Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Rimfires Why I gave up the .22mag.

If you want to prove what a poor performer the .22 mag really is, let me give you a do it yourself test. You will find that the lowly .22lr will out penetrate the .22Mag. And does it a whole bunch cheaper.

What you need for this test is a piece of hardwood and a saw to slice the the hard wood in half.

You will want to draw a line down the center of your test wood for a saw line and as a target. Now you will shoot one round of each, .22 mag and one .22lr. Cut down the center to see the track of each bullet. Use the same weight bullet for both rifles. Same angle.

Since I tried this, the only .22mag I own is a collector, hard to find Winchester M-61. It's never been shot once since I bought it.


Fun test, sure helps once you try it, saves ammo costs.

It isn't always the weight of the bullet that determines the depth of penetration but the design of the bullet . The 22 mag will kill much better than the 22 Lr at any distant .

A full metal jacket penetrates better than an expanding bullet, too. There is more to bullet and cartridge performance than penetration. There is a lot of difference on the performance on ground squirrels, for example. They die with the the .22 LR HP, but the .22 mag HP is much more "demonstrative."

I'll take a 22 MRF over a 22 LR for field use 100% of the time.

I've shot more than a few deer during herd reduction shoots with a variety of 22 MRF rifles and think that the 22 MRF has a lot going for it as a survival/live-off-the-land cartridge.

Jeff

This is the result of firing a .22MRF out of a NNA mini revolver at about 5 feet away! Folks, that's a piece of soft yellow pine. This pistol belonged to my brother in law and was promptly sold at the pawn shop on the way home from this shooting session.

.22 Mag fans, PLEASE DON'T GET DEFENSIVE! This is more of a testament to the inadequacy of the NNA mini revolver than the .22 magnum. If you have one of these pistols take heed.



.22LR sitting next to it because we shot up all the .22Mag ammo.


Terry

Why I gave up the 22 mag?

Simple. It's called 17 HMR. (For my purposes, anyway. Your mileage may vary.)

Kentucky_Windage: You are ABSOLUTELY right on!
The 17 HMR has completely killed new gun sales for arms in 22 Magnum! said sales are now "next to nothing".
I have used various 22 Magnums, 22 Specials, 22 Auto's and such for decades!
Once the 17 HMR came along and I got one year of range and field use with it I simply "hung up" my 22 Magnums (both Rifles and pistols!)!
The 17 HMR is so vastly superior to the 22 Magnum in EVERY regard that unfortunately I see the day coming when 22 Magnums will no longer be produced.
The main attributes that the 17 HMR ammunition and arms have that make it superior to the 22 Magnum are its enhanced accuracy, its flatter trajectory, its significant velocity advantage (speed kills!), its enhanced rotational speed (this also enhances lethality), its straighter flight in wind and the main attribute of which all the previous attributes contribute is the significant advantage in lethality of the 17 HMR vs the 22 Magnum - there is simply NO comparison when trying to compare the 17 HMR to the old technology 22 magnum.
Long live the new King of Rimfires the 17 HMR!
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Funny on anything more voracious than paper my .22WMR kills better than the .17HMR my friend has. We tried it. Yes the .17 is flatter by a bit, and yes it's sub MOA and my .22 mag is just MOA. Still when the push comes to shove 30+ grains beats 17 to 20 every time.

Except you'll make shots with the 17 that you don't have a snowflake's chance in Hades of making with a 22 mag. downrange. And the 17 kills just fine if you limit its use to appropriate game. Not sure what you mean by "kills better." On what? And how much better, since dead, as they say, is dead?

I guess my mileage varies.

I've used the .22 Mag on all sorts of animals for over 35 years. Besides being a little destructive on small edible game I think it is, as 260RemGuy says a good candidate for a survival scenario. FWIW I use 22 WRF for small game when I can get it.

22 Mag solids both Winchester and Federal will routinely penetrate a fencepost. 22 LR roundnoses will not.

I'm not sure what .22 Mag load you used on the board, I assume a lightweight HP.

The Winchester 40 gr HP has held together in shoulder bones and still penetrated to the far hide.

Anyway my experience has been a little different than yours. I hope you give the round another try some time.

HOLY CRAP! I would have never thunk it! Those tiny barrels must really kill the velocity more than I would have guessed.

So everybody has and opinion, but nobody cares to make a test?

This comes as a real shock to me. Oh, the power of advertising.

I have to agree with you. I have been shooting a 22 Mag for over 40 years but when the 17 HMR came out I bought one. It was impressive on paper but in the field the Mag wins.

What kind of test would you suggest, shooting through a block of wood or one out in the field where it really counts?

Gee, let me think, how about the one I proposed that started this thread. I have killed moose, walrus, deer and elk. With a .22Lr. What do you want to compare the .22 mag with? Do the test and you tell me which bullet penetrated better?

I'd be interested in some more information on the circumstances when you killed all those big game animals with a .22 and which round you used. I don't doubt your word, but most of us will never have the opportunity to shoot all those species, even with a larger caliber rifle.

Norm

It was my understanding that the 22 magnum required a barrel lenght of as least 12 to 14 inches to develop enough velocity to ballistically out-perform the 22 long rifle. As a result, the 22 magnum was not efficient in most revolvers. However, I don't have the numbers to support this idea.

North American Arms has some info on the 22LR & 22 Mag in pistol barrels.

The 22 mag has an advantage from bullet construction, at least with the Winchester jacketed loads.

I don't usually hunt blocks of wood, but I do blast lengths of 4x4 as knock-down targets with a shotgun at 3-gun matches. Based upon that, given the 12 ga's lack of penetration compared to a .22 LR, the 12 ga is worthless. (Even though it knocks them flying a whole lot better than a .22 LR.) I fail to see the relationship between shooting blocks of wood with disparate bullet types as a measure of hunting effetiveness between a .22 LR and a .22 Mag.

I have killed several types of game with the mag., deer being the largest. 22 mag wins hands down. miles