.22 LR

 

I’m a little confused by your term, “putting thru the ribs the 22WMR picks up the slack better.” What slack are you referring to? I find a 22 hp to be extremely & reliably lethal. 22lr over the 22WMR for tree squirrels every time for me.

 

A .22LR put Brady in a chair for the rest of his life and put down Bobby Kennedy permanently. Should be more than enough for squirrels.

 

I agree with them 👆22lr.

 

CZ 457-22rf

Grey foxes with 22 sshp

 

22lr is my preferred caliber.
The magnum rimfire round is louder. It upsets the calm more than a 22lr. Most shots I take are under 60 yards. I'd rather not spend more per shot, and go home with my ears ringing.
If I was going to grab my 22 WMR I would probably use CCI tmj or Gamepoint rounds to decrease potential damage from the higher shock on squirrels.

I don't judge anyone who squirrel hunts with any caliber larger than a 22lr.
I've squirrel hunted with a remington 700 Varmint in .223 with fmj ball ammo before. It worked like a charm, but I had to be very careful about anything beyond the squirrel. It was a safety challenge, so I tried it for a season when I was about 19 years old because I am curious like that.

 

I’d stick with the .22 Mag for close range varmint hunting (coyotes, fox, raccoon
, badger, bobcats), but have absolutely no use for the WMR for squirrel hunting. Even my .22 cal pellet gun can kill squirrels with body shots. If you want more snap, try a .17 HM2 or 17 HMR—they’re safer!

 

A .22 magnum through a squirrel's ribs and the vast majority of the the time there's no need to bother with picking it up, there won't be anything left except buzzard food. Even with head shots you can get bloodshot meat in the front quarter. If there's a need to press one rifle into a dual use hunter it can be done; possibly use solids and be careful with head shots only. Expect decapitated squirrels.

 

Phil, I made that choice taking 22 magnum Squirrel hunting, bad mistake. Call me crazy, I like to hunt Squirrels with solids , but I also don't want the Squirrel to get away. Phil , I was wondering is there a semi hollow point . The coyotes i have killed was with
a 22 long rifle segmented subsonic. I am curious about the new Winchester Silvertips made for pistols. This round very accurate in a rifle. Phil, I got a little off base. Thanks Buck

 

Winchester used to make a load called a Dynapoint that had a very shallow hollow but I don't believe those are being made anymore, I have not seen any in years. The Federal Game Shok 38 grain hvhp has a little bit smaller hollow than the usual cavity that the 36 grain hp bullets will have. That bullet is also the same in the American Eagle 38 gr hp round. I used to hunt some with those and I liked them but I can't really remember the damage from the bullets being significantly less than some of the other hvhp loads available. I never did a direct comparison of the two types of bullets, just going from memory. I've never used the segmented bullets on squirrels as those that I tried gave poor accuracy from my Kimber Hunter so I wasn't willing to try them. I have no idea as to how those Silvertips would perform on a squirrel. If they're accurate for you, you might want to give them a try and report how well they do for you on the critters.

 

If you're determined to use a .22 Mangle 'Em on tree squirrels you might try to source some of Winchester's 22WMR Subsonic loads. I haven't seen any in a good while although I haven't looked for them in a good while: X22MSUB | Winchester Ammunition

Winchester also still lists the Dynapoint but finding them may prove problematic and they're still mighty hot for tree squirrels at 1550fps with a 45 grain pill: USA22M | Winchester Ammunition

Another possible option would be the 22WRF but a lot would depend upon whether your rifle would play nice with them. Winchester offers a load: 22WRF | Winchester Ammunition

And so does CCI: Buy Winchester Rimfire for USD 17.99 | CCI

 

You think you gotta head shoot squil with a 22!
I don't shoot 'm in the head with my air rifle!!

 

A squirrel is a small animal, if the round has time to expand then it might mess up a little more meat than a 22LR. Often times, even with a 22LR, the round passes through the squirrel. It’s not in there bouncing around and forming perfect mushroom shaped bullets like the movies.

Shoot what you enjoy, welcome to the sport. It sounds like you’ve come to find on your own that you’re not going to blow a squirrel up with a WMR.

 

I find 22 mag is the correct caliber for Raccoon. I also find it to be devastating to squirrel. It's blows them to pieces if not a head shot. I prefer 22lr for squirrel even over 17hm2. (Which is a dandy of a round.) The biggest downfall to 17hm2 for me is how lot sensitive mine seem to be and the lack of ammo availability. When I take that into account it doesn't bring enough of an advantage to the table for me to choose it over the 22lr. I have a friend who hunts squirrel with 17hmr and has had some success with 20 grain game points. They seem to pass through without expansion. Lessening the damage done to the game. That might be an option that would work well for squirrel and Raccoon. But I'll wait for his results before I make that decision. For now I prefer 22lr for squirrel and 22 magnum for raccoon and yotes and the yotes must be close. Of course this is just my opinion.

 

Shot thousands with wmr, hmr and 22.
You use what ever you fancy, heck, I shot one with a 222 this morning!
Have a good time.
By the way, I found them federal 50gn a bit tough for fox, tended to drill them, which is ok through the ribs.
Winchester hpsp, CCI 30 gn and federal 30gn tnt were best.

 

My choice of the 2 is niether I much prefer a 17 Mach 2

 

A good rifle in 22 Lr mated with good marksmanship is more than adequate. The 17 and 22 mags are way way too loud. Mach ll also. One shot and all the squirrels go bye bye for 100 yard radius. I use eley subsonic hollow extra with incredible success. Cheaper than mags too.

 

I’m going on 74, been squirrel hunting since age 5. Had a Marlin 1897 at 5 but couldn’t hold it up, too much weight for a sprout. So my real beginning was squirreling with a Steven’s Maynard Jr. and shorts.
Even at 5 I didn’t have any trouble killing squirrel with shorts. I did however have trouble hitting them for a few years.
Nobody in my circle had Target rifles with big scopes. In fact most that had scopes were 1/2” tubes and weren’t good for squirrel especially in early season. Small field of view is worthless when leaves are still on. A lot of 22 scopes were in gun cabinet drawers, not on guns.
It seems to me a lot of “ Hunting “ has turned into “ Sniper Assassination “. I can’t remember anyone that complained about being under gunned with 22rf. Some liked shorts, some LRs and the odd balls opted for longs. Every once in awhile a bad hit would result in chasing squirrel around on ground. It wasn’t the cartridge it was a poor hit. Head shots were nice but most went for rib cage. No meat there to speak of.
The short seems to hit harder than a LR. The velocity of a LR shots through a small animal and if nothing important is hit animal can crawl or run off to die. We learned this as kids poaching Bull frogs.
A LR would shoot through frog and he would jump in and be lost. Short would smack him proper and anchor him. This wasn’t every shot but occurred enough to notice.
So unless it’s a function of range a 22mag isn’t required to kill a squirrel. 🐿

 

I like using my 22mag and nothing but headshots out to 100+ yards, usually blows the top of head right off.

 

A good shooting 17 HM2 is hard to beat in the skirrel woods.

 

You beat me to it!

 

I say shoot what you have and what works for you. This isn't difficult

 

I'm of the same mind. I have been killing them with regularity with a .17 caliber air rifle.
I do have a 10/22 and a Winchester model 9422m as well. Of course most of my shots have been fairly close.

 

@541MD - that’s a very interesting real-world report on effectiveness of the .22 shorts vs. LR. My other Henry shoots CCI short HPs well, so I may give them a try this weekend on a dedicated squirrel hunt.

 

As a kid we used shorts all the time because they were cheaper and made less noise. I don't remember many getting away

 

Same for me.
Now I use LR as I have tons and it works.

 

Here's a gel test shot at 50 and yards, from a rifle, of the 40 grain CCI Maximag HP, the Federal 50 grain HP and the CCI 40 grain flat nose solid. The 40 gr hp expanded as expected at 50 yards, did not at 100. The Federal didn't expand any at either distance, so that would explain why they don't blow up on squirrels. Of course the FMJ solids expanded zero for comparison, the tester thought that the flat nose might show some wound channel variation versus a plain round nose but it didn't look as if there was any at all. In my opinion flat nosed .22 caliber bullets penetrate straighter and with less flesh disruption than round nosed bullets. Those 50 grain Federal rounds showed only rifling marks, practically functioning as full metal jacket. They are obviously too hard to expand at the velocity they are made. I was surprised that the 40 grain MaxiMag expanded none at 100 yards. You know if these rounds failed to expand in two feet of ballistics gelatin they most certainly will not expand in a game animal.

 

My findings exactly on fox's.
Why I always went for chest shots.

I've seen videos where Hornady v max don't expand much at 100 either.

To be honest most wmr ammo would work better if it was just copper washed sof lead!

 

I've shot baskets full of squirrels with 22 shorts! When I was younger I was lucky to afford 22 shorts at 45 cents a box.

 

I personally don’t see a need to use anything greater than a .22lr., but I also see no reason not to use a .17HM2., .17HMR., or the .22 WMR..

Like with the lowly .22lr. with some game shot placement may become crucial or critical depending on the situation.

My opinion is to use what’s available to you at that time or use what your comfortable with.
I have just one .22WMR, .17HMR, .17HM2. and a bunch of .22LR. Out of all these very few are walking in the woods guns, one of which is a S/S Marlin .22WMR that I probably carried the most to go Rabbit hunting in Wyoming. I would not hesitate to use this for Squirrels either but I probably would try to avoid body shots so I don’t ruin any of the little bits of meat on their tiny bodies.

To each their own and as usual ymmv.

Marry Christmas and Happy New Years
Sir. James Esq.

 

I personally don’t see a need to use anything greater than a .22lr., but I also see no reason not to use a .17HM2., .17HMR., or the .22 WMR..

Like with the lowly .22lr. with some game shot placement may become crucial or critical depending on the situation.

My opinion is to us what’s available to you at that time or use what you comfortable with.
I have just one .22WMR, .17HMR, .17HM2. and a bunch of .22LR. Out of all these very few are walking in the woods guns, one of which is a S/S Marlin .22WMR that I probably carried the most to go Rabbit hunting in Wyoming. I would not hesitate to use this for Squirrels either but I probably would try to avoid body shots so I don’t ruin any of the little bits of meat on their tiny bodies.

To each their own and as usual ymmv.

Marry Christmas and Happy New Years
Sir. James Esq.

reason NOT too? certainly not the accuracy, or the effectiveness. the REAL reason not to is cost(though nominal) and report. way way way too loud. squrrels go bye bye. hunt is over. must go somewhere else. scared them all off.