Friday, February 19, 2010

Assumption is the mother...

And making assumptions can be very bad. most people consider .22 long rifle ammo to be the best choice for cheap plinking, And I agree. But what other uses does it get? Some minor varmint hunting, usually used to finish off a trapped coon or possum. And never suggested for home defense or self defense in general. I'd still say that is a good piece of advice, but just how much of a punch can those little .22lr rounds pack? Because most people would assume that those little rounds of ammo won't cause any harm to much more than a small varmint...

Well I decided to do a little testing. Rifle used was a model 67 Winchester single shot with 28" barrel
Ammo Winchester 37g JHP "super speed"
Distance 10 yards
Target - steel sheet (.042") backed up by aluminum plate (.2")



I set the steel sheet and the aluminum plate up with a C clamp holding both to either side of a 1/4" thick steel plate so there was a 1/4" gap between the steel and aluminum, Steel was the first target in line.

And here it the results. The bigger hole is from the .22 to the right of it is a hole from a .223 (not related to this test, I aimed near it for a comparison.)

The bullet actually wedged itself into the aluminum divot ( I could not remove it, even with high heat and trying to scrape it out)

The other side of the aluminum, it bulged out almost 1/4" and it made over a 2 inch diameter circle for the total area bulged out.


Shooting stuff is fun, And I'm going to pick up more of this ammo!
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1 comment:

  1. AnonymousFebruary 20, 2010 at 11:13 AM

    I dunno about the concern about "only harming varmints", seems that Robert Kennedy, or Ronald Reagan or the countless other people shipped up the river at the crack of a .22.

    .22 LR is a decent killing round....it's just a shitty STOPPING round. A couple of .22 slugs (even low velocity round-ball loads) in somebody's belly will very likely kill them unless they get under the knife of a skilled surgeon, and have more than a little luck on their side.

    That being said, that person is not very likely to be incapacitated in any close proximity to the time of being shot. That's not very valuble for personal defense, but MUST be considered when handling a .22 firearm. It might be easy in a world of 9mm, .45 ACP, .30-30 Win, .308 Win, 7.62x54R to think that the tiny .22 LR isn't a "Real" gun...but they can kill you just as dead if you don't use the same precautions as handling it's bigger brothers.

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