I don't want to get into the furball, BUT

by Catoosa, Thursday, June 07, 2012, 23:04 (4341 days ago) @ Art

I have several .22LR handguns and treasure them for plinking and fun. IF I had to use one of them for anything serious and had nothing else, I would just do the best I could with it. However, I will not willingly shoot any live critter larger than a rabbit with a .22LR. This is from many years of experience shooting .22s. The .22LR is just not powerful enough to kill quickly and cleanly with anything except a brain shot, and I do not trust myself to shoot that well in every case.

The only .22 handgun I regularly carry is a beat-up 3-screw Single-Six I picked up at a gun show a few years ago. I USED to be of the opinion that the .22 Magnum was useless in a handgun, and the fact that this one did not have a magnum cylinder did not bother me a bit. A few months back I found a magnum cylinder in a bucket of rusty tools at a flea market and bought it for $8. Since then I have discovered that I was wrong about the magnum cartridge. It adds just enough punch to a .22 handgun to make it an effective killer on stuff up to coyote and feral dog size at reasonable handgun range. Even the CCI .22 WRF with the 45 grain JHP is a useful improvement over the .22LR, and that round is what I carry in the Ruger.

I will still be found carrying a centerfire handgun most of the time, because that's what I like, but the Single Six has turned into a useful gun instead of a plaything with the addition of the magnum cylinder.

Just my $0.02.