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Either you misunderstood or your CCW instructor was an idiot. Unless you have considerable experience or that's your only choice, using a knife for sd is a very bad idea. To say that a knife is better than a gun inside 21 ft. is absurd.
Well you clearly didn't understand what I said. A. I said the instructor certainly wasn't clear about the whole issue but he did say "better". I have it in my notes if you'd like a copy. B. I never said it was better. I clearly said I included it because my instructor in my CCW class did and it was more or less a joke that I threw in.

Clearly the person in this conversation that didn't understand is you. Try actually reading what I said next time. I explained this once but obviously you didn't understand my explanation.

To think that a knife can't be better than a gun is also absurd. Most certainly they can be in certain situations. If you can pull your knife faster than the guy with a gun and particularly if that person has a small caliber gun then you could very well get the upper hand in that situation. Shooting someone who is moving is not all that easy to begin with. Unless you have lots of training with a gun the chances you will hit someone who charges you from inside 21 feet in a vital area are very slim. Reference the lawyer video. Two guns emptied. 5 shots to the head and upper body and if the lawyer would have had a machete I would have bet 10-1 on him. It would be a more natural action than shooting someone and unless that person has practiced drawing a gun fast and shooting it accurately fast then that person is very likely going to lose a fight with someone carrying a knife especially if the knife blade happens to be oh maybe 20 inches long and super sharp like my machete is. There's a good chance that knife will slice your arm right off at the wrist if it hits it just right. Anyone sticking up their hands to block it is going to find their arm is useless very quickly.

So it seems that it isn't so absurd to think a knife can be better in certain situations. I would take a large knife over a small caliber gun any day especially if I was close to the person I was fighting. A knife can be a terrible weapon. The Japanese routinely chopped off the heads of captured US soldiers in WWII using swords which are technically knives. A super sharp blade that was maybe 4' long would certainly be a very formidable weapon.

So I would think that before you call someone else absurd you may want to think the situation through a little better.

UPDATE:


I did a little research and found this video just for you. Some of the stuff there seems pretty hokey but the gun vs. knife simulation gives you an idea what it might be like to face someone with a knife who is charging you when you don't expect it.

 
Discussion starter · #42 ·
So the video shows a guy with a knife charging a guy with a gun. The guy doesn't quite clear in time to shoot , but notice he drew, operated the manual safety, then racked the slide. But that's all irrelevant to the current conversation.

I don't know what message you were trying to send "just for me". Now lets look at my comment:

"Either you misunderstood or your CCW instructor was an idiot. Unless you have considerable experience or that's your only choice, using a knife for sd is a very bad idea. To say that a knife is better than a gun inside 21 ft. is absurd."

Now what were the people in your video doing? Training, gaining experience in learning how to use a knife properly. Doesn't refute my comment at all. But how a knife figures into the discussion of the lethality of a .22 is beyond me. If a knife wielding attacker were able to get to a person and cut him before he can draw and fire it really doesn't matter much whether the one armed with a gun had a .44 magnum or a bb gun, now does it? Being taken by surprise by someone with a knife out on the street is a totally different scenario than defending yourself from an intruder, inside your home.

You really need to follow your own advice about reading what someone typed before attacking their comments. I guess you really struggled for something relevant to say, so you misquoted me in order to to have something to attack. But no one in this entire thread ever advocated choosing a .22 over anything else for self defense.

In any event, I'm done with this discussion. This is going nowhere. In the future I need to bow to superior knowledge and experience.
 
I can see covering 21 feet with a blade being a bit faster on avarage than drawing a handgun and firing a combat accurate shot. But unless the attacker with the blade is experienced enough or lucky enough to get a lethal jab in before the defender gets his gun drawn hes a dead man everytime. So the scenario should be explained like this.. For well trained individuals a blade would certainly be more useful inside 21 feet than a gun, because theyve had the training to use the blade quickly and efficiently to kill thier target. But for your average person, a blade would be useless against a gun, not that the average person cant close the distance and slip the blade cleanly into that vital spot, but they simply havent been trained to do it efficiently and without hesitation. Self defence is 50% training and 50% confidence. A knife in the hands of an untrained person would be a confidence killer in my mind. And the lack of confidence results in hesitation at that critical moment.. The person with the .22 would win everytime..
 
Here is my .02...I think a .22 has a place for certain people for self defense. There are some real nasty .22 rounds these days, but more importantly weaker shooters might be able to place more rounds where they need to be with a .22 vs larger calibers. It all boils down to shot placement and a weaker individual may have a better chance to hit a vital organ if they can hit the bad guy more times. There are way too many variables to give a perfect formula, but you do hear of people surviving multiple larger caliber shots and other dying from a single .22 = shot placement. Now a trained shooter that can handle a larger caliber weapon would be foolish in my opinion to rely on a .22 unless that was all they had. I tested this with my wife at the range the other day. I had her rapidly clear the mag from her Bersa .380 (still very little recoil) and then with our Walther P22. The .380 rounds not only came out slower (which would have allowed the bad guy to get closer), but were all over the place - 2 completely outside the silhouette. All 10 .22 rounds were within a foot of each other and well within the silhouette. I used to be dead set against the .22 for sd, but the more testing I do and read the more I feel they may be a viable option for certain shooters.
 
It wouldn't bother me to defend myself with my Browning .22, but I put a LOT of rounds through it each year. I believe with a quick 3 shot burst I could probably put 1 of the 3 into an eye socket. That is a lights out & down for the count shot with anything. If you dump 10 on someone in the chest it only takes 1 slipping a rib to ricochet around inside your rib cage and turn things to jelly. I have heard that .22 caliber bullets will ricochet around inside your rib cage fairly easily. Not trying to be cocky, but I hit what I am aiming at and that is what it comes down too. If you can't hit a barn when you are inside it....wouldn't matter if you had a Ruger Alaskan in .454 Casull.
 
Every time someone asks this question I point them to this video where a man empties two .22 revolvers point blank shooting at his lawyer. The lawyer lived. Is that the caliber of gun you want for self defense? Not me.

I saw a lot of people saying a .22 is a viable defense round in this thread before I stopped reading the comments. They're wrong. A .22 can certainly kill "if" you hit someone in the right spot. But hitting someone in the right spot is not nearly as easy as all that unless you're shooting at someone that isn't expecting to be shot. Most home invaders, criminal types, etc. are ready for a confrontation and won't be a sitting duck type target. That leaves you trying to hit a concealed and covered target and / or a moving target. The video tells you exactly what you need to know. The lawyer was shot in the neck and lived. I have a hard time believing that would have turned out the same if the guy had a .45. Yes you might still kill them or stop them with one shot of .22 LR. But a larger round has a MUCH better chance of doing the job you want done. That lawyer was shot FIVE times in the face and the upper body. That's exactly where you would try to shoot him. He walked away from it. No way he does that if the gun is a .45. Not a chance.

Every expert in the world will tell you this. They don't just say it for fun. It's true. I know people who were shot in the head with a .22 and the bullet followed the bone alright - right around their skull and out the other side with nothing more than a cut on his head and it wasn't even that bad. He never had the slightest problem with being shot in the head. Think about what I'm saying here. He was shot in what is considered to be the most lethal spot and he barely noticed it. It's not like his life was saved by heroic efforts at the hospital either. None of his wounds were life threatening. None.

A .22 will NOT do the damage of a larger caliber weapon like a .45 or a 9mm or a .40 caliber. It certainly won't do the damage of a centerfire rifle caliber from a .223 on up. It's not even close.

And the idea of shooting multiple shots means you need to make multiple hits. The odds of that happening are slim. Remember Black Hawk Down? Those bad guys were being shot with .223 rounds and they kept on fighting because they were so stoned they didn't know they were hurt bad. Most people in a gun battle will quit when they see they are seriously hurt. They don't want to die. But drunks in a stupor, PCP blasted dopers, crack heads, etc. are often going to be just like those khat heads in Somalia. They won't even realize they're shot until you hit something vital that puts them down.

If you want to be a hit man then yes a .22 can work well for you. If you want something to defend yourself and your family get a centerfire weapon with as much power as you can handle.

There's a reason you don't see armies using .22's. Yes I know about how Israel used them to take out guards quietly. But that's one very limited example. If they were actually good for SD you'd see at least one country using them in their army. But no country does.

I guess the question is "why" would you choose a .22 for self defense when clearly other calibers are far, far superior? It makes no sense to me at all.
no matter what the weapon,,, if u use it properly !!!
couple years ago in AMERICAN RIFLEMAN magazine in the armed citezen colum,, an elderly couple had a home invasion of several young punks. they pistol whipped him and shot him 5 times with a 45ACP, and left him on the floor for dead. then they started on his wife (guess that pissed him off) the elderly gentleman crawled across the floor and got a single action 22 revolver out of his nitestand and shot the first punk between the eyes killing him instantly and put another round into his partner killing him.
and the moral to this story is " USE YOUR TOOL PROPERLY"
 
I carry my little NAA .22mag revolver as a last ditch BUG, I'm a believer! People in my neck of the woods used to (I'm sure they still do) poach deer quite often with .22 rifles, quiet and a head shot will usually put them down quick.

thanks for the video MT!
Wow. I feel a lot better carrying my NAA .22mag as a pocket pistol.
 
sure it will kill.just like any other firearm. It depends where your first shot goes. Im confused, do you mean with one shot or several and .22lr or .22 mag or both? The .22 mag will definitely end someone with an easy shot to the chest or head. I did watch a video on truTV where a guy shot some big guy in the head with a .22 pistol and the guy hollered out to him why did you do that. I will try to find the video later but now I have to go to San Antonio to do some stuff.
 
ive heard storys of soldiers who have said they shot 5 223.rds into a person and it didnt stop them and the returned fire on them ive even heard of people being shot with 7.62 9mm 45acp and do the same thing. any caliber can be leathal depends on the scenario if a guy is on 6-7 lines of meth hes gonna have the strength of 4 ppl hes not gonna feel pain when first hit with any caliber a 22 rifle bolt act or semi auto ive gotta say would probably be the best SHTF firearm to have though its light can pack tons of ammo& ammo is a lot cheaper in price for u to stock up with and in a sittuation where theres little to no medical attetion no one would want to be shot by any caliber of a round but on penatration factorsi have to agree a large round is better. a 22lr handgun im my opion would be good for c&c unfortnaly i live in IL so cant carry my reasons for saying that if a situation came to play in aparking lot and your attacked u dont have to worry about the round going through the perp and hitting a innocent person like a 45 or 9mm could at close range what my point is i would not use a 22lr to protect my house from a home invader but i would in a situation of chaos to fend off attackers at a 50-60 yrd distance if those sittuations ever were to happen
 
thanks for the video. my girlfriend is just now learning about guns after 45 years of not being around them. im trying to give her an idea of what the .22 could actually do to someone if needed. this is a good visual for her. she has always heard from people who have no idea that it would just piss someone off, (yeah right.) thanks again. very helpful.
 
she has always heard from people who have no idea that it would just piss someone off, (yeah right.)
only if therer on meth or other types of speed a 45acp could piss them off no gurantte when people are on these types of drugs.
The only thing that gets me is some of the stupid post ive heard about 22,s. one guy said he witnessed a guy shot with a 22 and the bullets bounced off him.sorry but i have to call bull crap on that one.No bullet is going to bounce off anyone unless there made of rubber. a 22 can be very lethal military snipers have used these rounds.For people to say a 22 isn,t lethal there wrong unless the,ve been shot buy one they would not know.ive done test with a half inch of plywood with a milk jug filled with jello at 25yrds it penatrated the plywood and went through the milk jug tell me that a 22 isnt lethal.if a person can handle bigger like a 9mm or 38 id go with that over a 22 for deffense but not all people can to turn people against using a 22 .my opion better then nothing at all
 
I like the fact that a few of the posters here have actually shot some kind of living creature with a 22. I have and they all dropped or ran away. I have had 22's including magnums fail on head shots because a skull has remarkable ability to deflect. Has any body else had a similar experience? I have come to prefer chest shots from a perpendicalar angle. Ihave seen squirrels with a sizable head wound and still trying to run away. I would like to more experiences and less hearsay.
 
You can't kill a bear shooting it in the eye. The eye socket doesn't give you a clear path to the brain. A bear has to be shot in the mouth if you expect to kill it with a small caliber weapon.

And that stuff about an old man killing two people with a .22. Anything's possible. Samson killed 5000 with the jawbone of a donkey. And before you say that's not possible remember he was on a ledge where they had to come at him one at a time.

The story is you pick what's most effective if you're smart.

BTW I've killed LOTS of stuff with a .22. You can kill large and small animals with it if you have the time to take perfect aim and you know where to shoot. I grew up in a "very" rural area and we had to protect ourselves from varmints and worse (like feral dogs running in packs). I know for a fact you can kill those animals with a .22. I've killed maybe 30 dogs in my life with a .22 and only one needed a second shot and that was because the dog turned it's head the instant I shot. But I also know the chances of killing a human are a lot less using a .22 instead of using a larger caliber.
 
Actually title is wrong not how lethal the round is but how many crimes have been stopped by it,some people dont like the thought of or being shot by anything.
It can be lethal,it is accurate it is what it is a small caliber.
 
Lets see...the world record Grizzly Bear for several years was killed by a grandmother with a .22lr bolt-action rifle...:)
http://www.angelfire.com/on2/LandOwner/misc/Grizley1.html

Recently a Polar Bear attacked a woman and her husband took it out with a .22lr rifle...one shot to the legs to distract it, and then one to the head...

In an outside the bar confrontation, an off-duty Orange Beach Police Officer used his backup NAA Mini-revolver against a knife-wielding attacker...
"One shot to the stomach made all the fight go out of him and he crumpled to the ground..."

On the other hand, I've seen dash-cam vid of a crackhead who took 19 shots from officers using 9mm's, including two headshots...
(those two headshots made brain matter splatter on the house behind him, mind you...sometimes even Good placement doesn't help)
after expending all the rounds in his pistol, the man then Charged officers with a 2x4...
and was put down permanently with two 12-gauge shotgun blasts, one to the head...

Every shooting situation is different...it depends almost entirely on where you put the bullet...
CNS hits are the most effective...and there is much to be said for 12-gauge chest hits ;)

I've carried a wide variety of firearms over the years, some for duty, some for personal protection...
but ANY firearm is better than NO firearm...as it gives you Options!!
 
Lethality and round are one part of the equation. Shot placement is more important then caliber unless you get real big. The larger and faster you get the less accurate you have to be. The smaller round used the more your shot needs to hit the mark. Of course Speed can also give you leeway.
 
Grew up with a 22 on the Tractor, just in case it was needed
Dispatched a truck load of game with the faithfull 22LR
I have a great respect for the Lethal capabilities of a well placed shot with a 22LR.
 
Here is an Exerpt from a story I read online when I googled " Grizzly killed with a 22"

Back in 1965, the world-record grizzly fell to one .30/30 bullet fired by Jack Turner. And before that, the world-record grizzly succumbed to a .22 Rimfire!

Bella Twin, an Indian girl, and her friend Dave Auger were hunting grouse near Lesser Slave Lake in northern Alberta. The only gun they had was Bella’s single-shot bolt-action .22 Rimfire rifle. They were walking a cutline that had been made for oil exploration when they saw a large grizzly following the same survey line toward them. If they ran, the bear would probably notice them and might chase, so they quietly sat down on a brush pile and hoped that the bear would pass by without trouble. But the bear came much too close, and when the big boar was only a few yards away, Bella Twin shot him in the side of the head with a .22 Long cartridge. The bear dropped, kicked and then lay still. Taking no chances, Bella went up close and fired all of the cartridges she had, seven or eight .22 Longs, into the bear’s head. That bear, killed in 1953, was the world-record grizzly for several years and is still high in the records today. Which only goes to show that in an emergency, strange things are possible, but who wants that kind of emergency?
 
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