The .22 Magnum Rifle for Survival and Personal Defense

USA -(Ammoland.com)- In this day and age of high velocity small bore rifle cartridges that have speeds advertised as almost capable of breaking the space-time continuum, older and slower rounds that while dependable are often shoved aside as being obsolete, and one of those is the venerable .22 Magnum.

Developed by in 1959 for their Model 61 pump rifle, the .22 Winchester Magnum was a rimfire round that was designed for small game and especially varmints like fox, raccoon, and even coyotes out to 100 yards, without doing a lot of damage to the hides.

This was very important thirty and forty years ago when fur prices were much higher, but now hunters don’t worry about the pelt damage as much and in the last sixty years dozens of new rounds have been introduced that are much faster, but also much more destructive than the .22 Magnum. So what does the little rimfire round offer in this day and age?

While the .22 Magnum might not be the fastest and most glamorous round out there it does make a very decent all-around survival and personal round in a rifle.

So why would someone want a .22 Magnum when you could instead choose something like a .223 or a round fairly similar? One of the reasons to have a survival round is that you want to be able to game with it and that includes small game, and while you might get some bloodshot meat on a squirrel or a rabbit with the .22 Magnum, that cannot compare to what a .223 is capable of.

I was once given a whitetail deer that had been struck by a car only enough to break its leg and had to be dispatched by a sheriff’s deputy with his .223 carbine. The deer had been shot in the head from about 15 yards away. Most of the skull on the left side past the eye and to the ear and nearly halfway across the top of its head was simply gone.

That swore me off ever wanting to shoot a .223 at any small game animal that I ever once wanted to eat. I once shot a squirrel back when I was about nineteen years old with a .25-20 rifle. It was a clean shot right behind the shoulder, and afterward, there was no shoulder or much of anything else.

This is important because the .25-20 has less than half the muzzle energy of a .223 round. If you were to shoot a small animal you wanted to eat with a .223 or something like a .17 WSM, .204 Ruger or .22-250 you can bet there would be enough left of what you were trying to eat to make even a small pot of stew.

When it comes to personal defense, granted the .223 is definitely hard to beat with its proven track record, the .22 Magnum is not as anemic as one would think. A 40-grain bullet from the little rimfire with a muzzle velocity of 1,900 fps has 325 ft. lbs of muzzle energy.

While that doesn’t sound like a lot, it’s more than the .380, the .38 Special and is knocking on the door of the 9mm. The .22 Magnum is simply not the weakling you might think and there are a variety of rounds out there, everything from a 30 grain V-Max with a muzzle velocity of 2,200 fps to a slew of 40 grain bullets like the jacketed soft point, jacketed hollow point, and full metal jacket, all averaging around 1,900 fps.

Another reason to pick a .22 Magnum is the cost of the ammunition. It might not be as cheap as it once was but I can still find a box of fifty rounds for about $15 or so. Ammunition for the .22 Magnum takes up a heck of a lot less room than fifty rounds of even the smallest of centerfire rifle rounds, something very practical if you want to keep the gun in a truck or if you want to take it on a long hike.

Just about every gun maker offers a .22 Magnum, from semi-autos like the Savage A22, the Remington 597 and the CZ-512 to a number of bolt actions from Mossberg, Marlin, Ruger and others. Then there are the lever action rifles like those from Henry and they also make a pump action .22 Magnum, something that brings back the good old days like when Winchester made their Model 61 pump.

I decided to take a pair of .22 Magnum rifles to the range and they couldn’t be more different from one another. One was a Henry lever action with a 20 ½ “ octagon barrel that holds twelve rounds and has an MSRP of $550. The other is a Keystone Arms Crickett rifle that is a single shot bolt action with a 16” barrel and has an MSRP of $179, quite the difference.

One persistent and long-standing rumor about the .22 Magnum is that it is not very accurate compared to other rimfire rounds like the .22 Long Rifle and the .17 HMR and that has some truth to it. The .22 Magnum seems to be the most sensitive when it comes to ammunition and which it will shoot accurately.

I found that neither the Henry nor the Crickett liked the Hornady 30 grain V-Max bullets; in fact, the Henry seemed almost allergic to them. At 25 yards the groups were terrible and the rounds were not only landing left but they were also keyholing. The Crickett was slightly better, but just with a pretty wide group opening up.

On the other hand, both guns did well with CCI 40 grain JHP loads. At 25 yards the Henry put out a three shot group of only ¾” with the factory open sights and the Crickett with the same ammo shot a one-inch group. Most of the .22 Magnum rifles I have shot over the years all seemed to shoot better with 40-grain bullets versus the lighter loads, but you need to test out which work best in your gun.

The .22 Magnum started life almost sixty years ago as a small game and varmint round for those who wanted to use it on furbearers when the prices for pelts brought you more than just the cost of a Happy Meal. That time might be passed but the .22 Magnum can find a new life as a survival rifle and if need be for personal defense, something that few other rounds can do and do well.

About David LaPell:

David LaPell has been a Corrections Officer with the local Sheriff’s Department for thirteen years. A collector of antique and vintage firearms for over twenty years and an avid hunter. David has been writing articles about firearms, hunting and western history for ten years. In addition to having a passion for vintage guns, he is also a fan of old trucks and has written articles on those as well.

This post The .22 Magnum Rifle for Survival and Personal Defense appeared first on AmmoLand.com .