.22lr Stopping Power?
I know it'll kill you dead, but outside of a head shot, how fast will it stop you?
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Shot placement. The key to instant kill on a target is shot placement,no matter what is used, any size bullet,knifes,ect. Other than that it's bleed out. Now granted bigger bullets make bigger holes increaseing your odds,but each choice is open to many variables and different situations. My advise...shot placement , through practice,practice, practice. Some will say ya need a 44 mag,some will say the .22 is fine. Only you know what fits you,what you can handle (recoil,gun weight,cycling a auto ) Find what works for you and practice. This has been asked and argued probably longer than my 50 years alive. Thats my two cents. 0 -
How big of a target??? Big and fat,large body mass? Small frame,skinny,but hopped up on dope ??? So many questions. 0 -
Here's a link for you.
http://handloads.com/misc/stoppingpower.asp?Caliber=2&Weight=All0 -
quote:Originally posted by ShootingAgain
I know it'll kill you dead, but outside of a head shot, how fast will it stop you?
You can be shot in the leg with a 22lr, and if the bullet hits the femoral artery, and if the bullet does enough damage to the artery, you will die. I keep trying to put a time on it, but there are so many factors: Overwieght or underweight, what kind of path available to bleed out, immediate tournaquet or clamp. The shot can be fatal, and the person unconcious, but still not technically brain dead for a few more minutes.
A head shot is no guarantee. There are certainly survivors or multiple gunshots to the head. I saw a story about a mob dude that was shot 4 times right in the back of the head by a person right behind him. The dude who was shot turned around and beat the hell out of the person that shot him. They were good shots (in the center), and penetrated the skull. I guess that says something about the size of his brains[;)]
Obviously that case isn't normal. I would say the "stopping" is dependant on the determination of the person. You have to get pretty lucky on what you hit with a 22lr because it will not due the gross anatomical damage that will truly render the person non functional that larger faster bullets can. Of course, you can get lucky with the heart or spinal cord and drop them right away.
Getting shot period is a pretty good deterent. I would probably convince most people to knock it off.0 -
You shoot somebody with a .22 make sure you empty the magazine, or all the shots in the cylinder if using a revolver. Multiple hits are the are what will be required, to have any hope of stopping them quickly. 0 -
Length of barrel is critical to the effectiveness of any caliber.
Maximum effectiveness of the 22LR is from approximately a 16" barrel.
The 22 pistol shots that angered Joe Stugots above would likely have gone through his skull had they been from a rifle.
22LR energy is quite low until you get to about 6" barrel length.0 -
Both events occured in Central Florida within the last three years.
Guy sticks a .22 LR revolver in his mouth pulls the trigger, wakes up about 1 hour later calls 911 for help and is out of the hospital with a fractured neck in less than a week. He is fine physically, not even any dental damage but probably needs to see Dr. Phil for other issues.
A .22 is fired into a dwelling by idiot celebrating with a .22 rifle as a noise maker from about 50 yards. The bullet passes through a window hits a teenager in the eye and kills him almost instantly.
Go figure.0 -
It's an odd little round. It will often shatter and send secondary projectiles rattling around; it will skim along under the skin or around a bone and then suddenly snap around and penetrate. Better than a .25 because of this. Several rounds are probably as effective as a 12 gauge firing buck shot; but 1 shot effectiveness is a crap shoot. 0 -
I once had this discussion with Dr. Jack Stein the then medical examiner in Cook County Illinois. As said before he said that it all depended on shot placement. He went on to say that often a 22 round would travel from the point of entry around the body cavity and cause damage to multiple organs. He described one case where a person was shot high in the chest and the projectile spiraled down after hitting a back rib and went through the heart and was ultimately recovered in the groin. He pointed out that quite often a gunshot victim dies of shock rather than the wound. After this conversation I have always felt that a 22lr can be just as effective and any other handgun in the right hands although I have always carried a 380. 0 -
quote:Originally posted by ShootingAgain
I know it'll kill you dead, but outside of a head shot, how fast will it stop you?
The question is how fast can it kill someone?.
The answer is it depends entirely on where the bullet hits.
The right shot (eg brain/CNS) can drop a human instantly.
A perforating heart injury can cause death in a matter of a few minutes. . .but it can be hard to get there with only a .22. Any shot that nicks a major artery can also cause death in a matter of minutes.
In contrast a bowel-shot may cause death from peritonitis in a matter of DAYS. I've heard of a case where a bullet lodged in someones body eventually setting up an infection that killed them YEARS later, leading to successful murder charges being brought against the shooter (since the ultimate cause of death was the original gunshot).
In terms of "how fast will it stop someone", again, that's highly dependent on the circumstances.
Some people will stop the second they see "a gun" appear. So in that case, the "stop" occurs faster than a gunshot, and a .22 is just as good as a .44 magnum! Others will take one hit (in the leg) then decide to quit.
Some people will absorb 10+ gunshot wounds and still not quit.
Conventional human handgun "stop" is due to shock. . .ie hypoperfusion. . .ie the person hit bleeds out and loses blood pressure, and can't fight anymore.
The "stop" time is dependent on a HUGE number of factors including: the psychological state of the one being shot (are they insane? are they on drugs?), where the bullets hit, what organs are hit, and a few other factors.0 -
I'm not in the practice of medicine or shooting people for test purposes but I'll relate an incident with a buck of body size similar to a human. Guy stops at the Fire Dept to report a crippled deer a mile out of town. Since I'm the responsible person, I hop in the Jeep and drive out. It seems a pickup hit the 9 point buck an hour before but didn't kill it. Local guy comes by and shoots it 5 times in the ribcage with a 22lr rifle from 10 feet away. His story is that he was trying to shoot it in the heart. By the time I arrive, the buck is dead but had lived for over one hour after being hit by a vehicle AND being shot five times in the heart area. I wouldn't stake my wellbeing on the immediate effect of the 22lr unless applied to the brain. 0
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