Best 22lr ammo / handgun combo for self defense?
Might not be a hollow point. Or a CCI anything. What? Blasphemy....
Ok. Let me show you this.
You know why people don't put lead round nose in 9mm. It would shoot clean through a person instead of stopping inside them which does much more damage and just ask police even hollow points can result in a through and through. Sometimes they don't even break apart like they are supposed to. If you carry a 22lr. Your most pressing concern is two things. under penetration and reliability.
CCI solves the reliability issues. That combined with a 22lr with a very light slide like the M & P 22 compact can eliminate the 22lr failure to eject/feed but not entirely eliminate the under penetration problem nor is it easy on the wallet.
Normally Match grade ammo is something people use for target competition shooting. It is measured more precisely and taking in to account more variables such as the weight of the brass etc.. ask a gunsmith. The point is match grade ammo is made to do 3 things. Function every time, be accurate and the third thing is a pre-requisite to the second. Be uniform. They need each bullet to be more or less a perfect clone of every other to achieve tight groups that will satisfy competition shooters. Lead round nose will also penetrate better than a hollow point and in the case of 22lr it still has a lower chance of over penetrating. Mini mags will have a slightly higher "stopping power" whatever that means. I guess bullets were made to arrest the momentum of objects not kill stuff in one shot. cough.
According to a test I saw. Mini-mags move about 970 ft per second out of a 3.5 inch barrel. but are advertised to be 1260 ft per second, consistent with the speed you would get from a 22lr rifle. Federal Automatch is advertised at 1200 feet per second so I can guess out of a 3.5 inch barrel Federal AutoMatch is moving about 900ft per second. If you can get a deal on CCI great, but is CCI match grade? I'm not sure, is 70ft per second enough to distinguish high powered 22lr vs standard? I see many people with Ruger 22's complaining about different ammo. Try a gun with a slide built for a 22lr like the M and P 22 Compact and no they don't sponsor me.