country85
11-25-2012, 09:10
Not sure how I want to start this thread so I guess I'll jump right in. As a kid(teenager, whatever) I can remember going out to my grandmothers property in extreme rural South Carolina with a couple friends and our trusty 22's. We would shoot at anything, pine cones, grass hoppers, birds and heck just trees in general. But the most fun I remember having is sitting on a tall hill and shooting at old tree stumps at any where from 300 to 500 yards away. Not that we hit any thing very often with marlin model 60's with open sights. We would shoot, wait too see where the round hit and adjust from there. On a good day we could "walk em out there" and hit the stump once in twenty shots or so.
Fast forward a little, I have always loved long range shooting. Everything from varmints with every thing from a 17 HMR to a 22-250. I always just knew the bullet drop from a chart and used Kentucky windage(holding over and hoping) to make the shot. But Recently I started to educate myself on MOA and MIL's to become a better shot in general.
With the company of a good ballistic calculator I've gotten pretty good. But with ammo going up in price and becoming scarce I can't afford to shoot my "big" rifles much. So when a chance encounter with a Glenfield model 25 in a pawn shop for $75 was presented I pounced on it. I put a 3-9x44 AOE Mildot scope on it, cut down and recrowned the barrel to 18 inches(the last 2 inches of the barrel and the original crown were severely pitted), and did a trigger job on it to get the pull down to 2.5 pounds. Free floated the barrel and went to the range. Gun shoots 5 in one hole at 25 yards, 1/2 inch groups at 50, and 1 to 1 3/4 groups at 100(using bulk Rem. Golden bullets).
Now to the part of all this rambling where I want to know others opinion's on. How far 1) would you shoot a 22 at a known threat or target 2) how far would you consider a 22 lethal?. Now depending on ammo I can "hit" at 200 yards with about 14.2 MOA, around 22 MOA at 250. These are just examples and I'm looking at a calculator to get them so these are ''non tested'' shots. Now on to how far a 22 is lethal? Iraqveteran888 on YouTube uses the "pine board test" to determine this. Back in WWI or WWII the US devised that if a bullet will penetrate a 1/2 inch pine board then it is capable of causing a lethal or life threatening wound.
That's all fine and dandy but it seems kind of inconsistent to me, too many factors with the wood being less dense in spots, direction of the grain and so on. So lets look at the numbers. A good Air gun will send a pellet down range with 12 foot pounds of energy. And I have taken many a small game species with air guns in both .177 and .22 caliber. I can tell you a hit to a rabbit with a .22 airgun with around 20 ft pounds of energy is pretty brutal and plenty of gun to kill something as big as a raccoon with a well placed shot. Now lets jump up to lethality on something alittle bigger. From the pine board test, the US army figured that it takes 59 ft.lbs. of energy to cause a potentially lethal wound.
From ballistic information we know that a 25 acp, with a 50 grain FMJ bullet only leaves the muzzle at around 65 ft.lbs of energy. So if we rely on the pine board test the that 59 ft.lbs is the benchmark for a potentially lethal wound, then a 22 lr stinger(on paper) has 3 times the power(energy) than a 25 acp does at the muzzle. Put the two calibers on a graph and you see that the 22 stinger doesn't even drop below 65 ft.lbs until around 300 yards out..
I know there are many other factors that play into this, but I'm just looking at foot pounds of energy mainly. I don't know if anyone will be interested in any of this but any opinions or comments are welcomed.
Fast forward a little, I have always loved long range shooting. Everything from varmints with every thing from a 17 HMR to a 22-250. I always just knew the bullet drop from a chart and used Kentucky windage(holding over and hoping) to make the shot. But Recently I started to educate myself on MOA and MIL's to become a better shot in general.
With the company of a good ballistic calculator I've gotten pretty good. But with ammo going up in price and becoming scarce I can't afford to shoot my "big" rifles much. So when a chance encounter with a Glenfield model 25 in a pawn shop for $75 was presented I pounced on it. I put a 3-9x44 AOE Mildot scope on it, cut down and recrowned the barrel to 18 inches(the last 2 inches of the barrel and the original crown were severely pitted), and did a trigger job on it to get the pull down to 2.5 pounds. Free floated the barrel and went to the range. Gun shoots 5 in one hole at 25 yards, 1/2 inch groups at 50, and 1 to 1 3/4 groups at 100(using bulk Rem. Golden bullets).
Now to the part of all this rambling where I want to know others opinion's on. How far 1) would you shoot a 22 at a known threat or target 2) how far would you consider a 22 lethal?. Now depending on ammo I can "hit" at 200 yards with about 14.2 MOA, around 22 MOA at 250. These are just examples and I'm looking at a calculator to get them so these are ''non tested'' shots. Now on to how far a 22 is lethal? Iraqveteran888 on YouTube uses the "pine board test" to determine this. Back in WWI or WWII the US devised that if a bullet will penetrate a 1/2 inch pine board then it is capable of causing a lethal or life threatening wound.
That's all fine and dandy but it seems kind of inconsistent to me, too many factors with the wood being less dense in spots, direction of the grain and so on. So lets look at the numbers. A good Air gun will send a pellet down range with 12 foot pounds of energy. And I have taken many a small game species with air guns in both .177 and .22 caliber. I can tell you a hit to a rabbit with a .22 airgun with around 20 ft pounds of energy is pretty brutal and plenty of gun to kill something as big as a raccoon with a well placed shot. Now lets jump up to lethality on something alittle bigger. From the pine board test, the US army figured that it takes 59 ft.lbs. of energy to cause a potentially lethal wound.
From ballistic information we know that a 25 acp, with a 50 grain FMJ bullet only leaves the muzzle at around 65 ft.lbs of energy. So if we rely on the pine board test the that 59 ft.lbs is the benchmark for a potentially lethal wound, then a 22 lr stinger(on paper) has 3 times the power(energy) than a 25 acp does at the muzzle. Put the two calibers on a graph and you see that the 22 stinger doesn't even drop below 65 ft.lbs until around 300 yards out..
I know there are many other factors that play into this, but I'm just looking at foot pounds of energy mainly. I don't know if anyone will be interested in any of this but any opinions or comments are welcomed.