This is a question to those Firearms experts we have out there =)
Sorry if this has already been asked but the supressed Ruger handgun they use, its a .22 right? Arent they a rimfire pistol? I know any calibre weapon can kill, but would a .22lr cartridge really be of much use against human sized targets? (other than at close range of course)
lol sorry, theres several questions there.
Yes and No the .22 has a velocity of oh say 1300-1500 fps(feet per second) so it is more than capable of being lethal but the fact is two things they use subsonic ammunition which is to say less than the speed of sound for silenced weapons and you would have to hit a vital area to kill someone with it ie:heart,brain,lungs ect. the reason for this is because its such a small bullet it wouldnt have a knockdown factor. The .22 when shot into the human skull has a ping pong effect it bounces around in the brain turning it into chunky soup(sorry for those who may be eating) but it is lethal against humans yes but it would have to be a shot to the vitals.
shareAaah right. Thank you for your detailed, albeit a lil disturbing, answer =)
shareThe .22 also has some interesting ballistics, particularly when it's not caroming around inside your skull. A body shot, for example, could leave the bullet anywhere. The .22 has a tendency to migrate from it's point of entry, so in theory you could be shot in the shoulder with the bullet ending up in your stomach.
A very strange cartridge, but yes, as with any bullet, a shot to the head will kill you regardless.
You can use a suppressor with standard ammunition, but you'll get much better results using subsonic ammunition, since standard ammunition breaks the sound barrier, creating the *crack* you hear.
One last comment regarding .22 cal... (quoted to me by a friend who was a ROTC marksman and later on with the US Army)...
"It's not the caliber... it's the placement. :)"
The .22 is the world's leading mankilling cartridge, due mostly to the sheer number of .22s out there. Yes, a .22 is a lethal weapon.
Ignore anyone who talks about knockdown power in handguns. If a handgun has enough power to knock you down, it has enough power to knock the shooter down, too--thank Sir Isaac Newton and the Law of Equal and Opposite Reactions.
Bullets kill in three ways: nervous system hits, blood loss, and infection. If you get shot square on the tip of your nose, the bullet is going to obliterate your medulla oblongata on its way through your head. It doesn't matter what caliber you use: death will occur in about a hundredth of a second. If you get shot in the heart, you've got about ten seconds before you exsanguinate: again, caliber doesn't matter. it's only once you get into limb and abdominal hits that caliber really begins to play a role. The bigger the bullet, the faster you'll lose blood, the sooner you'll go into hypovolemic shock.
Assuming you're not bleeding to death, you're still not out of the woods. Peritonitis--a disease that commonly accompanies gunshot wounds to the torso--is a hell of a disease, and again, caliber doesn't matter.
So once you start looking at all the ways there are for a bullet to kill you, the lowly .22 turns out to do pretty well for itself.
And yes, the .22 is a rimfire pistol.
Myself, I prefer my handguns to be chambered in .45, but I would not underestimate a .22.
I've seen .22 rimfire rifles (just LR, not even 22 mag) used to kill a half-ton cow with one shot to the middle of the skull, right above the eyes. They stagger for about 10-15 seconds, then fall over with a heavy thud. Soon, their large intestine contents blast out the back, and that's when you know the brain went kaput. This was for one at a time family farm slaughtering. Not my farm, but I helped out with the butchering once a year.
shareGreat OP and great answers.
Too often people rant about bullet size.
If it really mattered that much why are .22 .38 and 9mm rounds so popular
with armies and yes even special forces.
You don't need a hammer to crack an egg but you don't use an egg to drive nails. Right tool for the right job.
Its so good to read posts that talk like grown ups even about such things as films.
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Not actually true -- a lot of gunshot injuries don't result in knockdowns at all. See, e.g., Mark Bowden's Black Hawk Down, which details Somali insurgents who often took several rounds of 5.56mm NATO rifle fire without being substantially affected.
If a gunshot wound is not a CNS hit nor major cardiopulmonary, your odds of remaining on your feet are excellent.
Knockdown power is a myth. A bullet just doesn't have the energy. A .357 has what, 850 foot-pounds of force? You can do better with a pair of nunchuks. The physics just doesn't work.
Be careful what you read in books. Most of it is not accurate.
I often wondered about 9mm's, they seem so underpowered, what's the point? I was raised watching Dirty Harry after all. But a friend of mine who is in the SAS explained to me that cops in a public setting or Marshalls on a plane etc have all the interest in the world in putting bullets into their human targets, and ONLY into their human targets, not people standing behind them or the side of the plane they're standing in front of. Suddenly that made a lot of sense to me.
shareLook at school killings done in Finland recently. All were done with a .22 First nutjob killed 8 with his SIG Mosquito and then shot himself in the head with it. Second one managed to take down 11 including himself with a Walther P22 and then shot himself in the head. Interestingly both shooters did not die instantly after shooting themself in the head but died later in the hospital, if .22 bounces around inside wouldnt it do more damage?. So yeah .22 definitely has stopping power.
shareI read some where that the .22 and the .45 are the preferred calibre of choice with sound suppressors as that ammunition is already subsonic and doesn't need to be modified (unlike 9mm rounds). Can anyone comment on that?
The Ruger MkII .22LR used by Stallone's character is a nice weapon. A version of this pistol was used by Tom Cruise's Vincent character in Collateral as well.
Most .22LR ammunition is not subsonic, not even out of a short pistol barrel. However, subsonic .22LR ammunition is readily available.
shareIt makes perfect sense for professional assassins to use a .22. Like others have said (and I must say, this is one of the most coherant and informative weapons threads I've ever seen on these boards) a .22 can do a proper amount of damage if it hits in the right place.
These guys are supposed to be the best, so they would have the ability to A. get close enough to a target for a .22 to be effective and B. good enough to place the round where it needs to be. You see how Miguel takes those Dutch buyers out snap snap snap. Their shots go where they intend.
A .45 is technically a better man stopper because, in theory, you don't have to be as accurate because the round is so large.
But, the other benefit to using .22 ammo is, what others said about the caliber having a tendency to bounce aruond inside the body. Also, from what I understand, a .22 does not result in an exit wound as often as other calibers.
This translates to less mess for the assassin, and less potential for blood splattereed clothes.
It's also much easier to make a .22LR nice and quiet, the pistol can be smaller with a higher round capacity...in fact, they could use a 1911 chambered for a .22 if they wanted, but it would be absurdly heavy and bulky for their needs.
The only thing I wonder about is their willingness to leave shell casings behind...but hey...it would have been boring with revolvers.
"When you're pushed, killing's as easy as breathing."
The .45 is a superior manstopper than the .22 not so much because the round is so large, but because the round is less prone to deflection and will penetrate clean through a target.
The larger size of the bullet is more or less inconsequential. The larger wound channel is nice, yes, but it's the resistance to deflection and the penetration depth which give it superior performance.
The human body tends to have a lot of bone protecting vital areas. You need a dead-on shot with a .22 to breach bone. If you don't, the round is just going to carom off and not damage the sensitive tissue beneath. You can get shot in the head with a .22 and survive with nothing more than scalp lacerations, assuming the round isn't dead-on accurate. However, the same shot with a .45 will fracture your skull, spall bone fragments inside your head, and just generally do ridiculous amounts of damage -- and that's on a glancing shot.
Similarly, the .22 is not known as being a great penetrator. Most of the major blood vessels in the body are protected behind layers of bone and muscle. A round which doesn't penetrate deeply, or which deflects easily, is unlikely to score hits on these major blood vessels. A round which penetrates deeply and doesn't deflect very much is going to be much, much more effective.
Moral of the story -- the .22 is a great round, but requires a lot of skill on the part of the shooter, and is very intolerant of any errors. The .45 isn't so much a better manstopper as it is it gives you a little more leeway for error.
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"Knock down power" is not a literal "knock the target off his feet, flying across the room" force. "Knock down power" refers to less shots needed to put someone down. Unless you hit a vital spot, a .22 or a 9mm round will not stop someone with adrenaline or certain artificial drugs in their system, without getting a perfect hit.
The margin of error is less the larger the caliber you go to. Someone shot with a .50 cal is less likely to live compared to someone shot with a 9mm. That's the difference in "knock down power."
Larger, slower calibers do more damage upon impact than smaller, faster calibers.
The 5.56 is interesting because when it strikes someone it's supposed to tumble, thereby creating more damage. However, with the FPS the round has a lot of time you get through and throughs that do nothing but flesh wounds.
I am a leaf on the wind - watch how I soar.share
Also I think a .22 would make over-penetration less likely, which make sense because assassins, I would think, would like to avoid accidentally killing or wounding anyone they don't intend to.
"When you're pushed, killing's as easy as breathing."
I'd say the only real reason why hitmen (might) and certain military personnel do use the .22l.r. is because it is hands down the best common cartridge there is if maximum suppression of the muzzle signature is your goal. (The Israelis have or had suppressed Ruger 10/22 rifles to take out cameras, lights and guard dogs and apparently certain US Spec Ops also had integrally suppressed Rugers for certain applications)
There may be a few additional benefits, but they aren't the reason why the caliber is used. If it were, then the .22l.r. would also be used without a suppressor by military personnel.
Although I would be no less cautious standing in front of the muzzle of a .22 than I would in front of a .45 there is no arguing that it is definitely not the most suitable caliber option for concealed carry self defence.
a) A .22l.r. is absolutely lethal. But odds are, forgive my morbid example, if you randomly (random = not well aimed = under stress = moving targets) shot 10 people with a .22 pistol and 10 more with a 9mm/ .40s&w/ .45acp or whatever, that you will have inflicted more damage on the people hit with the larger caliber weapons. So if you wish to play it safe, you're better off not opting for a .22l.r. for self defence - even if you (think) you are a good shot.
b) Another major reason why I'd consider the .22l.r. inferior is because it is (in my experience) more prone to jamming and malfunctioning. Twenty-twos can be picky with their ammo, so finding the right brand etc. will greatly eliminate this issue. Still, if a 9mm fails to go back into battery after firing a shot, you can slap the back of the slide forward and the problem will most likely be solved. Do this with your Ruger MK series .22 pistol and you will most likely squash the case or deform the projectile to the extent that it won't chamber anymore. This is where it gets really exiting if people are shooting back at you (sarcasm).
Knock down power or better "stopping power" as stated above by someone else does NOT actually mean the bullet's ability to knock you off your feet, but rather its ability to incapacitate you (even without hitting you in the head or other vital organs). Everyone has his own favourite calibers, so I won't get started on 9mm vs. .45ACP etc. besides, the self defence ammo available these days makes the 9mm a whole lot more effective than it once was.
People may argue:
- the .22s ping pong effect in the brain is a pro.
while this may or may not be true (i've never met a pathologist with first hand experience) there is no way that you'll feel any less dead if a hollow point 9mm went through your skull and emptied it on its way out the back.
- the .22 is more likely to deform to the extent that forensics can't identify the rifling on the bullet and match it to other crimes.
True, but to rely on this on every hit would be a little optimistic.
- the .22 has less of a risk of over penetration.
True, but hollow points etc. minimise this risk on all ammo and i'm fairly certain that law enforcement is more concerned with this issue than hitmen, yet they still use larger calibers.
- a .22 is also less likely to go through an object a target is taking cover behind (like Julian Moore's kitchen in this movie) or even through your clothes if you're wearing a thick winter jacket and have a wallet with lots of coins etc. in it and the bullet just so happened to hit that... it's tacky but true... and yes, in Europe people actually do tend to have coins since most places don't have 1 dollar bills etc.
All in all the only reason why the .22l.r. may or may not be used by hitmen is because it is the quietest caliber there is when suppressed (probably even unsuppressed or if you're going to improvise and use a pillow or something). Also, it's readily available!
I can see the appeal of a .22 LR pistol for an assassin because they are relatively quiet (even without a silencer, and assuming subsonic ammunition is used), and they can get the job done with proper shot placement. Assassinations are premeditated of course, which gives a lot of control to the assassin regarding how and where it takes place.
On the other hand, a .22 LR pistol is a terrible choice for a combat pistol (like it was being used for in certain parts of this movie). The .22 LR is a rimfire, which is far more prone to misfires than centerfire cartridges are. Also, .22 LR semiautomatic pistols are far from legendary with regard to their feeding reliability. I owned a Ruger Mark II once, which I bought brand new in 1990, and it usually jammed (failure to feed) about once per magazine. Sometimes it would make it through an entire magazine without jamming, but that was unusual. On top of that, they use a heel-based bullet resulting in a cartridge of dubious construction. You can pry the bullet from a .22 LR cartridge using just your fingers. That means it is easily deformed, and a deformed cartridge is very unlikely to feed properly.
In addition to reliability issues, combat situations don't afford the luxury of a kneeling victim that you can leisurely shoot behind the ear at point blank range, so you'd want something with a lot more power (which gives you a greater margin of error with regard to shot placement), such as a .45 ACP.
Interesting discussion. Most likely the posters here have long forgotten about this thread, but I'd like to add one observation for anybody new reading this.
My impression about the advantages/disadvantages of various calibers, especially concerning the .22 vs .45 argument, is that hydrostatic pressure pays a part in the "knock down" power of a given caliber bullet shot into flesh.
I'm told that a big, fat bullet like the .45 creates a hydrostatic shock wave that does damage to the body some distance from the entry area and bullet track through the flesh. IOW, a person might sustain a shock to the heart, lungs or nervous system even though those areas didn't directly receive bullet damage.
Might or might not be true. It's just what I've heard.