.22 Rifles for home Defense?

I recently I've done a few videos on 22 long-rifle hollow point expansion and effectiveness when fired from a handgun well that of course brought up the question of 22 long-rifle hollow point expansion and effectiveness when fired from a rifle which brought up the debate over the viability of a 22 rifle as a home defense gun well let's shoot some 22 rifles and see if we can shed any light on that subject now before we go any farther I've got to address the topic of all the things people say about 22s I have heard so many people say so many cockamamie things about 22s over the years I can't even begin to address it but there's two things I've heard people say that I really want to address one is the saying that a 22 isn't much but it sure beats nothing that might seem axiomatic but I'm going to put it to the test so what I've got is the two soda jugs on your right I'm going to engage those with nothing and then I'll engage the two soda jugs on your left with a 22 rifle and we'll see which is more effective so first the jugs on the right with number okay marginally effective now let's engage the jugs on the left with a 22 you be the judge but I'm gonna say the 22 is more effective now there's one other adage I want to address about 22s a long time ago someone asked an expert about the viability of his 22 long rifle caliber handgun as a self-defense gun and the expert at that time told him that of 22 isn't much but certainly a solid hit from the 22 is a lot more effective than a loud miss from a 44 Magnum well let's put that to the test now we're talking about rifles so I've got my 44 magnum rifle and I'll engage the two soda jugs on the right with the 44 Magnum but I'll miss and then I'll engage the two soda jugs on the left with a 22 rifle but I'll hit them and let's see which one is more effective okay again I'm gonna have to go with the 22 wins okay now that we've got that out of the way let's get serious we're talking about 22 rifles and we're also talking about 22 hollow-point ammunition now we've already demonstrated with a handgun that as long as you have good quality ammunition and a handgun with a reasonable barrel length such as four inches or greater you're going to get sufficient expansion at a distance of 20 yards but with a rifle used in the venue that a 22 rifle is really made to be used for something like rabbit hunting you may very well be called upon to shoot farther distances than that 50 75 maybe even hundred yards and we know that hollow-point bullets are velocity based I've said this before the faster you propel them the more expansion you'll get up to a point if you propel them to slowly they'll drop below expansion threshold and you'll get minimal to no expansion we also know that as bullets go down range they lose velocity so at what range will bullets fired from this rifle drop below expansion threshold and then there's the matter of accuracy given the nature of 22 rifles and 22 ammunition there's a lot of people of the opinion that can't really be fired accurately at any great distance well when I was in Marine Corps basic training I was taught that maximum effective range is the greatest range at which the average Marine can consistently hit a target that's not how far the rifle will shoot that's the greatest range at which the average Marine can consistently hit a target now in that case it was shooting from the prone at a man-sized silhouette but I've found that when I'm rabbit hunting virtually all of the shots I take are off hands so for today I'm going to define maximum effective range for the 22 rifle as being the greatest distance at which the average rabbit hunter shooting offhand can consistently hits a rabbit sized target and retain sufficient hollow-point expansion now let's see if we can determine what that is I've got a target down here at 100 so let me shoot a few shots and we'll see what kind of group I can hold and yes I wear earplugs on every shot I take [Applause] [Applause] and there you have it I think we can say that you can consistently hit a rabbit size target at that distance now you notice I had one hit clear down here I don't know if you could hear that on the audio but I could feel it when it went off that was an underpowered round such as the nature of 22 ammunition but the question is by the time that bullet has traveled a hundred yards does it still have velocities sufficient for hollow-point expansion let's put that to the test the ammunition I was using with CCI mini mag 36 grain hollow points and we recovered three of the bullets and you can see that there mushroomed out very well so maximum effective range of a 22 rifle well for me with my 1022 and an aftermarket peep sight at least 100 yards maybe as far as 125 and if you use a different type of rifle maybe you put a scope on it or you're a better shot than I am or you use a different type of 22 ammo you might have a maximum effective range even farther than that but a lot of people are concerned with the role of a 22 rifle as a home defense gun well your range is most likely going to be a lot less than a hundred yards now previously we've done a demonstration of 22 hollow point effectiveness out of a handgun at close range let's see how effective hollow points can be out of a rifle at really close range and now without any further ado it's time for the meet target for those of you who haven't seen this what it is is a pork chop to simulate a pectoral muscle and then pork ribs then a watermelon to simulate lung tissue more pork ribs on the back and then behind it as always the high-tech fleece bullet stuff now we'll cover it with four layers of t-shirt shoot it with our 22 rifle from 7 yards and then we'll recover the bullets will examine bullet expansion we'll look at the penetration and how much damage it does and see then if we can infer how effective that would be and we'll start with our CCI mini mag 36 grain hollow points [Music] well I've got our meet target torn up let's see how we did bullets all went through the ribs on the front hit the ribs in a couple of places and just shattered them penetrated all the way through the watermelon and all three bullets were stopped by the ribs on the back which is the exact same amount of penetration we got out of this ammunition with the handgun however the difference is it looks like it did a little more damage to the watermelon and our bullets are expanded quite a bit more let me show you a close-up of those mini mag bullets and there you can see our 336 grain mini mag bullets and they're all expanded very well okay now we have a new meat target set so you repeat that from 7 yards but this time we'll use the CCI students these are a 32 grain hollow points so let's see if that lighter bullet turns into less penetration so how did we do with our stingers well really mixed results now going through our pork chop pectoral muscle just chewed it up going through our ribs hit a couple of them broke them really made some big holes in there going into our watermelon chewed it up really well but only one bullet actually made it far enough to be stopped by the ribs on the back side and that was the only bullet that was hold the other bullets fragmented and there were little pieces everywhere some of those pieces stuck in the ribs so although you got a lot of damage you didn't get as much penetration and which one of those is better is the stinger sufficient you be the judge there's one more thing I want to cover about a 22 rifle as a home defense gun there's lots of good lever action and pump action rifles out there but Auto loaders are reading more popular and lots of Auto loaders have a tube magazine that'll hold 14 or 15 or more guns like this 10 22 can have detachable box magazines that'll hold 25 or more and that allows you to put a lot of rounds down not bad at all the thing is though with guns like this there's a tendency that some people have to think that they can be fired from the hip or some kind of assault position and that that will be really effective well let's give that a try okay missed a couple but overall not too bad the thing is though I've practiced that for years and you can see that it still wasn't really any faster and certainly not any more accurate than just aiming keep that in mind so what if anything did we learn about 22 rivals well their accuracy their power and their range is more than a lot of people give them credit for but as a home defense gun they wouldn't be the first recommendation that I would make for most people but there are some reasons you may select a 22 rifle for home defense things like you're not 21 yet and you can't buy a handgun reasons of economics things like that probably the two biggest reasons you'd select a 22 rifle for home defense would be because you're one of those people that can shoot a 22 really well but you get rattled by loud noise and recoil so you don't do as well with the bigger calibers and the main reason you'd select 22 rifle is because it might be the only gun you have and if that's the case it's probably going to be plenty in a home defense situation but the real bottom line about 22 rifles is they are not to be underestimated so as always don't try this at home I'm what you call a professional and thanks for watching the 22 rifle video [Music]

Channel: Paul Harrell

Views: 1,619,587

Rating: 4.9141812 out of 5

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Id: _w4Z5azEPWk

Length: 11min 55sec (715 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 07 2016