Free For All Friday 10-17-2014: 22LR Carry Guns, Silencers and Home Defense.
Halloween is coming up. This has got to be one of my favorite holidays. We nerds tend to go all out on Halloween as well. Heck, we’ll look for any excuse to dress up in costume. Usually it’s comic conventions or what have you. Regardless, we go a bit crazy. There will be pictures. As the Fourth Doctor once said “There’s no point in being grown up if you can’t be childish sometimes.” Words to live by.
What is your opinion on a .22lr concealed carry gun? I want to get my wife a gun to carry but she struggles shooting a 9mm due to wrist injuries. I had said something to a friend about this and he thinks a .22lr is not enough power. He says at least a 380. What is your take on this? Thanks. -Chad M.
When it comes to this site, I try not to just regurgitate information from other sources. I test and research everything I do and adjust previous advice given whenever the need arises. In this case, I have to kinda go with the mainstream but not really…sort of. Some will say that the .22LR is useless for personal protection and that an attacker will just shrug it off if they get shot with it. Strange how no one saying that will ever volunteer to stand downrange and get shot with a .22LR so they can “just shrug it off” and prove their point. The fact of the matter is, there are countless examples of criminals shrugging off .45 ACPs and .357 Magnums and there are also countless stories of people getting dropped from a single .22LR round. That being said, a .22LR isn’t exactly an ideal round for personal defense. It’s one of those “just because you can doesn’t mean you should” type of scenarios. When it comes to defense with pistols, it’s all about shot placement, sure. A larger round is just going to increase your chances of doing the necessary damage if you put your shots in the right place. The big thing with .22LR isn’t so much its potential to do damage as it is their reliability in general. Rimfires, by their nature, are not very reliable designs and I wouldn’t want to bet my life on them.
I personally wouldn’t want to carry anything less than a .380 if for no other reason than they are inherently more reliable than a rimfire based round. For the recoil sensitive (which I very much am), if you go with a slightly heavier designed gun (like a SIG P238 or Colt Mustang), the recoil is negligible. Keep in mind, we’re talking about a pocket pistol here. Even the heaviest pocket pistol I’ve come across (Walther PPK) are still lighter than the vast majority of compact pistols and shouldn’t be an issue.
I had a friend ask me a question about suppressors this past weekend. Went something like “I am looking at buying my first suppressor, what can you tell me about using one can for multiple calibers?” -Chris’s Friend
With the prices and hoops you have to jump through, it makes sense to get the most bang for your buck. It is possible to use suppressors on multiple calibers and a lot of companies are even making modular suppressors that can be reconfigured for multiple calibers. The modular ones are, as you would expect, even more expensive and they are still limited as to what calibers they can be configured for. Your friend didn’t specify pistol or rifle but I’m going to quickly touch on both. In that realm of pistols, nothing suppresses like a .45 ACP. It’s already a subsonic round so you can pop a can on your gun and shoot anything though it. For smaller rounds, you’ll need to look for the subsonic versions to get the least bang for your buck (see what I did there?). You can put a .45 ACP suppressor on a 9mm pistol and still get some noise reduction but it won’t ever be as good as a purpose built 9mm suppressor. Putting a 9mm suppressor on a .45 will cause a problem that involves the words “catastrophic” and “failure” in that order. Also, don’t put a pistol suppressor on a rifle. The differences in pressure will also cause a big problem as well. The cheapest (legal) option if you have a bunch of guns to outfit are the serialized Oil Filter adapters from Cadiz Gun Works. These allow you to attach an automotive oil filter to your gun and they work just as well as the fancy suppressors. They’re under $100 but you’ll still have to pay the $200 federal tax stamp. The downside is that you might look a bit ridiculous with a FRAM filter at the end of your gun. Don’t forget that, regardless of which suppressor you go with, you’ll need to also get a threaded barrel and likely raised sights. Suppressors are large and can block the sights. Then again, you can always get decent at point shooting instead.
Currently I own a Mossberg 12 gauge shotgun but am starting to feel like maybe I need to expand my choices against uninvited visitors. So what’s the next step? It looks like many rifles fire .223 or other caliber ammunition that one doesn’t often see in a pistol. My long ago experience firing a .45 revolver suggests that the recoil makes the safest place to be (at least to start with) right in front of me. So, what’s the logical progression (pistol, rifle, both) to increase my options, and what’s the importance of number of shots per option , the ability to share ammunition, and minimizing the likelihood of my acquisition(s) getting stolen? -Mark
Ask any military member and they’re likely to tell you that they were always taught that a pistol is what you use to get to your rifle. We can talk calibers all day long but a pistol isn’t going to do as much as a rifle or shotgun. The fact that you already have a shotgun means you’re off to a good start. Frankly, you could stick with just that and be well defended. Nothing wrong with wanting options, however. With that, I’d move to an AR-15 chambered in 5.56. For home defense, a shorter barrel is a better option for maneuverability reasons. Recent rulings by the BATF have stated that they’re perfectly fine with people shouldering AR-15 Pistols so there’s a really short option for you that doesn’t require jumping through the paperwork hoops for an SBR (“short barreled rifle” which requires a tax stamp). The 5.56 caliber will allow you to use both 5.56 and .223 rounds which increases your ammo availability. Even though both rounds are the same size, the 5.56 is a hotter round and can cause issues (those “catastrophic” and “failure” words again) when fired from a rifle chambered in .223. You can fire .223 from a 5.56 rifle all day long, however. That size is also a good size for defense as it’s not likely to wind up punching into the neighbor’s house. The .308 and 7.62 battle rifles and carbines have some serious penetration and could wind up going through an intruder, then your wall, then your neighbor’s wall and sometimes that neighbor’s neighbor’s wall. Likely? No. Possible? Very much so. Frankly, I wouldn’t want the liability.
Don’t rule out pistols though. There’s one BIG thing you can do with a pistol that you can’t do with a rifle or shotgun: tuck it in your belt (by way of an appropriate holster) then go shopping. I don’t want to get into an open carry discussion but there are just far more places you can carry a concealed pistol than a rifle or shotgun on your shoulder if not for legal reasons than just for convenience, really.
Thanks for the questions!
So do you have a question burning in your mind? We answer them every Friday so send them in! It doesn’t matter what it is, as long as it’s arguably gun related we want to hear it! Head over to our Facebook or Twitter or Contact Page and send them in. See you next Friday!
Like what you read? GunNoob is now part of Pew Pew Tactical. Check out the rest of our awesome resources:
Leave a Reply