.22 Ammunition and Self-Defense

One of the gentlemen reading the Facebook posting this morning asked about my preferred brand of .22 ammunition. No pun intended but I have no preferred brand of ammo but my guns sure do. And the guns always tell me what THEY want to shoot. I literally have shelves full of mixed ammo – both center fire and rim fire ammunition – that I use to test, re-test and record the best ammo results out of every individual gun. For example I have a Colt that I use as a back-up gun. Now I have told that Colt a hundred times that lead hollow-point semi-wad cutter ammo is best for self-defense but like a recalcitrant teenager it won’t listed! – and it insist on being an absolute “tack-driver” with 125 jacket hollow points. So … that’s what it gets because Accuracy in the individual gun is a priority (for those of you who remember my “A.C.L.U. rule” on self-defense ammo.) Like my center fire snubs, my .22 guns have a marked preference for ammunition too. My snubs *generally* shoot best with Eley Sport (long rifle) and CCI (?) .22 long (not long rifle) but that info is only relevant in my snubs. For any shooter looking for good results in his .22 I would recommend buying a few individual boxes of higher priced .22 ammunition (avoid anything that come in loose 500 rounds boxes!) – maybe even consider some match grade ammo – and then start testing and recording the results. But be warned – One minuet after you locate your gun’s preferred ammo local supplies will suddenly dry up and you will then spend years hunting down that last available box.