The Annoyed Man wrote:wrinkles wrote:Neither of those would be my choice.
Consider that statistics show 40% to 80% of your shots will miss and that the only way to reliably stop an attacker is to score a central nervous hit or bleed out. A 22 does not cause a very large wound channel so yes it might kill a person but it will do it very slowly. Stopping an attack fast is what you want and a .22 will not do that. A 2 shot .38 isn't a good choice because statistics show that you will more than likely miss with both shots. Then take into account that both of these rounds will be shot out of a very short barrel so there's no telling how much they will penetrate and they will more than likely not expand so even if you score a hit your round might not penetrate deep enough to reach the vital organs at less than optimal angles.
Caveats, because I've seen hundreds of gunshot patients... If you hole an aorta with a .22, it is almost certain that the wounded person will be completely incapacitated within a couple of seconds, and dead in well under a minute. I still wouldn't advise carrying one, but I have seen a number of people shot dead with .22s, who all died fairly quickly.
Totally agree, if you happen to score a hit to a vital such as an aorta, bleed out will be fast. What are the chances that you will score such a hit with a small caliber bullet, at least with a larger bullet your chances are better at causing such damage.
Coming back to the short barreled projectiles mentioned .22 and .38 the chances are that neither will expand when they hit the target and according to Duncan McPherson's book, table 8-3. Projectile Penetration Model Parameters, ø (Bullet Shape Factor)," Bullet Penetration.
A round nose projectile will roughly cause a wound channel 66% it's diameter. So a non-expanded .22 cal bullet will roughly crush .15 caliber hole while a .38 cal bullet will crush .23 caliber hole in tissue. Not a whole lot of difference but it still gives you an edge. An expanded .38 cal HP, let's say expanded to .65 cal, after expansion will crush tissue .82% of it's expanded diameter or .53 cal hole in tissue. The bigger the hole the better the odds the faster the bleed out, the sooner the threat stops.