To .22 or Not to .22

[John Joseph]

I did not start shooting handguns with the .22, but I started my children off on .22s in order for them to learn the basics without the distraction of report and recoil as well as economy since they could shoot a brick of 500 .22lrs for the same cost as a 50 rd. box of .38s

But many people (me included) learned to shoot with center fire hand guns (in my case, it was my Uncle Al's Luger because that was all that was available for me to shoot.)

In the Academy there were a surprising number of cadets who had never fired a handgun before and came to the first range day with the requisite 9mm, .38, .40 or .45

With CCW classes, students are there to shoot with what they've bought to carry (at least in CA) and many may be first time shooters as well. I don't recollect seeing any .22s which is probably a very good thing from a CCW perspective.

When non-shooting friends ask me what gun they should buy, I always try to get them to go to the range with me and "start" by using my .22 first, before discussing the pros and cons of revolvers vs autos, DA vs SA, etc...
It is an introduction, but is one morning with the .22 really enough to effectively instill the rudiments of hand gunning?
I'm thinking it isn't and it would be better to shoot a .22 for several weeks or months before graduating to a center fire.

Or maybe not.

People I know certainly look to be accurate (at 9 yards) without having "cycled" through the rim fire
I was wondering what your opinions are?

 

[Taurus 617 CCW]

I have done lessons both ways. Sometimes a student already has their gun purchased so we work with that. If they don’t have a gun picked out yet then I isually start them on a .22 to get their bearings straight. A lot of times with the first scenario I will have them use one of my .22’s because they will inevidably develop a flinch somewhere along the way. A .22 is a great training tool no matter what.

 

[CraigC]

IMHO, if you actually want to build shooting skill, the .22LR is absolutely, 100% indispensable. I know some folks have managed to learn to shoot with a centerfire but in doing so they made the learning curve steeper than necessary. There is simply nothing better for learning the fundamentals than a good .22LR. With the availability of rimfire conversion kits, you can even learn on your chosen self defense platform.

That said, some folks are just content with making noise at the range and the occasional hole in the 7yd silhouette target. They get by just fine with whatever noisemaker their favorite movie hero used.

 

[chicharrones]

I believe every shooter could use a .22 handgun and a .22 rifle for practice and anything else a .22 is good for.

Yet, I did not get a .22 as my first handgun back in my 20s because I wanted one multi-purpose handgun with the limited funds I had at the time.

That was and is my 6" Ruger GP100. With .38 Specials in it the recoil is super soft. Unfortunately, 500 rounds of .38 costs a whole bunch more than 500 rounds of .22.

Of course, I currently own five .22 handguns and can't imagine not having a handgun in that cartridge.

 

[Bartojc]

I always suggest a .22 as a place to start. I started both my girls and now my wife on a .22. I myself did not start on a .22, and sometimes I think that could be why I'm not as good as I think I should be. My daughter can out shoot me with a little .22 most days.
A .22 really helps get the fundamentals down, and most of all helps with recoil sensitive shooters. Every shooter should own at least one .22 handgun.

-Jeff

 

[someguy2800]

The first pistol I ever shot was a 9mm Beretta 92 and I couldn't hit anything, I was like 25 at the time. We never had any handguns when I was a kid. I was a skilled shooter with a rifle or shotgun already so that frustrating result prompted me shortly after to buy a Buckmark target pistol and I made it my mission to figure out what I was doing wrong and fix it. I wasn't even interested in pistols, it just frustrated me that I wasn't good at it. I hung a 4" steel plate in the yard and my goal was to hit it 10 times out of 10. I shot everyday and would stop once I had hit it 10 for 10. When I got to where I could do that on the first attempt I would move it back. Eventually I was doing it on the first attempt probably 80% of days at 25 yards. I tried moving it even further out but I was never able to do any better so I had plateau'd. It took probably 10,000 rounds to get there. After I had mastered that I got a revolver, and had to relearn over again after adding recoil to the equation but the fundamentals I learned shooting 22 are always there and I would never have learned that with a 9mm semi auto.

I personally think there is so much technique to learn to shoot a pistol accurately in grip and trigger control, follow through, and sight alignment that if you don't start with a 22 your basically permanently handicapped. All the flinching, pushing and pulling, trigger smashing, wrist flicking, eye closing crap and other terrible technique mistakes I see people making when failing to hit a paper plate at 5 yards is very apparent when shooting a 22 pistol, but not so much shooting a centerfire because its all lost in the recoil. Shooting a bigger 22 pistol like a ruger mk2 or buckmark is like shooting in slow motion, you can see everything your doing because you have clarity.

I've seen alot of people that go out and buy a 9mm or 40 or whatever and take it to the range to try to shoot it and they can't hit a man sized target at 7 yards because they never learned to pull a trigger first. Of course you can learn this on a centerfire pistol but it will be a whole lot faster and cheaper with a 22. My lifelong aspiration is to be able to shoot a centerfire gun as well as I can a buckmark. The best thing a person can do outside of getting a 22 to learn on is dry fire as a religion. I tell people when you buy your first pistol you should have dry fired it 1000 times before you ever put a round in the gun.

 

[Al-jim19]

For people who have never touched a gun before I always start with .22 and then switch to 9mm. A lot of the people I’ve taken shooting for the first time were anti gun people and I think it helped demystify the practice.

Sadly of those handful none are true converts.

 

[milemaker13]

First handgun I shot was my dad's .22 revolver, first one I "owned" was a .22 auto (S&W 622.... Sadly long gone )

 

[ATLDave]

I'm certainly a big fan of learning to shoot with .22's. When I first got into handguns (I had grown up doing a little shotgun and rifle shooting, but didn't really fool much with handguns until I was an adult), I tried to go right to 9mm. I sucked for a long time. I'm a flincher by nature, and even a 9mm (which now seems popgun-ish to me) induced a lot of low-left pushes. No amount of dry fire fixed it. It was only when I got a .22 pistol and put thousands of rounds through it that I was able to finally see the sights at the moment of ignition. With that new source of data for my brain, I was quickly able to bring the flinching under control... and transfer that to 9mm, and then on to 10mm and 45 and .357, etc. I would be years further along in my shooting progression if I had just started with a dang .22 out of the gate.

Not everyone is like me. But a lot are. If the weekend crowds at the indoor ranges near me are any indication, a lot of people shooting 9mm's and other centerfire pistols have never, ever seen their sights when the gun goes off.

 

[Skgreen]

Winter temps may require Winter ammo due to the powder / bullet lubricants.

Example: https://www.targetsportsusa.com/fio...-22-lr-ammo-40-grain-lrn-22sm340-p-54123.aspx

Cannot speak from experience as there is no winter in Houston.

 

[someguy2800]

Winter temps may require Winter ammo due to the powder / bullet lubricants.

Example: https://www.targetsportsusa.com/fio...-22-lr-ammo-40-grain-lrn-22sm340-p-54123.aspx

Cannot speak from experience as there is no winter in Houston.

I don't have a problem in sub zero temps with normal ammo as long as the gun is clean. The wax that the bullets are lubed with gets all over the action and solidifies in cold temps, but as long as you clean that crap off frequently normal ammo will still work. I shoot down to -30 F which is as cold as it normally ever gets here.

 

[Jerseykris]

I was forced to do things in reverse order.
Although I had a few years under my belt with rifles, my first time ever with a pistol was the .45 1911 at boot camp/AIT in the army.
It was embarrassing because I shot Expert with my M-16A1 (I'm gettin' old) and couldn't hit a damn thing with that .45 (although eventually I could meet the bare minimum qualification) and it turned me off to pistols for quite a while

A few years after that, I got my own S&W Model 17 .22 with the six inch barrel. It shot like a dream, and using what they 'tried' to teach me with the .45, I became proficient with it overnight. As I honed my skills with the .22, I was able to painlessly work my way back up through the larger calibers.

I really wish I had started with the .22, it would have made my .45 'prowess' in the army a lot less humiliating.

 

[Good Ol' Boy]

I'm one of the folks who's going to suggest the opposite, for the most part.

It does indeed partially depend on the person. A full-size 9mm doesn't have that much recoil. An average person, male or female, can learn fairly easy on such a gun.

Obviously there are some that might benefit from starting out with essentially zero recoil, but eventually they'll have to deal with it if they plan on shooting anything bigger. I would submit dry firing would be just as beneficial as wasting 22s in that case.

This is just my opinion and I certainly wouldn't fault anyone wanting to start with a 22, I just don't think it necessarily necessary.

 

[someguy2800]

Most people don’t find 9mm recoil objectionable, it’s just that as a result of them trying to control the recoil of the gun they can’t tell that they are moving there wrist or pushing the trigger sideways as they are firing. All the motion just blurs together.

What’s really enlightening is to hand someone that flinches and can’t follow through a trigger break a gun with a laser sight on it and make the dry fire it

 

[MedWheeler]

My first .22 handgun was my second handgun overall. It was purchased three weeks after my first, which was a .357 Magnum.

There was a reason I was back in the store getting it so soon.

 

[Tallball]

My first handgun was a Single Six 22lr I got when I was 15 or so. I shot thousands of rounds through it before I ever shot a centerfire handgun. I got a few centerfire handguns when I was 21 and 22 years old. The transition was pretty much effortless.

I've taught a dozen or so people to shoot handguns. I always start them with 22's and move up slowly from there. (32's come next!)

Whenever I go to the shooting range, I start off with about 50 rounds through a 22 revolver, then about 50 rounds through a 22 semiauto. Then I move up from there. 44's and 45's are usually last.

I'm not saying that's the only way to do it, but that's what's worked for me.

 

[Skgreen]

If for no other reason,,, 22's are just plain fun. Rifle, pistol, whatever. Inexpensive to shoot, and great for plinkin'.

Can't speak much about pistol accuracy, as I'm by no means considered 'accurate', but 22 rifles will require their favorite flavor of ammo for top accuracy. (3 Rugers, a Savage and a CZ. Only 2 of them prefer the same flavor. Go figure,,,)

 

[brennok]

I recently went shooting. It wasn't my first time shooting, but I had only been once or twice before and that was over 20 years ago.

I shot 9mm, 22, 40, and a 45 all in semi-auto, and all at 7 yards. Overall I would say I enjoyed the 9mm the best. The recoil felt manageable where I would be making progress if I kept at it. The 22 didn't do anything for me and one box was enough before we moved on to something else. I could see how it could be helpful to practice and refine on the 22, but it didn't leave me with the feeling I wanted to do this again. The indoor range also wasn't the brightest so it was difficult to see where I was hitting with the 22 compared to the 9, but it could have been the target since it was one of the 6 black bullseyes on one sheet. Of course it is always possible I was completely missing with the 22 which wasn't happening with the others.

Of course the frugal me may push me into a 22 if I decide this is something I want to do regularly.

 

[3Crows]

I shoot 22 because I like them and they are fun, pistol, revolver or rifle. 3C

 

[Danoobie]

For the same reasons you used 22LR to train your children. There's another benefit. 22LR ammo is notoriously crappy, so you have
a fair amount of jams and misfires. Folks should also get some training and experience dealing with jams and misfires, before moving up to
center-fire calibers. IME, most folks enjoy plinking 22, anyway.

 

[Jeb Stuart]

Not yes, but Hell Yes get a 22.cal for training, especially for Point and shoot skills. I am a firm believer that this fast and quick training develops the hand, eye, muscular control. For me, this is not debatable, it is fact. Better yet, get a short barrel Snubbie and a 22.cal. Learn to shoot these well and you will be a better shot with any gun.

 

[bannockburn]

I have always started new shooters out with a .22, be it revolver or semi-auto. It has worked pretty well over the years in getting them accustomed to how a gun works, how to get a proper grip and stance, sight picture, trigger control, and so on. Doing it with as little distraction as possible, that the .22LR so nicely provides, is a real positive step in the right direction. It's not unusual to have a new shooter start out with a .22, then move up to a .38 Special or 9mm. and finish the shooting session with a .45 Colt or .45 ACP.

 

[Spats McGee]

. . . .I was wondering what your opinions are?

My opinion is that everyone needs a .22 or three. Learning, training, practice, plinking . . . . I'm sort of in the middle of rediscovering my .22s after the .22 drought of 2008 onward. I'd almost forgotten how much fun they are to shoot.

 

[JONWILL]

I like having a 22. I have a P-07 and a P-09
22 conversion kits are great for a new shooter or cheap practice. This way you can train on the same gun you carry or use for home defense
Another benefit I found is that 22 is it as reliable feeding or always going off. That will allow the shooter to also learn malfunction drills
I think most revolvers have a similar frame size in 22 and I shoot the same reasons a semi auto

 

[SeanSw]

Not yes, but Hell Yes get a 22.cal for training, especially for Point and shoot skills. I am a firm believer that this fast and quick training develops the hand, eye, muscular control. For me, this is not debatable, it is fact. Better yet, get a short barrel Snubbie and a 22.cal. Learn to shoot these well and you will be a better shot with any gun.

How does the trigger vary between the 9mm and .22 lcr? I've thought about buying one in .22 but only if the trigger stages similar to my .38.