Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Rimfires 22 mag The Biggest?

Back when I worked summers in the packing house, if a big thick headed cow or bull came back to life after the knocker wouldn't put them out long enough to cut their corotid arteries, a guy with a .22 LR pistol did the deed with a close up shot to the forehead. The meat inspector was right there to condemn the head for possible lead contamination, but it did the job on 1,200 pound cattle. A .22 Mag would be more than enough with a brain shot on a big animal.

Depends on how bad you wanted to kill it . I've put a few deer in the freezer with one . Also seen a lot of beef that was butchered that fell to a 22 mag.

When was in grad school, I worked on a big ranch down in south Texas. I carried an Anschutz bolt-action rifle chambered in .22 mag as my "truck gun." The management paid $5 for coyote tails and $10 for a bobcat scalp. I made enough extra cash just about very time I was down there to cover my gas back and forth to College Station--and I often had enough left over to buy my wife dinner after I got home. (Gas and restaurant meals were pretty cheap back then. )

i've never understood the combination of science and politics behind which gun calibers are allowed and which aren't.

it's a pretty arcane science for sure.

is there a better answer?

i doubt it.

I simply shoot it all.

Hint................

You mean you steal em all

Excellent Accuracy
Hornady claims the new 22 WMR loaded with the 30gr V-MAX™ is “significantly more accurate” than any other 22 WMR ammo they’ve tested. According to Hornady’s Dave Emary, “we started with a better bullet, and the added velocity provides a flatter trajectory.” Even out of old, inexpensive rifles, the new ammo is delivering 1.5 MOA or better groups at 100 yards. That’s exceptional for a 22 WMR according to noted gun writer Chuck Hawks: “I have also owned and used enough .22 WMR rifles to know that they will seldom match that level of performance. I used to have a rather accurate Mossberg bolt action varmint rifle that would consistently shoot into about 1.5″ at 100 yards if I did my part. That is as accurate as any .22 WMR rifle I have ever tested.”New 2200 FPS .22 Mag Rimfire from Hornady

Every rifle is different. I haven't tried these Hornady. But when I bought my 22 mag. I bought a box of every type of ammo available at the time to try. Mine shoots Fed classic 50 gn hp. Into an enlarged hole at 50 yds. None of the 30 gn loads shot worth using. At a 100 yards the 30s keyholed in the paper if i could hit the paper at all. It also shoots cci 40 gn solids and HP well enough to use to shoot small animals in the head. Or big animals if needed.

Ooopsie!.............

Is that a .22 mag ?

i know the 22mag are good for elks and sometimes squirrels

On the old Shooters.com there was a Poster named McBendyElbow who had been a Maine State Legislator when the law was passed. He gave the reasons behind the law which I believe had to do with the fact that the round would kill deer and that many in the rural areas of Maine at the time were too poor to afford a centerfire rifle and the much more expensive cartridges....

I've seen two deer killed by ranch hands down in Texas with .22 Magnum... Probably illegal but that's Texas....

..for me...to actually go hunting, coyote or hogs up close...

Bob

The LA Wildlife and Fisheries has basically made that decision for me, if I want to hunt hogs on a Wildlife Management Area. The regs do not establish a specific season for hogs but rather mandate the use of whatever firearms/calibers are legal for the game that is in season. Now, I have a WMA about 10 minutes from my home but I refuse to hunt deer there for 2 reasons: I have access to 100 acres of private property I can hunt free of charge and too many city folk using the WMA for deer hunting and shooting at anything that moves. Since the WMA near my home is loaded with hogs, I can hunt them for just over 2 months after deer season ends but only with a rimfire or shotgun (no buckshot allowed), since that is as long as the rabbit/squirrel season lasts. I recently purchased a CZ 512 22 Magnum semi-auto Carbine that is hunting accurate with any ammo I've thus tried out to 50 yards (the farthest shot I would ever get at this WMA) but is most accurate with the CCI A22 Mag ammo. Now that I am newly retired, I may actually get a chance to do this.