...but I love this little fella! I pulled the trigger (HA!) on a Heritage Arms "Rough Rider" single action .22 revolver. Just a very inexpensive piece for fun stress free/recoil free shooting for my son & myself to spend time together. And you can order a .22 magnum cylinder for about 30 bucks for that little extra bit of velocity. I forgot just how accurate a single action revolver is and how cleaning is a snap with revolvers (single or double action). And guaranteed not to double-feed/jam like a semi-auto pistol - I hate when that happens! That said I used to think a .22 rim-fire was worthless for home defense, because it's a SQUIRREL/RABBIT hunting round for Pete's sake! Then I you tubed some videos about "the lethality of a.22" and it opened my eyes! Yes the lowly .22 rim-fire LR round will indeed penetrate multiple layers of clothing and get the FBI standard 12" minimum penetration (stop laughing you perverts!) into flesh. And to my surprise it will break ribs and still get good penetration and decent wound channels. Bottom line I wouldn't stand in front of it - and a hit with a .22 beats a miss with a 9 mil every time! But in retrospect a lot of deer are poached illegally at night with the .22 because it's quiet - so logic would dictate they are indeed lethal with good shot placement at close range. But shouldn't that be every hunters goal anyway? But I digress.... Moving on to the Galaxy bow. Again, something for my son to shoot too. He doesn't have the strength for my hunting bows, but just for relaxing backyard archery I got a Galaxy (used to be made by Samick) take-down recurve with 30 pound limbs. He can always get heavier limbs eventually if he feels the need. The bow is great! No tools needed for mounting the limbs to the riser, and it draws smooth and is very stable and is drilled & threaded for a sight and stabilizer for those who are into super-accuracy. So lots of family fun coming up for oldfella & oldfella 2.0 in the future!
If a .22 is all you have, then that's all you have. To me they're only good for target practice and taking small game.
that's what I used to think - until I started watching youtube .22 testing and found out that they are indeed quite lethal (if home defense is a motivator). Shot placement (as always) is priority #1 of course, regardless of caliber. And I love the dependability of a wheel gun. And as far as safety I just feel better being able to see every cartridge in my weapon when I'm shooting. But the biggest thing for me is the pure fun of a single action revolver - pulling back the hammer and having a light steady trigger pull and less felt recoil depending on handle shape.
