Depends on what zombie movie. Romero's original "Night of the Living Dead" centered around a Marlin/Glenfield model 60 tube fed 22. But, those zombies could barely even walk.
Huh? It was an old lever action Winchester, in 44/40 if I remember right. In some cuts of the film you can see the ammo box, old Federal labeling.
Where is the zombie expert, Gatorfarmer, when you need him????
Steve
I never read the 15-22 section- simply because I don't own one. Never saw the thread until it was linked to in the lounge.
For classic "movie" zombies it actually a relatively small part of the brain that had to be destroyed. This was shown in "Day of the Dead" where they had a zombie skull cut down and most of the brain gone. A .22LR round bouncing around in the gray mushy stuff wouldn't likely do that. Sure it might destroy the ability to do math, but with the classic Romero zombies.... they don't have higher brain functions anyway.
The actual spot that you need to hit in a human brain for instant incapacitation is about the size of a dime. Targets marketed to precision marksmen (aka snipers) in LEO actually feature this. LE precision work involves a centerfire rifle of close tolerances, good optics, and ranges under 100 yards.
Assuming diseased humans - there really were shuffling zombie sorts amongst survivors of the 1918 flu pandemic, but they didn't eat people - the first question would be the rules of engagement. People walk around with various potentially contagious diseases now, some blood borne, but we don't shoot them. Legal aspects of dealing with "zombies" would be more complicated than you think. If anything allowed a disease of this type to spread, that would be what did it.
Anyway... back to hardware. A .22LR, even from a rifle, is not going to reliably penetrate a human skull at all angles. Human skulls are actually rather durable, and some people do literally have harder heads than others. For a normal living human having a .22LR get into the gray squishy stuff is normally bad news, but not necessarily fatal or even immediately incapacitating.
At one point during the Iraq conflict, when the Marines first got the ACOG, there was actually an investigation as to why so many insurgents were turning up dead from headshots. The fear was that prisoners were being executed. It turned out that this wasn't the case. The ACOG was simply allowing the Marines to make precise headshots even under combat conditions.
Most people aren't trained as well as Marines of course.
If playing at being light infantry it actually isn't your ammo load that will drop most people, unless they are carrying 20 or more mags. It is the weight of body armor, food, water, and other various items that becomes a problem. (Circa 2003/2004 members of the 101st Abn in Afghanistan found themselves mobility limited on foot because of the simple weight of all their gear.)
One problem with the AR in centerfire guise is that they are officially rated at a sustained rate of fire of perhaps 100rds a minute tops. That might be optimistic. Sustained firing will heat up the weapon and cause a loss of accuracy and even possible damage to the weapon.
I suppose someone could invent an ersatz water cooled bbl shroud upper, something like an old Maxim gun. A water cooled MG of circa WW1 tech like the Vickers gun can actually fire essentially indefinitely btw. (The Brits in a test kept one running straight out for well over 100,000 rds.)
Pistol caliber carbines will increase hit probability compared to a handgun, but they are going to lack the range and penetration of a rifle round. Long story short - head wounds or any other kind of wound from a centerfire rifle is far more damaging.
If someone wants to use a suppressor - which can also eliminate muzzle flash and protect their hearing of course - keep in mind that most have a finite life, require extra care and maintenance, and generally even the best ones can cause at least some slight reduction in reliable operation of a weapon.
So anyway... if you want the ultimate zombie killer, I suppose the answers is a Vickers gun, tripod, lots of water cans and ammo belts, and perhaps try putting modern optics on one. For off the shelf purchases? For most people it is probably going to be a well made AR, AK, FAL clone, M1A or whatever they personally can afford and know how to use. Relatively expensive ruggedized optics of the sort sold for military applications would make whatever gun was chosen more effective.
Having good armor and rifle plates is actually more important than the above choice. If you're out shooting zombies, chances are that other people will likely have the same idea so a fair amount of errant projectiles would and mistaken identity shootings would likely be more of a threat than the actual zombies. (Don't believe me? Ever hunted public land on the first day of deer season? Now remove the bag limit, game regulations, and have the prey look and walk like you... yeah, it wouldn't be fun...)
Or... yeah... Just get a Krag and learn to use the magazine cut off and fill ammo can after ammo can with reloads. Brass lasts a long time. Not much recoil. Old aftermarket rear apeture sights make hitting easy and they were designed to fire volleys into crowds of hostile natives all day long.
Down side is that engaging multiple targets at close range becomes a bit problematic if they are moving at more than a shuffle.
