10 Reasons You Should Own A .22LR Firearm

 The .22 Long Rifle for survival, while it’s not necessarily superior to other calibers in a lot of areas for survival, there is no gun collection complete without at least one .22 Long Rifle.

 

There are many first-time gun owners out there, and most of them have made purchases toward a self-defense weapon. If you’re really concerned about survival, having a good .22 Long Rifle will cover a lot of bases.

It fits a wide variety of uses and needs in a survival situation. Now, of course, me being a gun nut myself, I have a collection of .22 Long Rifle firearms, and there are so many different styles and so many different ways you can go, but I’m going to give you some of the basics and then maybe some of the ways you might want to move into some things that might help you. The very first thing that I would recommend is a .22 Rifle, and the 10-22 is one of the most popular .22 Rifles.

In fact, it has more accessories on the market than anything except for the 1911 firearms, so there are so many different things you can do with this rifle to make it more effective or just make it cooler. There are so many different stock options. There are scopes, lights, sights, just different accessories that you can pick up to make your 10-22 an excellent rifle, and I do have a full review on the 10-22.

It is a hugely popular rifle. In fact, you can find them just about in any gun shop, even in Walmart. Now, even though I’m a big fan of the 10-22, there are a lot of other highly suitable .22 Long Rifle carbines and rifles on the market. whether it’s a different style, it can be a semi-automatic like a Marlin Model 60, it can be a bolt-action, it can be a pump-action, lever-action, the sky’s the limit. Pick out what suits you the best, and just make sure it’s a good quality firearm, and you’ll be good to go.

This is one of the Colt Umarex .22s. Excellent AR-15 platform type rifle, and great for training. Now, I do have just a few pistols here. There are so many different type pistols, and many of them to fit exactly what you’re shooting with your centerfire.

One of the things that I really like, and one of my most favorite .22 handguns, is the Ruger Mark II. I’ve had it for over 20 years, highly accurate, highly reliable. It is large, and it is weighty, but it is very accurate and great for even hunting.

I have here a little Walther P22, this is an excellent little handgun, very light, very compact, very modular. This is great for training for self-defense, especially if you have a P99 or one of the new Walther’s. There’s so many different options out there. Of course, Ruger now makes their SR-22, which is very similar to this pistol.

There are some really little cheap pistols out there, and guys, I’m gonna tell you, if I were you, I’d kind of stay away from some of the really inexpensive guns, because reliability is a major issue. But this is a little Jennings J22. It feeds certain kinds of ammunition, it’s very finicky, and this really is more of a novelty than anything that I would rely on.

But it is a .22, they are out there, and they’re usually very inexpensive. Here we have a little Freedom Arms mini revolver. They don’t make these any longer, but I also have a North American Arms .22 mini revolver.

Just something kind of neat to put in your pocket. This is a really up close and personal self-defense gun. We’re gonna talk about .22 as an effective self-defense option, but this is just a little small tiny revolver.

Now they do make, of course, a lot of your larger frame revolvers, but these are just a handful of different type .22s out there. There are so many different ones out there, and do your research and find the .22 long rifle, either long gun or handgun, that fits your needs. Now one of my favorite .22s actually to shoot is this little cadet conversion kit.

This goes on my CZ75 SP01, and this is an excellent, highly accurate option. But you can get conversion kits for different guns, whether it’s your Glock, your 1911, a lot of different .22 conversion kits out there. You can also get quite a few pistols that match the ones that you shoot for self-defense, that match perfectly, and that’s also another option to look into.

Now many of us started from the beginning using a little .22 long rifle. If you grew up with firearms as I did, .22 long rifle, pistol, and rifle were always in the house, so we really enjoyed going out and being able to shoot very inexpensively with a low report, low recoil, and to really learn the techniques. I have three kids, and they really enjoy shooting .22. Once they finish mastering the .22, then we’ll move up to more of the larger calibers, but a .22 long rifle is perfect for the beginner.

Of course the next aspect is something to go plinking with, and that just means to go out and target practice and develop a love for the firearms. A lot of people get really interested in shooting, and one of the ways they do that is to go out and to practice and to being exposed to the different guns. This is kind of close to the beginner shooter, but this also translates into a lot of competitive sports that are out there shooting .22 long rifle, and .22 is very accurate in the right hand gun or right rifle,  just like the Mark II with a bull barrel. This is an incredibly accurate handgun, and you can really develop your accuracy and really be proficient, which this all translates into your larger centerfire weapons.

Shooting a higher caliber to begin with can turn some people away. A lot of people that go out and shoot a .38 or a 9mm for the first time, and that’s the first firearm, there is a lot that goes on with a lot of excessive recoil and noise that you don’t find with a rimfire cartridge. Plus they are very inexpensive to shoot. You can buy a full box of 500 rounds for around $20, and you cannot buy any centerfire ammo for anywhere close to that.

Another important aspect about the .22 long rifle for survival, and this really gets into the meat of survival, is hunting, and a .22 long rifle is excellent for small game. In fact, here recently, we’ve had a real problem with certain pests here, and I’ve been using a pellet gun, and really a .22 is much more effective than a pellet gun and able to take down a lot of small and medium sized game. A lot of hogs and coyotes can be taken with a .22 long rifle very effectively, but one of the things I want you to not discount is that .22 taking down even larger game.

If there’s good shot placement, a .22 long rifle can take down a large deer, and you may say that’s crazy, but most of your poachers out there use .22 long rifle or .22 long rifle suppressed to be able to keep the noise down, and they effectively hunt and take a lot of game every year. .22 long rifle, if that’s your only option, can be effective in a lot of different roles as a hunting weapon, but also loaded with snake shot, you can take care of any pests that are around the house. Especially snakes, rats, different things like that. So not only hunting, but also pest control as well.

In the low report and the low recoil, it keeps down a lot of interest that might be around using a larger, louder caliber rifle or pistol. Now next on the list is training, and having .22 long rifle to be able to supplement your real defensive weapon, and this little Umarex Colt Tactical .22 is an excellent companion to go with your full AR-15 5.56 or .223 rifle. The good thing is the ammo is so much cheaper, and really you can work on all of your basic techniques with this rifle.

All the controls are the same, everything’s the same. Another option is to get a .22 conversion to go in your AR-15 rifle. Cost of ammo is really important in a training situation as well.

You need to be shooting a lot of rounds to be able to get your training to where it needs to be. As many of you know, 5.56 is really expensive compared to .22 long rifle. You can stock up on thousands of rounds of .22 long rifle for the same price that you could do just a fraction of that in 5.56 or .223, or in your AK rifle.

Now there are a ton of different types of ammo. You have this copper washed hollow point. You have just a lead round nose.

There are many other high performance rounds out there. Now if you have a firearm that’s pretty finicky with your ammo, one of the things that I like to do is to use CCI mini mags. The CCI makes some of the most high velocity rounds available on the market, and really this little Jennings J-22, that’s what it will function with.

I also have a Beretta 21. That’s what it will function with. These are CCI mini mags.

There’s been a lot of debate about the Ruger P-22 being somewhat finicky, but to be honest with you, I use the bulk cheap federal ammo with ease, and I never have any problems. Now here’s my CZ 75 SP-01 tactical, and this is my home defense  gun, and you can see I have a tactical light right on the front. And I’ve done some reviews on this and the conversion kit just recently.

And so now I have my CZ 75 tactical SP-01 with the cadet conversion on it, but I still have my tac light. I still have all my same accessories, and all I had to do was to change this slide release to go from nine millimeter to 22. Good thing is I can go right back from .22 to nine millimeter if I need to.

One thing too that’s nice about 22, if you’re looking into a suppressor, the .22 suppressors are the least expensive, considerably less expensive than your centerfire suppressor systems. So you can have a nice .22 long rifle with a suppressor on it for a fraction of what it would be with a centerfire. Now as far as self-defense goes, I’m just going to be straight up with you.

A .22 long rifle is a minimal self-defense option. In fact, really if that’s the only thing you have, a 22 long rifle can be effective. The big thing is, is to make sure you’re putting your shots in the right places.

Really for self-defense, I would highly recommend no smaller than a .380 caliber. But now there have been times where I’ve been out and about and I’ve had this little Walther P22 in my pocket here around the house in different places, and if I needed it I would definitely be very quick to pull this out if I felt like my life was threatened. And it’s for sure better than nothing.

And a .22 long rifle, if you have nothing else, don’t be afraid to use your .22 long rifle in a life-and-death situation. Now again, I’m not recommending that you run out and buy the .22 long rifle for your self-defense. A lot of guys think that’s great for their girlfriends because they’re smaller and they don’t like the recoil.

Listen, get a .22 long rifle, let her train, let her get real comfortable shooting a .22, and then move her up as quick as possible to a .380 or a small compact 9mm and that’ll be an excellent option. Of course ,there are many ladies out there that shoot .45 ACP or .357 and feel very comfortable with that as well.

But definitely, if you have a .22, you need to consider the limitations if you’re using this for self-defense. There’s a lot of people that have taken multiple rounds over and over. Now it can be a deterrent, it can frighten people away just from being shot, but it’s not going to be a one-shot stop and you really need to consider a little bit higher of a caliber.

But in the grand scheme of things, .22 long rifle, I’d use it for self-defense. 22 long rifle for plinking, for training, for the beginner shooter, for hunting, even for self-defense. The 22 long rifle has a huge pedigree for a lot of different roles, especially in a survival situation.

I highly recommend you get a .22 long rifle in some form. Be strong, be of good courage. God bless America and long live the republic!

 

-Don