.22 Cal. penetration test on fresh deer skull

Thanks for the info Kingfish. I realize that my comments were based on standard and target ammo. I do not have much experience with high velocity rounds beyond short range. I am looking forward to doing some shooting with hunting ammo to see how I can stretch my range. Thanks again for expanding our knowledge of what the .22 LR will do.

 

The bottom line is that everything matters with .22 rimfire. Variables that have little effect on larger calibers can really play havoc with .22 rimfire. Moisture and cold temps are two that really separate cheap bulk pack ammo from top shelf. I froze my Ruger 10-22 in my chest freezer overnight then tried shooting different frozen magazines and brands of rounds. Most failed to cycle however a frozen rifle fired fine with a frozen 30 round plastic magazine as long as the ammo was CCI. Cold and moisture really bring out the worst in cheap ammo as in stove pipes, duds, light reports etc. Another thing learned was that if I kept my magazines dry it did not matter how cold they were as long as I had CCI ammo in them. Cold and dry is good cold and damp is not. The rifle had to be cleaned with thinned out oil and not over lubed. I used it in winter Militia training with great results. I was able to save precious .223 for my AR. by using this rifle. Failing to cycle is the number one reason not to use .22 rimfire for defense. I dont take chances with my life. Now in a survival situation where you are being assaulted by non military scavengers bent on taking your supplies and your life several Ruger 10-22 rifles with high capacity magazines can lay down great suppression fire out to and past 150 yards. While you snipe with a good centerfire bolt gun like my Thompson center Icon in 30-06. It doesnt hurt so much to throw away .22 rounds while your adversary is out there . Keep them pinned down with suppression fire. Take them out with your big stuff. I dont know anyone who would charge into a hail of .22 mini mags without body armor and head gear. You could also I suppose snipe single adversaries with head shots at 50 to 100 yards if you were real good. Ill take an AR-15 or better in a real fight though any time. The more you all test your .22 rifles and hand guns the better they will serve you.

 

More good info thanks. As a Minnesota guy I am well familiar with the affects of cold temps and concur. Moisture is very critical and more so the colder it gets particularly in the action and moving parts. Another thing is or grease. Only light synthetics, dry lube like moly, or light mineral oil should be used and the less the better. Thicker oils and grease can be like glue. Steel isn't affect by temp so a clean dry weapon will function fine. Ammo? I have not had problems as it is very dry in the winter here. But in sub zero temps I rarely shoot Rimfire. I have shot deer rifles and shotguns in sub zero ok. Warmer ammo is better as very cold ammo loses some power. A big problem is optics. The slightest breath can fog up a cold lens and make it unusable. And adjustments can freeze.

Hunting in snow can cause a whole new batch of problems, especially if it is falling and you have optics, or slip and fall pushing through cat tails and fill you gun with snow. Been there, done that. Carry a rod or dowel and dry rags.

 

Yes sir, Minnesota is or should be the proving ground for cold weather shooting. I have been to your great state in February as a young man and witnessed first hand your 30 and lower below zero winter temps. If a gun and ammo will fire in Minnesota in those brutal conditions they will work in most other milder states. Snow is pain the ass here as we get lake effect dumped on us all the time. Temps are milder by a long shot as Lake Michigan shields us some. I first started down the .22 road thinking I had all the answers until I met a special forces guy at a training session who suggested I freeze my gun and some various ammo and get back to him with the results. I was floored by how bad the cheap bulk pack stuff was in harsh cold and wet conditions. My Ar never failed in those same conditions so there is a lot to be said about center fire rounds being better in severe cold. Most bulk pack rimfire ammo is crap as I have found. PMC had to be the worst with over 40% failing to fire at all. Thunderbolts are okay in the warm dry air but are really bad when frozen. Winchester Wildcats were like 1 in 20 failing While only one CCI round out of over a thousand failed to fire. I came to the conclusion that I could not bet my life on rimfire ammo if there was someone shooting back at me. Great for hunting, bad for defense. But if its all you have ??? best know the best of the choices so we tested all of it. I got a lot of 10-22 advocates mad at me over at survivalist boards dot com. Until they tried the testing for themselves they would not believe me. I will share what ever I find on these boards as people need the truth. Everything you said about grease is absolutely true. It turns to glue when its cold. Everyone needs to know this stuff if they live in cold areas. I love this site !!! great place to exchange good intel. KF

 

There is this
Sharpshooter 22 Long Rifle Reloader | 22LR Reloader
At almost $200 it seems a bit expensive, especially for what you get. I am sure that the primer recipe and the amount of what powder to use can be found somewhere on-line. The bullet mold might be a bit harder to find, but I am sure it could be made with a bit of work. The big question is it worth it? Reshaping the rim would be much more time consuming then then punching out a primer. Repriming would be even more time consuming. As I understand it, commercial rimfire ammo is spun at high speed with liquid primer centrifugally forced in to the rim and allowed to dry. To me, this just seems like to much work for to little reward, at this time.

To the OP, I think your test gives some very good information. Some may find fault with it, and every deer skull will be a little bit different, but I feel it would be worth a try if TSHTF and I needed to eat. I thank you for test and posting the results.

 

being liquid and spun into position, is not a difficult thing to set up. just tedious. a drill press with a number 2 pencil instead of a bit, should be enough to do that much with ease, and reshaping the rim could be done with a hardened tooling designed to just fit up inside the casing (with a hardened lip) tapping with complimentary tooling on the outside would resize the rim rather quickly. the primer liquid would be beyond me, but the casings should be doable.

 

Sounds like fun. It wouldn't be too difficult to make a sizer. Use a pistol cylinder for the outer and turn a metal rod for the inner.

 

Yeah Desert Frog did shoot a "frozen" (thawed) turkey and that was pretty neat. However bullets (.22/9mm/.45 Colt) can and do "bounce off" deer skulls if the angle is right. Or the skull of a lot of other animals for that matter, including humans.

Can .22s kill deer? Sure. I knew a farmer that used a .22 Mag for shooting deer off his combine/tractor. I said a .22 Mag wasn't much of a deer gun and he said 48 deer with 50 rounds was OK with him! Of course....he was shooting at deer on his own property that he feed (they ate his crops), only at under 30 yards and only at standing deer. The .22 LR is a favorite of deer poachers who shoot them at water holes or feed stations from above. There are documented cases of .22s killing grizzly bears (including one world record shot by an Indian squaw with a single shot .22), buffalo (not far from me, shot in the neck, took a few days to bleed out, farmer was NOT happy!), elephant (one circus elephant shot through eye at close range, or you can shoot through the tiny crease just behind the front leg where the skin is thin enough for a .22 to get through at all, and wait for a few days for the elephant to bleed out internally), and of course swimming moose and other animals where you can get close and shoot in the head. Personally I don't like to use .22s on bear and elephant, but then the guy who killed a grizzly with thrown rocks on a railroad track he was trapped on probably wished he had something else too.

 

My test was 30 yards with a standard .22 LONG RIFLE ROUND. Remington Thunderbolt. I have taken over 50 deer from tree stand sets using a bow or crossbow. Most shots inside of 15 yards. What I am saying is in a bow hunt set up a .22 Rimfire will do the job. Over bait with the deer preoccupied on food its a no brainer or a one shot brainer
. I could shoot hundreds of deer this way in the course of several years. And get to eat all of them or at the very least most of them.

 

I've got .22s , most have become safe queens including the 10/22.
My all time favorite, and my son's is the .17 HMR.
The Marlin is not the high priced gun, but this one is a tack driver .
I'm looking forward to getting the Savage .17 HMR semi auto .
So advanced that special hotter ammo in the .17 HMR format is made, to take full advantage of the semi auto savage .
The .17 is getting more popular now and making the .22 the dinosaur .1200 FPS versus 2550 FPS
I met a guy that did poaching in the mid west and the .17 handled deer @100 yards easy. head shots of course.
The loudness is about that of a .22 mag, but it's flat shooting like a .223.
Of all my stock pile in ammo the greatest is the .17,
One thing I did for fun was to compare the volume of space the difference was between the .223 and the .17 , using salt and a medicine bottle I found that the 17 is 1/5th the volume .
If the bulk you cary matters, and range means any thing ,it is something to consider .
The question of reloading is moot .
Reloading in the bush is hardly practical unless you've got a cabin to work in and all the gear and supplies . on top of that your not going to get the velocities in black powder, modern powder produces in the .22 .
For all the gear and materials your better off with lots of factory ammo .
Survival can be a matter of making every second count .
And depending on the environment there may not be time to sit and process reloading.
And if I'm reloading in the bush, it's going to be .45 cal BP revolver and rifle .

 

The hole in that big 5.5 year old doe's head said it all to me. The cheapest round hands down. Easiest to carry and accumulate and the versatility are unmatched. I dont think I want to use a 17 hmr on little birds and small squirrels. 2550 fps is a bit fast for real small game. The cb Short , quiet, and cb long are all just over 700 fps and are perfect for small game. Standard long rifle will put a nice hole through a deer skull and a Hyper round at 1640 to 1700 gives you 100 yard range stuff pretty flat. Sure not quite as flat as a 17 hmr but it is more versatile. I have seen the Marlin 17 in action and they are tack drivers for sure. But so is the Marlin 981-t in .22 . I shoot dime size groups out to 50 yards with mine. 2 to 3 inch groups at 100 yards. Not as tight as the 17 at that range but I dont need to be either.