Thread: Subsonic 22LR round for hunting?

Originally Posted by timattalon

If you are shooting rabbits then for all intensive purposes higher velocity only really affects the trajectory. (A bit easier to hit longer shots with a faster flatter trajectory.)

As for energy and impact, I have shot with many many brands and types of 22 from ultra slow (or super quiet) at 800fps through to hyper speed of 1500 fps or more. And I can tell you they ALL punch straight through a rabbit and disappear out the other side. All the extra energy does is make a deeper hole in whatever was behind the rabbit.

Try a few different brands of subs and see what your rifle likes. It is not an expensive exercise and it is fun. CCI subs have a good rep, as does Winchester and Kilwell. I have had success with Highland and they do two different subs, subsonic around the 1000fps and super quiet at around 800fps.

This is my experience too. Even the 36gr PMX subs would go right through the length of a rabbit and exit. After several dozen I have still not recovered a projectile of any type with subs or standard velocity. My rifle really liked the 36gr subs and anything out to 110m was a bang flop but now that rabbit numbers are down I just use standard velocity or the 223.