Earlier this year we had a chance to attend Lever Fest, a celebration of the lever-action rifle, at Range Ready in Robert, LA. A number of lever-action rifle manufacturers brought rimfire and centerfire offerings to check out, with everything from .22 LR to .45-70 Gov’t on hand. I’ve mentioned my affinity for the .22 LR lever-action rifle previously, and Savage brought its new Revel line of rimfire rifles to feed this addiction. Standard bulk .22 LR ammunition was plentiful, but there was another, purpose-built round available: Federal Premium’s .22 Punch.
Designed to work better in shorter barrel revolvers and semi-automatics, the .22 Punch represents a sea-change in rimfire design to better suit defensive needs. The round is designed to penetrate better in ballistic gelatin than standard .22 LR projectiles, and our Ammo editor bore this out in his testing of the round when it came out in 2021. While, of course, centerfire rounds are superior for self-defense, there are scenarios and shooters that may prefer the softer-shooting rimfire rounds, and Federal kept this in mind when developing the .22 Punch.
Of interest to Federal was how the .22 Punch—designed to work in short handgun barrels—would perform out of rifle-length barrels, so off to the ballistic gelatin we went. While, of course, the .357 Mag., .44 Mag. and .45-70 Gov’t made dramatic mincemeat of the ballistic gel, the .22 Punch was shown to produce significant energy transfer into the gel. Is it enough to get me to trade in my .357 Mag. levergun? No; however, I’d sure recommend it for my [age redacted] mother, who relies on a lightweight Remington Nylon 66 for longarm defensive purposes. An [age redacted], 5-foot-nothing, 95-pound shooter isn’t likely to grab a .45-70 Gov’t for defense; why not use the best defensive rimfire ammo possible.
In this video, we talk with JJ Reich from Federal Premium about the .22 Punch round and other offerings from Federal Premium. To find out more, visit federalpremium.com.
