Watch: 22 LR Clothing Penetration & 22 Short vs Pellet Gun

The title of this video by Paul Harrell is “22 short vs. 22 long rifle and pellet gun,” but he begins the video by addressing a popular criticism 22 rimfire ammunition; namely, the claim that it won’t penetrate thick clothing in a self-defense scenario.

He dresses a “torso” made of 2-liter soda bottles in five layers of clothing, then backs off seven yards to blast it with a three-inch-barreled revolver firing CCI Mini Mag 22 LR round nose ammo. He nails it seven times, and it’s apparent after the first shot that penetration was no problem whatsoever, as we see soda begin to pour off of the table. The clothing did stop each bullet — after they’d passed through the pseudo torso.

He uses the intro to segue into a discussion of the 22 Short cartridge, and a comparison of velocities between LR and Short ammo, as well as .177 8-grain hollow-point pellets from a Gamo pellet rifle.

I’ll spare you the entire play-by-play, but suffice it to say that if you are interested in guns, ammunition, and comparison of performance, this video is chock full of reliable info and good visuals, and is well worth a watch.

As far as somebody making a claim that their pellet gun is as powerful as a 22 Short, that claim is not entirely fictitious… But anybody saying that has either spent quite a bit of money on a pellet gun, or he’s never fired a 22 Short and doesn’t really know what he’s talking about.

Russ Chastain

Editor & Contributing Writer Russ Chastain is a lifelong hunter and shooter who has spent his life learning about hunting, shooting, guns, ammunition, gunsmithing, reloading, and bullet casting. He started toting his own gun in the woods at age nine and he's pursued deer with rifles since 1982, so his hunting knowledge has been growing for more than three and a half decades. His desire and ability to share this knowledge with others has also grown, and Russ has been professionally writing and editing original hunting & shooting content since 1998. Russ Chastain has a passion for sharing accurate, honest, interesting hunting & shooting knowledge and stories with people of all skill levels.