American Survival Blog

An interesting albeit flawed penetration test conducted by YouTube outdoor sport celebrity Heather LaCroix which seems to indicate that .22 magnum ammunition doesn’t outperform .22 long rifle cartridges by wide enough margins to justify the higher price. I was particularly impressed with the ease with which a 36 grain Winchester High Velocity penetrated sheet metal. The rub comes when the .22s are fired into a row of paper back books at close range and the 45 grain Dynapoint .22 mag doing 1550 fps just barely outperforms the little Winchester which not only weighs almost 10 grains less but leaves the barrel 270 fps slower.

Like I said a bit surprising although I’d be curious to see if using round nose ammo gave different results. I’d still be uncomfortable shooting a raccoon or coyote with a .22 LR (something people claim to do with .22 magnums all the time) but I think this just makes me rethink the usefulness of the .22 Mag in those situations, especially given the economics. 500 round bricks of .22 LR are still under $20 whereas people are slapping down around $12-15 bucks for 50 in my neck of the woods. The magnums are still significantly cheaper than centerfire handgun ammunition, but not cheap enough to make the small boost in power worth spending extra money per round.

Of course shooting through paperbacks is not what we use guns for. The .22 mag still discharges much more energy into a flesh and blood target which is why rabbits and such game shot with the round suffer wounds that waste a lot of meat. This is also a strike against the .22 Magnum in my opinion. The hyper velocity .22 LR ammo being produced these days will do anything a .22 Magnum can do cheaper, and other rounds will pick up where the .22 LR leaves off. I assume people interested in the pelts of animals too big of the .22 LR may like the Magnums but I have heard of professional trappers putting down almost everything on their ‘lines with a .22 LR to the back of the head from a pistol. For predator hunters the .22 Hornet teamed with a pistol in .22 LR seems more utilitarian than the .22 Magnum.

I had considered buying a .22 handgun myself but when I started itching for my .327 Federal Magnum I found that other rounds I could feed it like the .32 S&W Long were still widely available and figured that the little .32 filled the niche for a .22 handgun close enough (except for the expense) that I put the money I would have spent on a .22 rig into a few boxes of watermelon killing .32 S&W Long. I don’t see how a .22 Magnum could be more indispensable than the underrated and inexpensive .22 LR so I’m going to agree with  Heather and her husband Jeff on this one.