In some states, including my former home state of Washington, 22 LR rifles are exempt from “assault weapons” provisions. In other states, restrictions on magazine capacity don’t apply to tube fed magazines. Additionally, 22 LR rifles are often light, easy to manuever, and are always easy to shoot. Legendary lawman Chuck Haggard himself has said that every shooting he responded to where a 22 LR rifle was the weapon resulted in a homicide. All these factors combine to open the conversation about what are the three best 22 LR rifles for home defense.
22 LR Ammo Overview
The humble 22 Long Rifle cartridge has come a long way. There are COUNTLESS different grain weights, hollow point types, and velocities available, however when you’re selecting a 22 LR round for home defense, you’ll want to focus on a round that feeds in your gun and gives you sufficient penetration to meet the FBI standard, which 12-16 inches in ballistics gel.
This means that you’ll want to avoid a lot of hollow point rounds or fragmenting rounds like the CCI Stinger, as at rifle velocities those rounds will expand and thus not penetrate sufficiently. Your best bets are solids in the 30-40 grain range, which luckily are plentiful and common. Some of my favorites are the classic CCI Minimag, the Federal 40gr Auto Match that’s available at big box stores, and the Aguila 38gr hollow point. I know I said avoid hollow points in general, but I make an exception for the Aguila because it doesn’t seem to expand, even from a rifle.
The State of the Rimfire Rifle Market
There’s never been a better time to get into the rimfire rifle market. Gone are the days where if you wanted a reliable 22 LR your choice was a Ruger 10/22 with a wood stock or a Ruger 10/22 with a synthetic stock. Rossi, S&W, Tactical Solutions, and many other manufacturers are all making reliable rimfire rifles that you can outfit with various accessories as you see fit. You can spend as little as you like or as much as you like all the way up to thousands of dollars for a custom race rifle.
For the purpose of this article, we’re going to focus on semi-auto rifles and omit bolt action and lever guns, not because I don’t like those rifles but because if we’re selecting a rimfire rifle for home defense, part of the value proposition for that rifle is the ability to deliver a volume of fire with basically zero recoil. With that in mind, let’s get into the rankings.
Ruger 10/22
You knew it was going to be on this list. This is the gold standard of rimfire rifles, and has such a robust aftermarket that you can actually build out a 10/22 pattern rifle that has no parts made by Ruger. Wild. However, if we’re sticking with commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) solutions, I’d recommend the Ruger 10/22 Tactical, model number 1261. This is a simple 10/22, and avoids a lot of the overtly “tactical” features that do nothing more than add weight. It has a rail on top for mounting an optic, and if you’re smart you could sneak a small WML light mount on there as well.
Rossi RS22 Threaded
The Rossi RS22 Threaded barrel model retails for like $150 and is available in big box stores throughout the country. It has good iron sights, and has a dovetail/receiver mount that has a crazy number of rail adapters or scope mounts available if you want to go the optics route. The only knock on the RS22 is that it is only available with 10 round magazines, but the flip side is that those 10 round magazines work great and are plentiful. It would also be difficult to mount a WML on this rifle, unless you want to go hose-clamps and hundred mile an hour tape, which would be kind of gangster when you think about it. But honestly, the coolest thing about this gun is that for less than $700 you can buy 4 guns, 12 additional magazines beyond what comes with the guns, and 3000-ish rounds of ammo. You could outfit an entire rimfire fire team, which if you’ve got a wife and two medium sized kids…well there you go.
S&W M&P15-22
This is on the list because it is without a doubt the most “tactical” of the bunch, and again has a tendency to work well when you’re thoughtful about ammo selection. The biggest knock against the S&W is the price, running around $500. Plus, since these have rails like you’d expect on an M4, there’s a temptation to ruin the rifle by hanging a bunch of heavy shit on it, and suddenly your 4 lb rifle is 8 lbs and that’s a lot less fun to cart around. I’d stick with the simplest configuration possible and resist the urge to put anything on this other than a red dot and a WML. But it’s on the list because it’s the easiest to add said WML to.
Other Options
There are loads of other 22 LR rifle options out there. Savage, Mosserg and countless other companies make great options. No matter which 22 LR rifle you select for home defense, your first order of business has to be reliability testing. You need to make sure the gun works with your ammo, because reliability is always the biggest failing on rimfire rifles.
I’ve also owned all three of the rifles I’ve recommended on this list. This is likely a big part of why they made the list. I know they work, I know their capabilities, and I’d trust any one of them. If I was buying one for myself, I’d get a Rossi RS22 and a great little suppressor for it, and go about my life.
