22 mag vs 32 cal for backup gun

[outdoorman]

Maybe I'm just fishing for an excuse to buy a new toy( since I already own a NAA mini-revolver in .22 mag), but how does the .32 cal round compare for self-defense purpose?

[Mikey]

outdoorman - the 22 mag is head and shoulders above the 32 acp.  I have seen a couple fo defensive shooting results with the 22 mag and it is quite devastating on Asian sized folks and should be the same on even larger ones.  S&W used to offer a 'kit gun' chambering in the 22 mag but lately I don't know who, if anyone, offers something like that any more.

I would suppose that if you can handle and hit with one of the NAA shorties that might be alright but it would sure be nice if someone like FN or even S&W would offer the 22 mag in a small, concealable semi-auto.  Mikey.

[Redhawk1]

I agree with Mikey.  

[S.S.]

I have found that the Mini revolvers simply are not
accurate enough except for in the closest of situations.
last ditch if you will. A back up weapon is for if your primary weapon fails
or runs dry or is lost for one reason or another. Nothing says
that your antagonist is going to be close to you when this happens.
when I worked in law enforcement we still had to qualify with our
back-up weapons or we could not carry them. The only time on duty that
I ever had to pull my back-up weapon was when another officers Holster simply would not allow his Glock to be removed from it. Sounds crazy I know but it was a fancy thing with all kinds of adjustments for tension
and such and the humidity had caused it to swell and take a very nice grip on his weapon. Anyway, he felt much safer when I handed him my Beretta Model 70. Think if this was your partner and all you had to give him was a mini revolver. I see these Tiny guns  for deep concealment
but not as a back-up. By the way, my partner had a Grendle 380 by the next shift.

[RollTide]

I own both a NAA 22M and a NAA 32ACP.  I could not disagree more, with all due respect to previous posters.  The 32 mag is almost identical to the 380 and and the 38 snub nose in stopping aggression in actual shootings.  While the best 22M round is about half as effective.  Add to that the speed of relaoding a semi auto compared to a mini-revolver, and the 32acp is hands down easily twice as effective for self defense.  The smaller the caliber, the more shots it is going to take to stop someone.  You can fire the 32 faster, (and I fire the 32 more accurately), its rounds are far more potent, and you can reload faster.  'nough said.

Just my 2 cents,

Roll Tide

 

[Win 73]

An interesting test I ran a few years ago.  I fired a .22 mag, a .22 lr, and a .22 short into 1 inch pine boards to see which would penetrate more.  Guess which one penetrated most....the .22 lr.  Guess which one penetrated least....the .22 mag.  That's right, even the .22 short penetrated more than the .22 mag.

The .22 mag was an NAA mini revolver with the 1 inch barrel.  The .22 lr was an Iver Johnson TP22.  The .22 short was a Beretta Minx.

When I called CCI to ask them about it, they said the reason was that the .22 mag was designed as a rifle round and used a slow burning powder.  The short barrel just was not long enough to develop full velocity with the .22 mag.

[S.S.]

My post was more from the stand of accuracy rather than power.
Most sane persons would try to avoid being shot by anything
so I would say that most of the time an individual would stay away from you no matter what caliber your weapon was. But it is those Insane
individuals you really have to worry about. I agree with what was said
about the penetration tests of the rounds in question. And also that the
Semi-Auto can be reloaded and fired much faster. I am not sure if the original post was asking advice as to what to get or simply wanting opinions but in good concience I can not recommend the Mini-Revolvers
for defense...They are cute and neat and fun, but no more than that to me. The accuracy simply is not there.

[cvixx]

Just ask yourslf which would be easier to draw and fire.  Assuming you are using some sort of holster, the auto will be larger and easier to get a good grip on.  No hammer cocking necessary for most .32s and follow up shots a lot quicker.  IF you ever need to shoot someone with either caliber, I would imagine that more than one shot would be the best way to go.

BTW, who has been shooting Asians with a 22Mag?  .223 I can see, but 22Magnum?

[Sir Knight]

A .32mag beats both a .22mag and a .32ACP. Plus, a J-frame will hold 6 rounds over the 5 rounds found in a .38 J-frame. Another interesting point is that while round per round, a .38 outpowers a .32mag, six rounds of .32mag actually has 10% more energy over five rounds of .38special.

[slink]

and you'll get more like 120 ft lbs than the 250 ft lbs you imagine you'll get. Also, the autoloader offers you 6-7x the repeat hit speed of the mini revolver, and 2-3x the speed for the first hit.

Under real stress, it's extremely easy to either drop the mini-revolver, or screw up your attempt to (swiftly) cock that stubby hammer spur) Without much of a grip to hold, nor a triggerguard, swift thumbcocking of such revolvers is out of the question.

However, Keltec now offers a 380, which has a locked breech and can be handloaded to offer 250+ ft lbs, using the Winchester 85 gr Silvertip jhp, at 1200+ fps. They also now have a single stack 9mm, which offers about 400 ft lbs (CorBon's 90n gr jhp) while weighing a mere 12 ozs. It's considerably smaller than the J frame revolver, and considerably more controlable in rapidfire, too.  It's also just $300. Soon, used ones will be all over, for $200, cause the recoil IS pretty snappy with this gun and full charge 9mm ammo.

 The .32 mag is a joke, because it has less power than the .38 snub, which is well proven to be just a joke.  Of the 4 .38's that were on line to hit the brains of Platt and Matix in Miami (from 3-6 ft from the muzzle of a 4" revolver) using 158 gr plus p ammo, not one was able to penetrate their skull bones.  The .38 snub has considerably less power and controlability than the 4" revolver. Had not Platt and matix been unarmed and bled-out, Mirules would have died that day.

[Sir Knight]

According to street stoppers ...

• a .32mag beats a .32ACP
• a .380ACP beats a .32mag
• a .38special beats a .380ACP
• a hollowpoint .38special has the same stopping power as a .45ACP FMJ.[/list:u]

[S.S.]

Has lots to do with bullet design and State of mind of the person being shot ! ... Worked a shooting about 20 years ago in which a 260 lb
male had removed an AC window unit and was climbing through the window of a mobile home. 60 year old female owner fired one shot
from a Baby Browning .25 auto and struck the man about an inch above
the elbow. Bumped the bone no artery hit. We found him still half way through the window stone dead. Instant one shot stop, who could ask more from a handgun !  Could or would this feat ever be repeated again?
Yes. Motorcycle rider pulls up to a redlight on a backstreet, Perp is on him with a knife a second later demanding money. Rider carried an FN Baby Browning in a wallet holster and that is what got stuck in his face instead of a wallet. Pop!!! and one more scumbag that the world does not have to worry about. Too many variable in shootings for me to make any real blanket statements about what is better than others. I would have to say
that in both of these incidents the outcome would have been the same
if a Mini-Revolver would have been substituted for the Baby Brownings.
Would a larger caliber have made any difference? Not in these two incidents. Point BlanK, Last ditch and the good guys won.

[slink]

It's wel proven that Marshall just MAKES UP his "data".  Every time he's DARED release a source, and somebody CHECKED on it, he's been proven to be LYING or mistaken about what really happened.  .45 ball sucks as a manstopper. It's about as "effective" on critters as a Stinger out of a .22 rifle. Anyone can shoot some chucks, badgers, nutria, coons, feral dogs, etc, with both loads and SEE that I'm right about that.  So saying your .38 is as "good" as .45 ball ammo is nothing.  Until you get up to the 500 or so ft lb level, you've got very little, and then only if the jhp is going fast enough to reliably expand in flesh, which takes 1400 fps. With a 110 gr 357, or 115 gr 9x23 Win, at about  1500 fps, you've got about all the energy you can control with decent repeat hit speed (ie, .25 second on the timer) and it's about 550 ft lbs.  That's about 90% likely to stop men, IF you get a solid chest hit.  All the other so called "duty" rds are in the 60-80% bracket, which means that they fail 40-20x out of 100 shootings. That's pathetically poor.

[jeager106]

I was the firearms instructor for my department.
We would not allow anything of less power than the .380 auto as a second or off duty weapon.
Most carried a compact 9mm or snubby .38 as a second or back up weapon.
If you must go to the back up then you are in a s.h.t.f. situation.
Why would you trust your life to a tiny revolver or semi auto in a situation that has already gone past a pucker factor of ten?
Remember the question was backup weapon, not primary c.c.w.
When bullets are flying your way it's tough enough using your primary weapon to save your bacon let alone fumble with an itty bitty mini revolver that is difficult enough to manipulate under normal range conditions.
Most nearly every decent semi auto made in .32 can be had in the .380 and many 9mm compacts rival the .380 in size.
Same can be said for the revolvers. If you can hide and handle a 32 wheel gun why not at least a .38 spl. +P?
We mandated that officers qualify with the off duty and or backup gun at least once a year on a short range course of fire.
Distances were 3 feet, 21 feet, and 36 feet and it was manditory to qualify with strong and weak hand under simulated s.h.t.f. conditions on multiple targets including speed reloading and drawing the thing from your carry mode. If you have a mini revolver or baby auto in your pocket you could very well not get the thing into play at all.
I'd absolutely pay money to watch a guy qualify under those conditons with a N.A.A. revolver.
 :-D  :-D  :-D  :-D

[slink]

Guys don't usually MEAN backup when that's what they SAY. What they really mean is this will be the ONLY gun off-duty, or in other words, MOST of the time. Anyone who thinks a mini-revolver is anything but a joke is a joke of a shooter. Anyone who can't see what a horrible handicap they are is just too far out in fantasyland to be reached.

[S.S.]

I have to respectfully disagree with you about the
.45 ball being a poor stopper. I have seen it used too many times
in combat to have a poor opinion of it. That is a round that will
not only pass through bone, but shatter it. It was absolutely
devastating on those Arab Fella's In Beiruit Lebannon I can assure you.
Picture this, A Corporal who shall remain nameless was in a back alley
(Very Narrow) A couple of miles from where the Marine Barracks
was Bombed. Raghead approaches down the alley seemingly
very innocent until the little Scorpion SMG started out from under his
"Dress" . Corporal fires one .45 round that struck badguy about two
inches above his right nipple. Shattered right shoulder blade and pushed
a large part of it most of the way out of the mans back.I believe He was dead before his legs buckled. In Another incident, (not in Beiruit)
A gun runner was being sought, got to the door, door was breached and a burst of automatic fire came out of it. Lt. Fired one round as the badguy
turned to run into another room of the house. Badguy dropped made
a moaning sound and was dead a few seconds later. The 230 grain ball struck him in the left hip and shattered his pelvic bone. Did the same for his right and hit a heavy wooden door hard enough to slam it shut when it passed through him. I could go on, but I hate typing. I do not put much stock in Marshall or Sanow or most other gun writers for that matter. I believe what I see and I have seen that the .45 auto is a devastating combat round.

[jeager106]

Guys don't usually MEAN backup when that's what they SAY. What they really mean is this will be the ONLY gun off-duty, or in other words, MOST of the time. Anyone who thinks a mini-revolver is anything but a joke is a joke of a shooter. Anyone who can't see what a horrible handicap they are is just too far out in fantasyland to be reached.

Well slink, that was a post to the point!  
And TRUE! :lol:
In our society we still have choice and a huge selection of good defensive weapons at our disposal.
Why anyone would venture into the realm of fantasy and handicap themselves with such a poor choice of weapons is beyond my capacity to understand.
With that mindset why don't we all sell our expensive defensive weapons and go buy a used Raven .25 auto for self defense and spend the whopping 50 bucks to save our priceless lives. :eek:
I've seen a LOT of gunshot deaths.
Nothing can do the damage I've seen from a contact wound by a 12 bore with any size shot.
MOST of the handgun deaths were homicides or suicides from the tiny .25, .22, and .32 caliber mouse guns but I sure as hell ain't betting my life on one.
I've also seen TWO people that survived direct shots to the heart, one from a .22 l.r. and the other a .22 mag solid!
Niether jackass knew they were even hit.
Niether spent more than a few days in the hospital for observation.
Cheesh guys: GUNS can kill, they are deadly weapons, but why would anyone deliberately by a mouse gun on purpose.
I truely would rather carry a fighting knife over puny guns.
If you take CCW seriously, and you should or why carry, then take your choice of weapons seriously.
Then get more serious about your most important weapon.
The one that you will always carry wherever you go.
Your MIND!
I'm never unarmed. :roll:  :roll:

[Sir Knight]

It's wel proven that Marshall just MAKES UP his "data".  Every time he's DARED release a source, and somebody CHECKED on it, he's been proven to be LYING or mistaken about what really happened.

Well, he sells a lot of books. I see new editions of his publications out every year. Can you please provide some other published source that provides "better" data so that we can see how they rate the various calibers?

.45 ball stinks as a manstopper. It's about as "effective" on critters as a Stinger out of a .22 rifle. Anyone can shoot some chucks, badgers, nutria, coons, feral dogs, etc, with both loads and SEE that I'm right about that.  So saying your .38 is as "good" as .45 ball ammo is nothing.  Until you get up to the 500 or so ft lb level, you've got very little, and then only if the jhp is going fast enough to reliably expand in flesh, which takes 1400 fps. With a 110 gr 357, or 115 gr 9x23 Win, at about  1500 fps, you've got about all the energy you can control with decent repeat hit speed (ie, .25 second on the timer) and it's about 550 ft lbs.  That's about 90% likely to stop men, IF you get a solid chest hit.  All the other so called "duty" rds are in the 60-80% bracket, which means that they fail 40-20x out of 100 shootings. That's pathetically poor.

That's all very interesting but the US Military had no complaints about effectiveness of .45 ball ammo being a manstopper during two world wars and several other "peace keeping" missions in 'Nam, Korea, etc. Even now during the middle East conflicts, special units that are armed with .45 ball ammo report that one or two COM hits will drop the enemy compared to several rounds of 9mm FMJ rounds. Yet, you call the .45 ball ammo "nothing". Maybe you should share this information with the US military because they are planning on going back to .45 ball ammo again.

Anyone who thinks a mini-revolver is anything but a joke is a joke of a shooter. Anyone who can't see what a horrible handicap they are is just too far out in fantasyland to be reached.

The joke is on the person who buys a large caliber gun and discovers that it can not be carried all of the time due to it's size and weight and ends up leaving it at home. A .25 in the hand is better than a .45 in the safe. Remember, the first rule is to have a gun.

[slink]

today, as then, the pistol sees SO little use in military combat that NOBODY has enough real experience with it to say if it's good or bad. You can bet that plenty have done ok with the 9mm, too, ya know.  Shoot some chucks, etc, with .45 ball, watch them run off with chest hits, and know that guys LIE a lot about .45 ball.


The joke is on the clown who "thinks" that I said anything in favor of the belt pistol, as vs the pocket pistol. However, you can have far more power in a pocket pistol than most guys think.  It's not at all hard to have  8-9x the power of a .25, in a package smaller, lighter than a .38 snub. You just have to know how to go about it, that's all.

[Sir Knight]

the pistol sees SO little use in military combat that NOBODY has enough real experience with it to say if it's good or bad. You can bet that plenty have done ok with the 9mm, too, ya know.

So why is the military going back to the .45 if there is no evidence to support such a change?

Shoot some chucks, etc, with .45 ball, watch them run off with chest hits, and know that guys LIE a lot about .45 ball.

Let me get this straight. Special Ops soldiers who are issued .45's are lying about how good the caliber is and by doing so, they are willing to place their lives at risk by staying this this ineffective caliber?

The joke is on the clown who "thinks" that I said anything in favor of the belt pistol, as vs the pocket pistol. However, you can have far more power in a pocket pistol than most guys think.  It's not at all hard to have  8-9x the power of a .25, in a package smaller, lighter than a .38 snub. You just have to know how to go about it, that's all.

First off, any gun can kill and can kill quickly. Even a tiny .22 short can claim a life within minutes. The point is not about killing but stopping. Will 8 or 9 COM hits with a .25ACP stop someone as effectively a 5 COM hits with a .38special. I don't know but my money is on the .38 snubbie.

However, the authord wasn't asking about .25's or .45's or .38's but about the .22mag VS a .32. Since it wasn't specified which .32, I pointed out that a .32mag will beat the pants off of a .22mag and I stand by that statement.

[slink]

In a smaller, lighter package, you can have the 9mm, with twice the power of the .32 mag, with much less cost of practice ammo, flatter profile in the pocket, 40% more ammo on tap in the gun, faster repeat hits, etc. So why bother with the .32 mag? It's just nothing much.

[Sir Knight]

Why bother with a .32mag? Two reasons:

• First, and foremost, a 9mm parabellum in the size and weight of a .32mag is going to have much more recoil and much harder to shoot accurately as a result. I speak from personal experience on this. I have shot my S&W 332 in .32mag (below top) ...
  
  
  
  ... with my Rohrbaugh R9 in 9mm Parabellum (above bottom) and I can tell you that the R9 is MUCH more difficult to shoot accurately because of it's significant recoil. The .32mag feels like a pussycat in comparison. Neither gun is meant to be a target gun but even at 7 yards I can keep a tight group with the 332 with the R9 group being about twice as large. Good thing that practice ammo is cheaper because I need a LOT more range time with my R9 to be as accurate with it as I am with my 332.
  
  

  ... 40% more ammo on tap in the gun ...

  My 332 holds 6 rounds while my R9 holds 6+1 -- that's only 17% more.
  
  

  ... faster repeat hits ...

  Negative on that. I can empty my 332 much faster and much more accurately than my R9.
  
  Do I carry my R9 over my 332? You bet! Am I better armed with it? Questionable. Are three or four COM hits with a .32mag as effective as two or three near COM hits with a 9mm? I don't know. You tell me.
  
  
• Secondly, as to why bother with a .32mag? Because the topic of this thread is comparing a .22mag with a .32 -- the author didn't state an interest in other calibers.[/list:u]

[S.S.]

I have to ask this of you Slink. Have you ever even once been in combat?
Well, I can tell you for sure That I have! Have you been Close enough to have Soviet made heavy machinegun rounds blow concrete into your face when they hit the wall beside you. Small arms fire drop tree limbs onto you as they are blown off the trees above your head. Feel what it actually feels like to be shot or stabbed? My friend I have been shot twice and stabbed once. and cut up by flying glass and debris more times than I care to remember. When you say that people will lie about about the .45, I hope you really have your facts straight. Because to me, Unless some one has had to actually use a weapon in combat they have no Idea whatsoever how effective it is in the first place! I am sure the other folks in this forum who have had to employ their weapon to save their life will agree. Shooting paper or waterfilled containers or ballistic Gel doesn't show me anything. When a weapon allows me to come home instead of the other guy, It is a gold seal on that weapon to me.... Graybeard, if you read this, I am not trying to start anything here but the word LIE in the previous post really got to me.

[slink]

Go blow your smoke up the butt of guys who don't know better. PLENTY of guys have been saved by 9mm's, too, ya know.

It takes TWENTY coin-tosses to establish the true 50-50, pure LUCK ration of heads to tails. Stop or not stop of men when shooting is the SAME "two possible outcome"  sort of scenario as a coin toss. No, you HAVEN'T shot 20+ men in the chest, under combat stress, with a .45 and ball ammo.  The only man who's shot more than 3-4 men with a pistol, Jim Cirillo of Nypd Stakeout Team, has told me that .45 ball didn't do worth a hoot in some of the gunfights his partner, Bill Allard, used it in. Bill was trying swc's, hollowpoints, all sorts of stuff to improve the .45's performance.

I've shot a ton of critters with the .45 ACP, and ball ammo, under  1000 fps swc's, flatpoints, and lrn's all suck at the job. They won't reliably stop a mere coon or chuck with a chest hit. So go beat your chest someplace where nobody knows the real score. too many guys here have shot animals with such loads. We KNOW you are talking bs.

[williamlayton]

My apologies for such a rude remark.
There are more polite ways of making a point and folks enjoy them more also.
Blessings

[slink]

Tough stuff, dude.

[S.S.]

So I take it that the answer is no!, you have never been in combat?
(except with CHUCKS AND CRITTERS).
You believe way too much of what you read and quoting it back
to others really makes you sound kind of silly.
And how you could be possibly think than Jim on the NY stakeout squad is the only one who has used a handgun that many times makes you look worse.  (Although kind of entertaining in a perverse sort of way) With the statements you are making, and trying to be a hostile, macho :DELETED:
to everybody, I am going to have to put you in the "Has no Idea what they are talking about" category and try to pay you no attention
except for the entertainment value of your remarks.
   You have a nice day!

[Skeeterbaymac]

Wow!  All those years I did in the military and Federal LE and to think I was poorly armed with the old 45.   Man I wish I had of known that!  Mr. Slink you could have saved my bacon if I had only had you right there beside me!

I can not take you serious.  You spout off stats and times like a computer. You tell a man who served, that he is not telling the truth, and you have 80 some posts since the 16 th of this month.  Come on man give it a rest there is BS here but it's not from where you think it is!  

[slink]

The difference is, I HAVE shot hundreds of animals with ccw loads, and almost nobody else has. If they had, they'd say the same thing about the BS'ers and their .45 stories. Sure, sometimes .45 ball stops people. So does the .22lr, SOMETIMES. The point is, neither one is very likely to be good at the job. A 223 softpoint, now, IS good at stopping men with chest hits.  The closer you can make your pistol load perform to what a 223 Nosler Partition softpoint does (in good sized animals, like deer or big dogs) the better off you will be if you have to fight with your pistol.

[Skeeterbaymac]

Oh no! I am wrong twice?  How could that be! :eek:

  First I have been carrying that stupid under powered old 45 around for more years than I can count and now I find out the 223 is the best man stopper.  

  I find that funny that you would think the 223 is a great man stopper with chest hits.  I have been involved in that little exercise in the past and found it rather disappointing (223 on human targets that is), and before you go off half cocked, one incident was with a soft point winchester load.  You can find my comments on it, on one of the self defense forums here.

 Thank goodness there are guys like you Mr. Slink, that have shot all this small game and can tell me how all these bullets work on human targets! I do not know how I ever survived before now! Again my only wish is that you could have been right there beside me the whole time giving me your expert advise! But I guess better late than never huh! :grin:

P.S. Do you ever go bear hunting?