I have a K 48-4, 4 inch barrel.
Is this adequate for home defense?
Any difference in factory loads?

Thanks for your advice.

Duplicate thread?

S&W K 48-4 home defense weapon?

We keep a 22 mag 2 inch around with a fast expanding bullet from a short barrel. Mainly my wife carries it around. Hornady and others ammo mfg are out there. I'm at least a 38 cal but you know I don't want to get shot with anything. A nice firing 22mag placed right is ok. Personally I like the round but I like a larger caliber for defense

Maybe a little better than a Louisville slugger.
And thats arguable.
However certainly beats nothing.
If there are strength issues?
You Could always sell it and buy a .38 special.

Unless you already have a good quantity of .22 mag ammo I would not, it is even more elusive than .22LR...or at least it is in Montana!

Randy

I just went through this with my 85 year old Father, my Brother & I are both retired LEO's. Dad has kept one of our former Duty Guns for a house gun for years, 1st my Model 59 & then my Brother's while mine went out for a refinish & re-spring job ( I Retired in 2001 & my Brother in 2011 ). Last week, Dad and I went out to shoot the 59 some. We found he couldn't shoot the 59 very well due to recoil, so I had him try my 4" Model 64-3. He didn't have enough hand strength to shoot it well in double action. Solution, he took my Grandson's Ruger 4" MkIII 22/45 home. He was able to shoot it fast and accurately & it was no problem to rack the bolt, another difficulty he had with the Model 59. Sometimes you just have to go with what works for you, in my Dad's case it is 10 rounds of 22LR that he can handle fast & accurately ..... ;o)

Not my personal first choice, but it is better then nothing

Why not get him a 12 gauge SxS? 8" to 12" barrels loaded with less lethal

Nothing is scarier than looking down those big twin muzzles as they are being pointed at you with shaky old hands

I have shot some wet phone books with a 4" Taurus .22 mag with the Hornady personal defense loads, about 2-3 of inches of penetration and good expansion. Not a .357 by any means, but a nasty hole. It is something I bought for a lady friend with really small hands who didn't like the recoil of a small .38.
Picked up a 2nd one I keep in the tackle box loaded with mix of snake shot and regular rounds. if the canoe flips over on the river and I lose it my feelings wouldn't be hurt nearly as much as losing or dunking a S&W 48.

*
"Less lethal" is a badly flawed term and you should get it out of your vocabulary. (My co-author and I have been working on an article on that issue; it's a problem ...) The barrels make that an NFA weapon of some kind (can't recall which category, not my thing), and if you have only one weapon or set of weapon options, it needs to be the best you can shoot well with the best ammo possible. Anyone who is unlawfully present in one's home is almost certainly a lethal threat and should be dealt with as such; any lesser response is ... unwise, shall we say. Slugs are the default in a shotgun; #1/00/000 is a specialized load but workable. If the physical capacity to shoot a 9mm auto or K frame .38 ain't there, I would bet a lot that a shotgun is going to be a serious problem, too. I have seen references to a couple of articles about "old guy guns", but don't have good links. They are on sites dedicated to fighting with guns, nothing at all about collecting, target shooting, and the like. If you are not comfortable with the harsher views expressed, not good places to visit.

I have seen some pretty savvy folks refer to the .22 Mag, at least from a longer barrel, as potent beyond expectations. I am also aware it is harder to get, and LOUD for what it is. I suspect, all things considered, the ability to obtain and shoot .22LR would make that a better choice for an OGG, provided that one can find a platform that works ergonomically. I may yet look hard at an LCR .22LR for my wife for that reason; she is small and has some infirmities that make a more serious choice somewhat unwise.

As for the original question: if a 48-4 is what you have, and you shoot it well, with ammo chosen for use on people (remember body size, clothing and the like mean that some hunting loads will not be great choices due to a lack of penetration), by all means, it's a decent choice. It is certainly better than a pencil, a feeble punch, and harsh language. "The perfect is the enemy of the good enough."

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NHI, 10-8.

So you and your co-author are writing an article to say that 12 Gauge rubber buckshot is not "LESS LETHAL" than 12 gauge lead buckshot

Sort of. The terminology should be "less than lethal" or some other phrase meaning "not intended to cause death or great bodily harm". I am aware that the Florida statute uses the incorrect terminology, but it is clownshoes from the start.

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NHI, 10-8.

Developed for personal defense with a .22 magnum.


If the .22 mag is all you have, by all means use it. There are better calibers for personal defense, available in a wide variety of reasonably priced firearms.

Wasn't it someone that said "i'd rather be missed by a .45 than hit by a .22" ?

Not my first choice but better than nothing. To be honest all handgun calibers are weak I have taken partial heart shots on a deer with a 308 only to watch him jump straight up and run for a good 35yds

Colt_saa,
Is that a class III? Legal minimum barrel on a shotgun is 18" and I think 26" minimum overall.

A .22 mag wouldn't be my first choice, but the majority of home defenses don't end with the bad guy being killed.

That is a Short Barreled Shotgun or SBS as defined under title II of the National Firearms Act of 1934

All barrel lengths of Shotgun are legal under Federal law. 18" and 26" is just the boundary that separates a Title I shotgun from a Title II shotgun

Class III is actually the type of FFL dealer license needed to sell them to end users. The term has nothing to do with owning them or defining them

Most home defenses do not end with the firearm even being fired.

I think that I would prefer a bigger caliber for home defense but if the only firearm I owned or could use was a 22mag it would be my Keltec PMR-30 with 30rd capacity.You get someone in your house pumped up on meth you don't want to be reloading a revolver while he's still coming at you.

I'd rather be spraying than praying! (if you know what I mean.)

We have beaver problems in the ditches at the farm. 22 long rifle from a rifle or a handgun just won't take them down as they are a tough critter. 22 magnum will do a job on them! I have always been impressed by the power of this cartridge. Very effective on four-legged varmints, and I think it would make most two-legged varmints go away.

In my view, the .22WMR is fine for home defense from a revolver. And, I also believe that .22LR ammo out of a Ruger Mark II/III also would be a fine home defense pistol. What makes the latter a good defense gun is that ìt 1) puts out so many rounds in so short a time that few could survive that kind of volley and 2) the round has plenty of energy to enter a human body, but not enough to successfully exit it. The .22WMR has substantially more, and has shown itself to be a good stopper of men. So out of a revolver, I'd go for the .22 mag.

That's what I thought, but I wasn't sure.

A long gun in 22 mag -- say a lever action 18" carbine -- might be a good home defense weapon.

With the long barrel, the 22 mag round comes to it's own, and packs a wallop.

Not much recoil should make follow up shots easy.

Plus a 22 mag hollow point probably wouldn't penetrate as many walls as a heavier round.

Just a thought.

I am one of the people who like .22WMR , and think that it performs above expectations * When fired from at least a 4in bbl, and preferably closer to 6in * . Doesn't bring it up the prefered level of SD , but well above a .22lr . Think in the ballpark of .32acp to .380 from a compact, but with better accuracy and control. Judgement for the OP if he considers that adaquate.

The recently introduced "Self Defense" .22WMR loads are optimized for derringers , mini revolvers , and the recently introduced 2in snubs. For a 4in or longer bbls , I prefer an old school 40gr jhp. I have chrono'ed the W-W 40gr at close to or hitting 1400fps from a 4 5/8in revolver. ( By comparison from short bbls , the 40gr WMR overlaps the various 36gr .22lr fired from 4in revolver. )

I was not into guns at age of 30 but came to having to deal with what we call groundhogs in central KY. Eating corn crops and destroying garden. Borrowed a neighbors 22 and was surprised that mostly I was not killing them. Did a bit of talking around and wound up buying a Marlin short throw lever action 22mag and put a nice 6 power scope on it. I could hit those guys just as they came out of their holes from 100 yards and hear a nice resounding thump. The gun had enough kick to feel like you were shooting more than a bb gun and a nice report and I loved the echo off the trees.

I came to love to shoot that gun because of the flatter trajectory than the 22 and enough range to not to have to work my way in close and it did the job I needed.

It was the only gun I had and I knew it was not a deer killer but very effective around the farm.

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M&P40 Pro wife has M&P22.

That is a good story and is the key. One must have a defensive weapon that they can quickly and competently use when the need arises. Caliber matters little if one cannot get it into action and hit the target quickly.

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~~Mort semper tyrannus

The .22 mag has ballistics (ft/lb) that approach .38 spl loadings. Rimfire ignition is the problem for me. In 50 years of shooting I have had at least 10X more ignition failures from rimfires than centerfires. joe

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Wisdom chases me; I'm faster

Handgun calibers are weak? I see no show of hands here on the forum to prove that theory...

If your deer dropped after running 35 yards from a .308 chest shot then he bled out pretty fast IMO. That was a good kill and nothing to shrug off... Similarily, there's a video on you tube of a pharmacist nailing a BG with a compact .45 at 3 yards that still showed the BG running off camera, probably 15-25 feet before he succumbed...Probably from bleeding out as well....

To me that sounds like the bullet/gun did its job because if you watch that vid, and there's many like it, the BG took off running & was out of the fight after the first or second shot...

Nobody in his/her right mind wants to get shot of any caliber... If a .22 is all a guy has, then by all means use it to defend yourself..

Sometimes the BG isn't in his right mind, however.

Particularly if high enough on drugs.

One of the best responses to a caliber discussion I had the pleasure of reading. Well said and reasoned sir!

There have probably been as many, or more, civilians killed or incapacated by the .22 LR in a handgun than any other caliber over a period of many, many years. A properly placed .22 bullet will do the job. Plus followup shots from a .22 handgun are much easier. And the .22 Mag is a notch or two above the .22 LR. Of course, a .22 Magnum is adequate for personal defense, provided the shooter can place his bullets well. As a general SHTF gun, I would take a good .22 semi-auto above any other weapon for numerous reasons which should require no explanation.

Things change as we get older, I'll be 70 next year and know this first hand. Right now my .38 & .380 work just fine for me, but as time goes by I might need to change to my Model 18 twenty-two LR. I've seen some mighty big men felled by a well placed .22.

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Old Cop
LEO (Ret.)

I have no problem with the 22magnum. Killed a lot of varmints with it. Would use it for self defense. If that's what you got and can shoot it we'll, use it!

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Riding, Shooting, and Truth

I still prefer larger calibers but our henry 22 mag and ruger 22 mag revolver have their place. We like to shoot the 22 mag way more than 22 lr.

You might want to read the article linked below. I have no idea if it is accurate but it convinced me. It is a different look at handgun stopping statistics.

An Alternate Look at Handgun Stopping Power | Buckeye Firearms Association

Ed

Interesting results and conclusions in that article. One thing that isn't factored in is level of training and experience of the shooter. I believe that the level of training is far more important than caliber. A good good shooter trained to handle stress with a 22 is more deadly than a complete novice with a shotgun. Learn to shot what you chose and mentally prepare yourself as best you can for such a situation.

He does not want a long gun, more comfortable with something small. It is really for piece of mind, they have a 24 hour alarm that is monitored & all doors have deadbolted security screens. All gates are locked from the inside, they had a burglary in 1977 and the home has been as secure as Fort Know ever since

I've always had a great deal of faith in the .22lr autos. They are very easy to shoot and you can put a lot of bullets into a target in a very short period of time. I knew one guy who was working on his house when he was hit with a .22lr round. He thought he'd been stung by a large wasp. He got down, dizzy and disoriented, and passed out. Although he got to a phone, he couldn't complete the call, but help was sent immediately. He woke up in the hospital, and his doctor told him he'd come very close to dying. The incredible thing is, they traced the bullet to a site where a woman told police she had seen two kids shooting a few rounds from a car (or near the car). Police found some shell casings at the site and it was just over a mile from the home the guy was working on. Again, this fellow told me that the sting was like a wasp, only it felt deeper, and he immediately felt disoriented and it was difficult for him to breathe. That's pretty impressive for a shot fired from a mile away!

The.22mag is more powerful, and one writer recounts how an Israeli immigrant with a Ruger Single-Six with a magnum cylinder, killed a terrorist and stopped a major attack. I've also studied civilian shootings, and the .22lr has an enviable record for putting down bad guys. The .22mag is the same, but offers a vicious blow to the ribs as well!

I'd love to find some of that defensive .22mag ammo. I also recommend that Single-Six users and those pushing for optimum accuracy check out Paco Kelly's accurizing tools. They're amazing. Check them out here: http://pacotools.com/tool_discriptions

They also can make all .22 rimfire bullets of any type more lethal, as well as more accurate.

I still wish I my little S&W M63.

I'm also retired LEO (41 yrs. two depts). Permit me to restate the well thought out post above;

Whatever firearm, piece of equipment or tactic you intend to deploy, two criteria must be met:

The firearm/tactic/etc. must be PRACTICAL, and,

The firearm/tactic/etc. must be TASK (or JOB) RELATED.

Failing to meet either of the above criteria is likely to result in failures in the field as the firearm/tactic is not relevant to the needs of the user.

Rich

I guess a lot of you have never had the opportunity to have been
shot. For self defense purposes a gun that can be handled and
fired accurately is more important than obsessing over cal and
fancy pd bullets. A 22 mag will make you awful sick, so will a
Hyper 22hp. It will take the gremlins mind of harming you. I
agree bigger the better but I wouldn't feel naked with 22 mag.
Remember it's for PD not air assault. I read awhile back about
a NY cop that had been in wrong place at right time, off duty,
in several shot outs at robberies, he won them all with S&W
22mag/kit gun.

Like most posters here, 22 mag. wouldn't be my first choice, but most of those swamp guys use it to put away an 800-900 pound alligator, so a well placed shot will obviously work.

Ballistics-by-the-inch shows the 40gr .22 magnum CCI Maxi Mag at 946 ft/s from a 2" barrel, with 1160 ft/s from a 3" barrel and 1353 ft/s from a 4" barrel! Those are nice jumps in velocity. This is roughly the same energy as a 40gr Mini Mag .22lr fired from a rifle.

So what we have is a small, fast bee sting that delivers a deep, painful bite. It can easily kill, depending on placement, and would hurt quite a lot no matter where someone was hit. Thick outer clothing would likely slow it down, though. That might be something to consider in colder climates. I think it would still penetrate pretty well, but there's the question of how much energy would be left after it got through the layers of fabric.

As for specific ammo choices, it's pretty hard to find any right now, so we can't be too picky. 40gr Speer Gold Dots and 45gr Hornady Critical Defense would be my first choice for self defense. There's also a 50gr Federal round that packs a good wallop. CCI Maxi Mags are okay, too.

As for reliability, current .22 magnum ammo is well-made and expensive. It's much more reliable than bulk .22lr ammo. I have had only 1 FTF with .22 magnum and that may have been a light strike by the revolver. The round fired when struck again.

One thing about the .22 mag, especially in the dark or darkened room, it has real ear hurting bang and flash. Anyone on the other end of a short barrel may well think he's up against a .357 or .44 mag.

I believe the .22 mag was once thought of as an excellent gun for police working undercover.

It is possible that President Reagan would have died of his .22 cal. gunshot wound if not for the fact he was provided with the best medical care in the most timely fashion.

I personally know of one very large federal agency that would issue Hi-Standard .22 mag derringers to undercovers. The reasoning was that it was not a "cop gun", was reasonably effective, and was so loud that if the UC had to touch one off it would bring the cavalry running.

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“What you got, ain’t new.”

Yes. Practice hitting a pie plate. That'll work.
And I'd get some Hornady FTX.

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Halfway and one more step

Yes, and the fact that Hinckley used an RG Saturday Night Special instead of a Colt Detective Special. I used to tell the people at the National Coalition to Ban Handguns that if I were shot by some idiot on the street, I'd rather the guy have a cheap handgun with a .016 cylinder gap than someone with a quality handgun.

Those guys are still around, too. They now claim they don't want to ban handguns, only register them and promote “common sense“ handgun laws. When they use terms like “common sense“ -- you'd better head for the hills! Because that's the last thing they want.

I have a Jennings J-22 and a Beretta M21 (both .22LlR). The Jennings shoots about 4-5 mags full of ammo, then begins to jam. If you take it apart and clean it with a dry toothbrush, everything's fine again. The Beretta would frequently jam no matter how many rounds had been fired. The Jennings isn't a problem because it only malfunction when it's dirty. The Beretta waa more problematic because it was more expensive and had gotten great reviews. But someone said, try CCI Mini-Mags, so I did and the gun began working flawlessly. I'm still very impressed with the way those guns just empty themselves. Even guns that cost well under a hundred bucks just put the ammo in the air like a Tommie-gun!

My wife's EDC gun is an S&W 351PD loaded with Hornady 'Critical Defense' ammunition. It is what SHE is 'comfortable' with. Having said that, I recently purchased nice S&W M12-3, currently loaded with Hornady's 90gr. 'Lite' version of their 'Critical Defense' line. It is her 'house gun'....in case she cannot get to her AR15.

Sorry, so are we renaming the 22WM a less lethal cartridge now? Makes sense

If you want your deer to drop dead in a heap right there, shoot him in the brainbox. With a .308 or .22magnum. Seen it plenty of times at around 50 yds. and I have no doubt the .22 magnum is effective at more up close and personal range.

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Halfway and one more step

A friend of mine just went through that with his wife, looking for what she could handle. The lightweight J Frame in 22mag had a fairly hard pulling trigger, necessitated by the need for a reliable hammer-fall in this lightweight gun. She couldn't pull the trigger except with two fingers, and she pulled it so far off target she couldn't hit anything. Take this into consideration when thinking of a 22 mag, especially in a light firearm.

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H Richard
SWCA1967 SWHF244