Hell in a Handbasket

If any of this were true, then the .22 would never have gained the reputation as the perfect gun for harvesting small game. What would a squirrel or rabbit look like after the bullet zipped around inside of their bodies, crossing and recrossing it's own path several times? You would never be able to get any usable meat off the animal after the guts were punctured so thoroughly! But people are eating game taken with a .22 every single day.

I used to just assume that people were trying to pull a fast one, joshing and kidding someone they didn't know all that well to see how the stranger handled some good natured tall tales. But the angry reaction I would get when I would laugh at such nonsense has convinced me that most of the people who spread these stories actually think they are true!

Now I just nod and change the subject if someone wants to talk about The Deadliest Cartridge Ever Devised, the Lowly Twenty-Two! This is also the way I handle people who want to show me where the aliens probed them.

Anyway, on to the next odd thing that the instructor said.

Claimed that Extreme Shock was the best ammo ever, made out of powdered titanium (according to him). This ammo only does well when tested by people involved in selling it--In independent tests it is well below average, despite the cost of nearly $2 per round.

The shooting community is just like any other group of hobbyists in that emotions can run high when it comes to the gear. If someone thinks that a particular firearm, caliber, ammo brand, what-have-you is cool, then they must be cool for using it. Tell them you disagree and they will become insulted because, after all, you are claiming that they aren't nearly as cool as they thought.

So far as defensive ammo is concerned, I think that any hollowpoint is just fine as long as it feeds reliably. In fact, I usually suggest the cheaper brands to my students so they can practice with it and get used to how that particular load feels in their specific gun.

But if my students can't afford hollowpoints, then just plain ball ammo will work. Hollowpoints aren't magical, they simply increase the effectiveness of every shot by a certain percentage. Some designs are better than others, but you have to balance performance with cost. Ammo that is so expensive that you can't practice with it might do more harm than good when you have to take that tricky shot to save a life. That would be no time to find out that the bullet doesn't strike where you expected it to.