauges. Hmm, time for a 12gauge revolver? Anyone? No? Ok...

[ChrisTx]

MHO, if you're an attacker, and you hear bang, muzzle flash and a thump anywhere on your body, you know you just got shot. Chances are you are running, or shooting back, in that case, you shoot more!

Exactly. I can't imagine a scenario where the bad guy hears your .22 going off and stops to check what caliber you are shooting him with. And if he is able to determine it is indeed a .22, he will somehow laugh off the bullet holes in him and try and fight you.

[Fabiankitchen]

Two words, shot placement. Although you cannot definitely have a clear shot 100% of the time, a face/head shot, heart, groin, neck, I believe would deter most people. 10 rounds of .22 can go quick, real quick, accurately. So chances are, you have a good chance to escape with your life. 380-.45 would be ones best bet, but hey, .22 are probably the most prevalent caliber out there. Use whatcha got I suppose. Or better, what you can afford.

[L_Killkenny]

I've killed enough critters to know that the people who claim shot placement is everything and spout used up statements like "a hit with a .22 is better than a miss with a .45" are spittin into the wind. But.......

People aren't like critters and a humans mind creates a lot more "stops" than bullets do. I don't care how the threat is "stopped". The bad guy can throw his hands up or turn and run or fall down and cry for mommy or go down DRT. Don't give a flip. Cartridge is irrelevant in many, maybe even most, of those cases when it comes to the human mind.

[jamaica]

Good point L_Killkenny.

Ya, I too have killed lots of critters with a 22 LR. I know it can be done, yet the only time in all my (many) years that I have had need to defend myself against a two legged critter, just moving my body enough to show that I had a gun hung on my belt, stopped the threat. I didn't even have to draw it.

[Mystro]

Just to make it interesting.....I have killed many larger predators like foxes and coyotes with the 22lr quite regularly. The hyper velocity 22lr Yellow Jackets dump even the biggest coyote when shot in the neck under 50 yards.. They go down instantly.

This fox was shot at 40 yards in the neck from my trusty 22lr S&W 17-3 pistol. Death was instant. This family heirloom pistol has killed more on the farm and in the woods than most people's entire collection of rifles.

[Stevie-Ray]

The hyper velocity 22lr Yellow Jackets dump even the biggest coyote when shot in the neck under 50 yards.. They go down instantly.

That's what I've always kept my .22 field guns loaded with, even my PT-22, which shoots them nicely.

[Double Naught Spy]

Exactly. I can't imagine a scenario where the bad guy hears your .22 going off and stops to check what caliber you are shooting him with. And if he is able to determine it is indeed a .22, he will somehow laugh off the bullet holes in him and try and fight you.

Yeah, for the life of me I cannot understand why the military, actually militaries around the world, police agencies, and self defense expects don't suggest the .22 lr to everybody since it is obviously such an amazing stopper, but yet somehow all these folks have missed such as obvious, if understated, tool to be used as a primary weapon.

[Model12Win]

The .22 LR is superior in stopping power to most 9mm loads because the .22 will bounce around inside the body and create a maze like wound channel. A 9mm will just go right through somebody leaving a pencil thin hole. If it's a hollow point 9mm it will leave about a dime sized hole. The reason .gov and .mil don't use the .22 LR isn't because it isn't an effective manstopper, it is because it is hard to get the .22 to feed in high capacity pistols. Also it isn't as good as for going through intermediate barriers as the 9mm.

I learned all this off the internet.

[Rifleman1776]

Model12Win, thanks for the humor break.
We needed a little fantasy.

[44 AMP]

We,, one thing seems clear, the .22LR & .25acp are capable of bringing a near three year dead thread back to life!

As for the .25, its a belly gun pretty much. I have one that I pop some cans with occasionally, it was developed in the early part of last century and ultimately stuck around due to its ability to be chambered in very small guns and still be called a centerfire.

That's partially true. The reason the .25is still around (and fairly popular with some folks) isn't because its a centerfire. Its because 1)the guns are cheap. 2)the .25 comes in the smallest available repeaters, and 3) they work.

#1 appeals to all who need or want a gun, and can't or won't spend the money for a bigger, more powerful (and more expensive) one.

#2 is important to everyone who carries a gun concealed.

#3 Generally speaking, the .25acp guns work. And by this, I mean that the gun work more reliably than the .22LR guns. Sure, there are individual .25s that are "jammomatics", but, as a group, overall they feed and fuction better than the .22LR. Until very recently, the only ammo ever used in the .25acp has been the 50gr FMJ RN. (There has also been a hollow point version of this bullet, but it has a very small hollow point, and outside of extremely rare situation, it does not expand)

Every .22LR semi auto I have ever had, or seen has jammed or malfunctioned at some point, with some ammo. And the pocket pistols are the worst of the lot in this regard. A .25 that works is better than a .22 that jams.

My whole life I have been hearing "22 killed more people (or deer) than any other...". It may even be true. But so what? Its irrelevant.

Old age kills everything that doesn't die of something else sooner. But I can't count on old age to stop an attacker, or get me venison. (and if I did, I rather doubt I would be around for old age to take out!)

The bottom line is, for personal defense, throughout history, everything has worked at some point, and everything has failed, at some point. And you can find real world situations where it happened. (I have always wondered why an anonymous group of data called a statistic is accepted at face value so often, but a real world incident is called an anecdote, and generally dismissed....)

here's on, I can verify personally, wife's uncle was, as a young man, (accidently) shot, in the heart with a .22. The bullet lodged in the heart muscle. The docs left the bullet in place. He died winter before last, in his early 80s.

Debate all you want (it can be entertaining) but real world results are clear. Under perfect conditions, everything works (or it worked, and we assume conditions were perfect), and under less than perfect conditions everything, even those things with the greatest reputations have failed on occasion.

There are no magic bullets. Anything that breaks the skin can kill (or result in death) when conditions are just right. Lots of attacks are "stopped" from a single small bore shot, or even no shot at all. Because the attacker chose to stop, not because of the actual damage inflicted.

And a .22 or .25 that stops an attack this way is just as effective as a .357 or a .45. Trouble is there is no way to know in advance, and since it is prudent to be able to manage the worst likely situation, even though a .22 or a .25 might do the job, having something bigger to use, should the need arise just makes me feel better.

[psyfly]

So, really, what's wrong with:

bringing a near three year dead thread back to life!

????

I have both .22s and .25s within easy reach. I very seldom choose either one for SD.

If I choose to drop one in my pocket on the way out the door with SD in mind, it's going to be one of the .25s.

The only time I've ever carried a .22 for defensive purpose was a NAA mini .22 short in either my shirt pocket or my swimsuit .

Seriously, if an old thread has something good in it, what's wrong with bringing it back?

Best,

Will

[mes228]

I can't speak to the effectiveness of the .25 auto or .22 Long Rifle (on anything but squirrels and rabbits). The correct question is "will the .25 auto penetrate enough?" It is mostly penetration that kills. Not ft. lbs. energy, not bullet cavity ie permanent or temporary etc.etc.. Anything will die fairly quickly if the bullet reaches a vital organ. I CAN speak to the effectiveness of .22 magnum in a Ruger Single Six. About 47 years ago I was a teenage on the farm and had been given a new Ruger Single Six with 2 cylinders .22/.22mag. I mostly carried the .22 Magnum Winchester rounds.

I had no trouble killing practically every species animal in Virginia except a Black Bear with that Ruger. I had little regard for Game Laws (I do now and wouldn't repeat the errors of youth for anything). If it "got up" and stood still for a second or two I shot it. The largest Whitetail Deer I've taken (out of approx. 40) was with that Ruger (one round to the neck. Bang/Flop) All the figures on lethality of rounds are hypothetical. It's mostly penetration that kills. A .22 magnum has penetration in spades. Some modern .22 Long Rifles approach the .22 magnums specs. in bullet weight and velocity. So I suspect the modern .22 approaches the older .22 magnum. As for the .25 auto if it will penetrate to the vitals it will be deadly. Perhaps not as quickly as some more powerful rounds. Just my opinion based on real life experiences.

[PT-92]

I just had to break out my 'boots' as it's starting to get quite 'deep' in here...

[Regular Joe]

I finally got through reading this whole thread.
There have been times when I had to present my gun to change some minds. As it happened, the caliber would not have mattered, since I didn't have to change any physiology. It helped ME to know that I was loaded with my own recipe for very hot 9mm in 2 of those, and with my .223 varmint rifle in one. That leaves out the very first time, when I used a 7mm Mag. to drop a tree branch onto the clown who was shooting at us. A little pistol couldn't do that.
I've mused that any of my 10/.22 rifles would make a fine sniper rifle at close range, if the victim didn't expect the shot.
In a real attack, you most likely don't get a chance to fire more than once, or maybe twice, and certainly NOT 9 times to the face.
For defense, in the absence of a CNS hit, the object is all about tissue damage. If the scum bag hears my shot and feels the hit, he's gonna be far more traumatized if he sees several ounces of his shoulder dribbling down the wall.
My smallest defensive pistol is an LCP, and that's as small as I'm gonna' go. At that, I consider it to be good only for very close range. I do expect that the bad guy will respond to any hit from it.
There is another cliche that hasn't been used here:
Bring enough gun.

[csmsss]

One thing that I don't think has been mentioned is that the .22LR is not primarily a handgun round. It is primarily a rifle cartridge. Why does that matter? Because so many folks citing statistical evidence are quoting numbers that do not discriminate between .22's shot out of rifles from those shot out of handguns. The velocity (and therefore wound ballistics) performance between a .22 from a rifle vs. a .22 from a short barreled handgun are enormous, yet the stats mash them together into a single category.

[Derbel McDillet]

The .22 LR is superior in stopping power to most 9mm loads because the .22 will bounce around inside the body and create a maze like wound channel.

.22 LR doesn't magically "bounce around" inside the body. It cannot suddenly and radically change direction unless it hits bone. When it hits bone it usually rides against it like a car would ride against a guard rail. The relatively small mass of the bullet and low velocity means it does not have the momentum to blast through bones when colliding at an angle or tangent. The soft lead construction of the bullet means it's more likely to deform and the deformation will expend energy. Finally the rounded/blunt nose is easily deflected by bones.

[SSA]

80 years or so ago the U. S. Army decided that it took a projectile with about 58 ft-lb ke to reliably produce a disabling injury. AFAIK, that number is still used in regards to anti-personnel mines.
That's about what you get with a 25ACP or 22 short pistol.

[csmsss]

80 years or so ago the U. S. Army decided that it took a projectile with about 58 ft-lb ke to reliably produce a disabling injury. AFAIK, that number is still used in regards to anti-personnel mines.
That's about what you get with a 25ACP or 22 short pistol.

I would assert that the correlation between KE and lethality/disabling is tenuous, at best. I would further assert that metrics like this are used simply because they CAN be measured, as opposed to because they actually provide meaningful insight.

[southjk]

.22 LR doesn't magically "bounce around" inside the body. It cannot suddenly and radically change direction unless it hits bone.

Derbel McDillet, when Model12Win said that the .22 bounces around in the body, etc etc I do believe that he had his tongue planted firmly in cheek.

[BoogieMan]

Personally I would take a 22lr over a 25acp. I have seen the .25 bounce off of a deer skull (downed but not dead) and a follow up from a 22 dispatched them well. Even so I wouldnt carry either, if I was able to carry in NJ. 9mak or larger, even though the 32acp was very effective in europe. In my drawer is my 686+ with 125gr HPs. That will at least slow any attacker. PA63 on my waist when at the office late.

[JERRYS.]

I realize this debate has been beat to death a million times on this and other forums, so much so that I cant read the 5 pages of opinions here.

for those who don't know or do know but purposely misrepresent, the best .25acp and best .22lr have virtually the same ballistic when fired from the same mini guns i.e. the Beretta 20 and 21.

the cons of each are power. in addition the rimfire's is reliability, the centerfire's is cost.