On average, a 4.4-inch .22 LR handgun barrel produced a 126 fps velocity gain over a 1.9-inch snub-nose in controlled gelatin testing an unusually big swing for a cartridge people often treat as “all the same.”
The reason that fact is important is that the argument supporting a.22 LR pocket pistol is based on the fact that it does one thing properly: it is carried. It is lightweight enough to carry in the front pocket, the footprint is small, and the recoil is not violent enough to shooters who are unable to fire faster-kicking pistols. When “the question is the one that is really there,” a pocket .22 checks off the fact that belt guns occasionally malfunction.
The timing problem also varies with pocket carry. A shot can be drawn by a hand which is just learning to make a firing grip within a pocket without transmitting any message, and that will beat any draw made under a covering garment. There is a price to this technique, however: the system will only match with a pocket holster that conceals the trigger and holds the muzzle in position, and the draw must be practiced in real positions standing, sitting and bending down, as pockets snag and angles collide easily. Small guns also lead to small controls, short grips and short sights and all these require you to pay extra attention as soon as light and stress begin to strip away your fine motor skills.
Where pocket pistols made with.22 LR cartridge get their reputation the hard way is in reliability. Rimfire ignition is more sensitive than centerfire by design, a weak hit, an unbalanced distribution of priming compound, and ammunition that has been bumped into daily carry can become a dead trigger. With a small blowback pistol, the accumulation is even worse: the mass of the slides, the springiness, the ammunition variability and the grip strength will collide with failures to fire, failures to extract, or even short-stroking, not seen in the slow range session. What we learn most about informal shooter experience is that not all rimfires are bad, but that “fail to fires” are frequent enough among rimfire ammunition and guns to need a strategy.
The signs of performance are headed the same way: when the .22 is pressed to serious service it must pursue penetration. In one of the most popular pocket-caliber gel series, with heavy clothing and varying barrel lengths, the experimenters have found that the choice of ammo should run to maximum penetration since expansion is minimal and tends to sacrifice depth once it occurs. Also reported in the same series was the effect of a mere change of barrel length which can change the velocity and results materially, as this confirms that pocket pistols are working at the very fringes of the envelope of the cartridge.
That is why special purpose loads attract attention. The Punch .22 LR offered by Federal was designed to operate with short barrels, with a bullet weight of 29 grains, which is a flat-nose bullet, and a factory velocity of 1,070 fps at 2 inches barrel length to emphasize the straight-line penetration of the firearm over the expansion. The claimed target of Federal was to penetrate 12-18 inches, and unofficial gel tests have revealed several deep penetrations without expansion -as predicted, but this leaves the channel of a permanent wound narrow, and increases the cost of a hit along the favorable lines.
It is during low light, when the question of the “night duty” to us is more than caliber talk. As it is consistently observed in the studies and training summaries, most of the major firearm events occur during low light conditions, and reduced vision reduces peripheral awareness and identification. There, the benefits of the pocket .22, in that being the ability to carry consistently and to be controllable, are only important to the extent that the operator can actually see what is going on to make the proper decisions and to be able to keep the gun running during a stoppage.
A .22 LR pocket pistol can serve as a working tool, though only once it has demonstrated itself in the very carry mode, using the very ammunition, and with the shooter having practiced clearing malfunctions until it becomes automatic.
