Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire .22 semi auto rifle for home defense?

After being without a .22 auto loading rifle for many decades, I bought one on a whim a while ago,..a Marlin Model 795. I've loaded for and shot all kinds of centerfire rifles, revolvers, and pistols over the years and had pretty much forgotten all about the old .22 semi auto rifles.

After playing with it for a while, the thought occurred to be that it would be an fairly nasty little tool to confront an intruder with,.....not because it's real powerful,..although a 40 grain CCI mini mag is nothing to get in front of,...but because it's nothing to be able to put 3 rounds a second into a circle the size of an apple at 30' with one of those little recoilless rifles.

I'm not saying that .22 auto loading rifle is the *best* home defense tool. But putting 3 rounds a second into a goblin's face should be enough to cause him to come up with something else to do besides invade *that* home,...that is if he was still capable of thinking,...which is doubtful.

Could do worse - so long as it doesn't encounter a dud.

Lotsa people been killed with a .22.

Two druggie thugs shot a woman in the eye and killed her during a home invasion as she lay in bed a few weeks ago.

The shooter used a Ruger 10/22 he'd stolen in a burglary a few minutes before.

Hitting what your aiming at sure beats blasting away with something bigger and missing. Ed k

Only down side may be the reliability of the ammo. Most would be more than reliable, IMO.

I carry a 22lr. Its a revolver though. I just pull the trigger again if I have a missfire.

Back in Miami in the 80's I was "the gun guy" at work. Folks with no experience in firearms would ask me what handgun to get for self-defense that they and/or the wife could use, and I'd tell them to forget a handgun and get a 10/22 or a 20 gauge shotgun. If a 20 gauge was too much then go with the .22 rifle, the idea as you note is to get rounds on target quickly.

That said, I recently had an epiphany that I can't shoot a handgun as well as I used to and the solution was a Ruger PC9. It's a bit heavier than any .22 and recoils a tad more but it points just as straight and fast as any long gun and you can get two or three rounds on an 8" gong out to 25 yards about as fast as you can pull the trigger. I did some velocity tests with various ammo and with the better +P factory stuff the longer barrel basically turns it into a .357 Sig.

Fast, first round hits are primary with subsequent hits being gravy but if that goal is met then a bigger bullet can't hurt. Well, it can, but you know what I mean...



Seriously, this stuff is nice to think about but when all is said and done, you only have one life to test these theories with. If'n I had my druthers an M2 .50 BMG would be my choice as a home defense firearm but there are some practical limitations with that.

Yeah,....quality ammo is a must. But there's lots of quality ammo out there. I've got a few boxes of bulk ammo that I've accumulated over the years. But I keep the magazines for my 795 loaded with CCI Mini Mag 40 grain solids.

I've never encountered a dud in the CCI Mini Mags.

Just make sure you use good ammo, like CCI. No room for Thunderduds here. If you ever have to use it, the papers will report you used your squirrel gun to defend your castle.

My DTD carry gun is an 8-shot S&W with Stingers (foxes and or 'yotes are the main threat in my yard). Pretty sure I'm well-protected.

I worked many, many GSW as a paramedic. Don't let anyone kid you, the little .22lr is a vicious man killer and if a guy gets two to the torso, chest or stomach it doesn't make much difference, but, two to the torso and he is probably going to die.

Never go full semi auto Bristoe.

For the record I sure as hell don't want to be standing in front of any 22lr as it's wizzin' through the air, If it don't kill you it's still gonna hurt like hell!

I worked at Walmart for a 2 1/2 years and I sold several 20ga. youth model pump shotguns to husbands with petite wife's.

kwg

A 10/22 with CCI Velocitors would be a pretty decent defense set up, especially for those who don’t take the time to become competent with a 357 or similar.

Not to start an argument but let's define needs for self defense.

Dying is not necessarily stopping. A man can be killed with an ice pick but the pick wielder might end up on the next slab over at the morgue.

Self defense is about stopping the threat. If the guy dies that's a good outcome but secondary to stopping.

I've never encountered a dud in CCI anything.

12 gauge by the front door, 20 gauge by the back door and a walther 22lr pistol in my pocket or under my work table in the shop at all times.

Any gun is better than none.

Absolutely.

Modern .22lr ammo, so long as you stick to the high grade stuff, not the kind that comes bulk packed loose, but something like CCI MiniMags or Stingers, has proven excellent in reliability. Lucky Gunner did a test of this, exposing it to salt water, and running it through a tumbler, and had zero malfunctions in a semi auto pistol firing hundreds of rounds.

A magazine filled with CCI Stingers would produce some noticeable injuries, I'm sure.

Vicious little round.

I'm not going to say DON'T! However, I will say this: DON'T PI$$ AROUND!

I'm sure a 22 LR is perfectly capable of making a mortal wound on someone. However, I'd think twice about relying on it for home defense. I carry a 357 Mag revolver, a 9mm double-stack pistol, or a 357 mag lever. I figure I want to put someone or something down with authority.

Yes, 22 LR can penetrate as well as a 380 ACP given the right circumstances. However, given the right circumstances, someone can be mortally wounded by a 22 and be utterly unaware of it until much later. Look at what happened to Ronald Reagan.

If I touch one off, I want to be sure that it completely changes the receiver's agenda for the day. I want them to totally absorbed by what has happened to them, and I want them to stop doing whatever it is they're doing. I'm not worried necessarily about killing them or even hurting them. I just want them to stop. The rest is going to be gravy.

Also: do not be thinking about shooting someone in the eye or shooting them in the face. Things on the outside edge of the body are ducking and weaving and dancing about. You want to find the largest piece of them (body), find the thickest part (center of mass) and fill it with as many rounds as it can take until you have altered the target's behavior satisfactorily. 22 LR may work, but I am depending on something other than that to make my point for me.