Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Rimfires Humane Killing Distance for the .22LR

I like the 'longer' ranges even MORE.

The .22 bullet then tends NOT to overpenetrate so much ...

That there is funny, right there! Specially on cape buff!

The poaching aspect has already been gone over but I�ll add another anecdote.

Back around 1979 I �knew a guy� who was a regular poacher in central Florida. He used a single shot .22 for deer, hogs and alligators. Used to go trespass on several of the large cattle ranches in the area to do his poaching. This meeting was the start of the great barefoot bathing suited (blue bathing suit interestingly enough) alligator and hog hunt, wherein a gator wounded by a .22 was located in a canal by feeling along with the bare foot � several times.

Anyway, after having met him I saw him again a few months later and he showed me his new to him M700 in 7mm RM. I asked him why he had bought such a powerful and loud firearm. His reply, and he was quite serious, was that when sniping deer from the fringes of a pasture sometimes he couldn�t get any closer than about 120 yards and the open sighted .22 he used sometimes just �wasn�t enough� to do the job. Apparently he was also pleased with the result on alligators as instead of missing the little pea brain by a half inch and having to drag a canal bottom by feel, the 7mm �took off the whole top of their head�.


This is all true, btw.

It's already been said, but you should only shoot as far as you can call your shots. Back when I was shooting all the time, I could hit the vitals of a rabbit off hand every time out to about 50-60 yards. When I missed the mark a little (which is easy to do on a small target), I found that anything past about 75 yards resulted in wounded instead of quickly dispatched bunnies - my .22's started to lose steam. With a good rest, I would say about 125 yards was my max range. I've hit p-dogs at over 300 yards only to leave them with enough life to run back in their holes. I stopped that practice quick - I hated that.

And for what it's worth, I would guess for deer or bear or whatever that was killed by whomever with a .22 at over 100 yards, there was also a wounded deer or bear that could not be recovered and was left to die or blind for the rest of its days. We don't hear as much about those.

When I was a kid, I knew a couple of brothers from a badly inbred VT family in the Chelsea area who used to shoot at each other with the 22 rifles that they got for Christmas 1 year. Once in awhile 1 of them would get hit, but thankfully (I guess), neither of them was killed when I knew them. When I got older, I kinda thought that their game of shooting at each other was proof of Darwin's theory working in mysterious ways, since the gene pool would have been improved if they had been killed and, therefore, unable to reproduce and further pollute the gene pool. IIRC, they claimed to regularly have intercourse with their sister, who looked exactly like them, just with different plumbing and longer hair. Scary.

Jeff

Would have been just as well off NOT knowing all that, Jeff. Have investigated too much of that stuff in my life.

If that family had been deer, the herd manager would have culled them for the well being of the herd as a whole. 'Know what I mean?

EDIT: I specifically remember 1 of the brothers showing me where he had removed a bullet from his left deltoid muscle with a pocket knife. When I saw the wound it was pretty much healed, but he had stitched it up with black braided fish line and didn't remove the stitches before the wound healed over them. I guess that the fish line just added some interesting texture to the lumpy keloid scar. A physician would have gotten a D+ for the work, but it was functional and pretty good work for a kid who probably dropped out of school in the 4th or 5th grade.

Jeff

I found that a sad but disturbing story ... you don't make-up stuff like that.
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I also knew a couple brothers, not inbred (just crazy). They WERE from a 'dysfunctional' family, to say the least.

We used to go out and shoot our .22's together, and these guys would frequently shoot at something real close by each other, or YOU, just for the fun of it and the SUPRISE.

I soon learned to always hang-back and keep an eye on both of 'em when carrying our guns.

One day I rode out to their farm on my bicycle, and their Mom said they were out down by the river somewhere. I walked across the pasture and down by a few the trees that were along the river - and I kept holler'n for them ... but they seemed to be nowhere around.

I was ready to give up and go back home, when I heard a loud voice screaming "LOOK OUT!" ... In the same 'second' followed by a "THUD" - As a big HAMMER lay at my feet.

I was still not aware of 'what' had just happened - when I heard hysterical laughter far above me.

Seemingly, 100's of feet above me were my two friends, the brothers. They were building a tree fort or something Way Way up there in the top of the tree, looking down and laughing at me. I wondered how they even got up there, they were too high up for any ladder, and there were not even any branches until close to the top ... Not real sure, that they were actually even human.

I looked down at the Hammer that barely missed my head by an 'inch', and I looked back up at them, I didn't cuss them out or anything ... Just shook my head and went home.

Anyone have any experience with the CCI small game bullet with the flat tip? I'm wondering if they are better killers than the round nose while penetrating better than the hollow point.

Hello,

The hollowpoint well penetrate just fine. Its penetration is roughly equivalent to a .380acp HP fired from a pistol.

The SMG with its .125" (IIRC) meplate will kill, but not ruin as much meat as may the HP.

Both will go through-and-through a soft target; I've seen this on both squirrels and raccoons.

The hollowpoints kill decidedly faster, especially on larger critters. They just do more damage before they exit.

Josh

Hollow points won't penetrate the cervical vertebrae of hogs and you can take that to the bank. Solids will do a thru and thru.

Dan,
How high is your count on hogs now? In one of your earlier post I think you were in the high sixties.

100 yards on groundhogs is no problem at all for the .22 lr.
I have shot lots of them at 100-125 yards, taking head shots only and it anchors them just fine.
I think the effective range is more a function of shooter skill and the accuracy potential of the individual firearm than of the cartridge itself.
Eric

I took a starling at 212yds on a called shot with my buckmark. i started shooting high and hit it on the 5th or 6th shot. It was 80% luck, but still dang funny to see my buddies when that bird went to pieces....lol. I know I could not do it again on purpose, but it sure as heck was dead.

True story...

When I was stationed out at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma in 1959, I went jack-rabbit hunting just about every Saturday & Sunday.

I took a long shot, using a fence post as a "rest" and killed a jack-rabbit at 200+ yards with a very lucky shot which hit the "jack" in the back of the head as he sat at the top of a rise in a pasture. I held about 2 to 2� feet over his head... and that single 40 gr. .22 rimfire hollow-point out of my Marlin 39A "Mountie" sent him azz-over-appetite. He was stone-dead when he hit the ground beyond where he was sitting.

I have always said that that ugly, long-eared "jack" was the "UNLUCKIEST JACK-RABBIT IN THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA THAT DAY... OR EVEN THAT YEAR!!!"


Strength & Honor...

Ron T.

Interesting to hear about humanly killing a deer or bear with a .22. What about that other 98% that were hit and got away? Pretty stupid.

Sir,

With regards to deer,

If they are hit with 40g solids in the right place(neck veribrae ro Brain) 100% of them DIE -right there.

It's all a matter of getting close(preferably 50 yards or less) and putting the bullet PRECISELY where it needs to go.

Such shooting is not for pikers who can barely hit the heart lung area of an animal at 100 yards.

The round is up to the job if the Marksman can make the shot.

My aunt shot a coyote with a 10/22 at a claimed 150yds. Hit that dog right in the top of the head and dropped him. My uncle was with her and at the time, he was working for the Dept of Agriculture, trapping and hunting predators on ranches (40+ hrs a week)...anything that ate cows, sheep, or whatever so I trust his judgement on the distance.

Intersting job he had back then. He got to do the unusal bear, lion, coyote type hunting (and a good bit of hog hunting thrown in too); but the weirdest one was at a trout pond where a black bear was tearing into the fish food and eating it. Had to trap that sucker and move him.