GunnyFreedom
Member
- Joined
- Nov 28, 2007
- Messages
- 32,882
To begin with, your choice of weapons for the PAW need to be common calibers. It is very true that the 6.8mm AR is a more effective weapon than the 5.56mm AR; but when TSHTF, it will be 1000 times easier to find rounds to feed your 5.56mm than it will be to find rounds to feed your 6.8mm.
Not to mention, rounds will be as good as currency for trade and barter. Indeed, you can be sitting on 10,000 rounds of 6.8mm, but when it comes to getting yourself into a community of like-minded survivalists and bartering for...who knows, maybe gasoline? Chances are it will be a lot easier to unload 5.56mm than it will be to unload 6.8mm.
Not to mention spare parts. If you have an equipment failure on your bolt carrier or your extractor for your AR, it will be a LOT easier to get spare parts for a 5.56 AR than it will be to get parts for a 6.8 AR.
Bottom line is, there are far more reasons to lean towards common calibers for a PAW weapon than just ammo stores. Sure, maybe you have literally thousands upon thousands of rounds, and the ability to reload. But if you have to bug out on zero notice, the most you will be able to carry in a best-case scenario will be around 1000 rounds. Not to mention rifle parts. Choosing a caliber that you are more likely to find as a 'battlefield pickup,' even if that round is not as good ballistically is a good idea for the PAW.
First and foremost you want a survival tool. The best thing for survival is the venerable .22LR. The .22 rifle is really not so much a self defense weapon or a fighting weapon, but you will find in short order that you will spen a LOT more time surviving and hunting for food than you will in defense or fighting. A Ruger 10/22 with 10 or 20 round magazines and a scope dialed in to 25 to 36 yards is a primary choice here. My own .22 is a 10 round tube fed Marlin, which happens to be a lot quieter than the 10/22 but I sacrifice reloading speed as it is not magazine fed. I am OK with that, however, as my primary purpose with the .22 is hunting game such as rabbit, or varminting (keeping feral dogs away from the chicken coop) etc, and 10 rounds should be more than sufficient for those purposes.
The good thing about the .22 is that it does not advertise your existence and location the way a high powered rifle does. If TSHTF, and you go hunting with a high power rifle, you may well have to deal either with people who figure you have food and want some of it, or with authorities who do not like the idea of people having weapons in their Area of Operations, or with gang officers who prefer to keep a monopoly on deadly force. With a .22, you make a LOT less noise, and far far fewer people will know that you are there and that you have a firearm.
Not to mention that .22LR ammo is stupidly inexpensive. Prices HAVE gone up recently, but you can still get 700 rounds at Wal Mart for about $20, or for more power and precision, Cabelas has some good deals here:
http://www.cabelas.com/spodw-1/0024232.shtml
for a little bit more money, but these specialty rounds can serve some important uses. For instance, they have 500 rounds for $47 of 60 grain subsonic that make EXTREMELY little noise compared to other .22 rounds, but yet are accurate and lethal to humans as far out as 200 yards.
Next, when choosing a main battle rifle, look primarily for 5.56x45mm (.223), 7.62x51mm (.308), and 7.62x63mm (.30-06). Secondary choices could be the 7.62x39mm (AK-47 and SKS) and the 5.45x39mm (AK-74). Those are listed as "secondary" because while the 7.62x39mm are pretty common, they are less accurate, and while the 5.45x39mm is pretty accurate, they are less common.
Now, if you can't hit your target, then a rifle is little more than a fancy club. Your best practice is with the .22, as the practice itself is a LOT less expensive ammo-wise, and everything you learn on the .22 translates directly to your high powered rifle. Not to mention, learning to shoot on a .22 will help to prevent you from getting into the habit of bucking and flinching.
So practice, practice, practice, and attend Appleseeds in your area. http://www.appleseedinfo.org/
In the way of pistols, there are several common rounds for the pistol. Your primary choices would be 9mm, .45acp, and .357 Magnum. Your secondary choices would be .40 cal (becoming more popular with law enforcement, so rounds are becoming more available for the .40 every day), and .38acp.
Saving the best for last, your primary defensive weapon in a PAW situation should be a 12 gauge shotgun, either in semiautomatic or pump action. There is a veritable PLETHORA of shells available for a 12 gauge, and reloading your shells is easier than anything else. You can even pour your own lead shot.
A shotgun is the ultimate "point and click" defensive weapon, and a 12 gauge just does an unimaginable amount of damage. If you are in a mostly urban area, you want to purchase a shotgun with the shortest legal barrel available for use inside, around corners etc. DO NOT SAW YOUR OWN BARREL! I say that not only for the legal issues -- the whole mess at Ruby Ridge started with a shotgun sawed 1mm too short -- but also for usefulness. The interior barrel of a shotgun is not perfectly cylindrical like a rifle is, it expands in the middle and contracts at the breech and the muzzle, and if you cut in the middle of that expansion area, you will have a scattergun rather than a shotgun. In that case, hitting your target may require more luck than anything else.
If you live in a rural area, a longer barrel with a choke is a good idea. 30 and 40 and even 50 yard shots may be necessary, and a proper barrel and choke will make a reliable 15"-20" pattern at 50 yards. Simply devastating. A 12 gauge shotgun shell filled with 21 42grain flechettes can literally punch a 10" diameter hole through a person 30 yards away, and then scatter those flechettes all over inside of them from ankles to nose. I don't care if they are on crack, meth, morphine, whatever. A 12 gauge with the proper shot does not give second chances the way a rifle sometimes can.
