I've always advocated the .22 LR as a good Zombie Round. They aren't moving fast, and it is easy to hit things with a .22. You can carry a LOT of ammunition on your person And it can penetrate a zombie skull, and that's all you need to do.
But maybe not...
5 years ago some Polish Guy thought he got punched in the head at a New Years Party. He had a lump for aday or two that went away. No harm, no foul. But the lump came back recently and the doctor found a bullet in the man's scalp. It had been stopped by the bone, and the victim barely noticed getting shot.
Maybe the .22 is not a good Zed round or, like BorePatch says, maybe booze makes your skull harder, and the lesson is: don't shoot drunk zombies with a .22.
Now we don't know if this was .22 LR or .22 Short or .22 BB. It could have been .223 for all we know from the story, though I doubt it.
I'm not ready to give up on .22LR. Despite this anecdotal evidence, .22 CAN go through a skull. On some zombies you may need to shoot them twice. The compactness of the ammunition in quantity is too great an advantage to throw it overboard in our battle with the hordes of undead. If you have to move around, especially on foot, you want the mobility the round offers. Now if I had my duruthers I'd be holed up in an above ground fortification with years of supplies stashed away. In that case, you can use something a little more sure. Save the .22LR in case you have to evacuate. Use up the stock of 100,000 .308 you packed away.
What? You mean you DON'T have 100,000 major caliber rifle rounds? Tsk, tsk... Jeff Cooper would be so disappointed if he were alive today.
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There's a couple of factors that make a .22LR a less-than-optimal zombie cartridge. It suffers from old bullet design: 22LR slugs are almost invariably round-nosed in shape, and round-nosed bullets have a propensity to ricochet or glance off of objects that they strike. If the 22LR is a hollow point, you will have even less penetration than the solid. Of course, the round-nosed shape is what allows the .22LR to feed reliably through so many different guns, too. Still, a pointed FMJ bullet shape, as found in the .17HMR, would probably be a better design for zombie skull penetration.
I've heard .22 magnum advocated for just this reason. Better penetration, almost as compact. A bit pricier to stock up on, but still much less so than centerfire rifle ammo.
Plus silencers work very well with .22LR!
In the book World War Z one of the stories centers around a pilot whose plane goes down in a Zombie hot spot. She uses an issued pistol in 22 magnum with an attached shoulder stock, silencer and scope to take out the zed trash before he moves on. Maybe something the Kel-Tec PMR 30?
Also, the Army equips itself with rifle chambered in something like a 22-250 round since the combat is mostly shooting head shots at a slowly advancing enemy..
for me, .223 and 9mm all the way
7.62x25 or .30 Carbine would be my choice if I had time to stockpile. If not, .22LR would be better than a big blade!
I was thinking on that female pilot character about the same time I made my original .22 recommendation.
But the Army, and the SIR rifle, in WWZ are using .223. But Max Brooks wanted a new rifle, so the new semi-auto infrantry rifle is an AK knockoff (cuz it's so reliable) and dead nutz accurate for thousands of rounds. The idea was they had to start from scratch on re-armament, so the simpler AK stamped metal pattern would be possible over trying to make AR patterns. Plus everyone knows (or at least you can conclude Brooks THINKS) that the AK is reliable and the AR isn't. Hmph.
my copy of WWZ is still on loan to somebody...didn't they use a special exploding round or something too?
I think it was something like a tracer with Willie Pete to sorta burn out the Zombie's braaaaaaaaaaaaaains. Or something.
I still have trouble with the thought that poor infantry men had to carry a full sized rifle AND a full sized shovel/ax in the form of the Marine invented lobotamizer or Lobo.
I'd love to have 100K of ANY caliber....
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