Weapon Skills

More important that making your own weapons is knowing how to use them. Would you be able to use a wide variety of makeshift or otherwise regular weapons in a survival situation? According to what I was taught, you can put weapons in roughly three categories of Range: Long range, Mid range, and Short range. And three more according to the type: Blades, blunt weapons, and firearms. Each and every category has its own ins and outs on how to deal with them and how to disarm them but as a rule of thumb the closer you are to your attacker the relatively "safer" you are. What are your thoughts on this?

 

A knife or edges weapon is 21 feet for your reactionary gap inside that your in the danger area

 

You spoke what I had in mind. When I said "closer" I didn't mean in front but rather to the flank of your opponent. From what I was taught "Move fast, secure the flank and take control of the weapon"

 

First up determine YOUR "AIM"
Mine is to survive so back up and get outa there is first, the gunfight you do not have you cant loose!
If the above is not possible take control of the situation and end it your way.
You need to get inside your weapon range and stay outside the enemies weapon range then use your weapon decisively.
It really is that simple!
There are lots of little details though

 

A few details
Can you operate your weapon in the dark 100% of the time and silently
Can you hit your target 100% of the time from most any position
Can you shoot to kill under most any circumstance like the enemy taking a crap etc.
Can you instantly move on to the next target with a clear head.

 

some of you guys must be living in a very precarious situation if you think you will have to shoot stab and wade through blood and guts to survive . personally I plan to try to avoid a situation like that to begin with . if you want to know what to expect keep tabs on how people react to hurricane Michael . the difference between people's response to hurricane Camille ,Katrina , and Sandy is dramatically different . Seems to me people have become dependent on the government , not themselves .

 

I am an ex Green Beret weapons specialist , done a trip to Viet Nam , was the guy the Colonel always wanted by his side whenever he left the fire base. Had to use a knife once to survive a bad situation . was the guy called in to neutralize a situation after an assassination attempt on the Colonel , by one of our own . maybe I have just mellowed out in my old age ,but to kill is not nothing a sensible person would want to do .

 

If you live in or very near a large metropolitan area you are going to have to fight to survive. This is inevitable when you have several hundred times more people than you have enough food and water to support. New York City has enough food to feed its people for three days. Water won't last that long. Riots are inevitable and fires will burn unhindered forcing people into the streets. Anybody that has food and water will be targeted. In a big city there will be no where to hide because without power, water, sewer services, garbage pickup, fire departments or even basic communication cities will rapidly become uninhabitable.

 

Weapons skills...hmm, that's a pretty broad subject. I have more weapons experience than many in the UK, I currently hold a firearm licence and a shotgun certificate but I also accept that I'm not the toughest guy on the block. It's my preference to evade confrontation if possible as well.

 

Movie bs. We aint stuck with just muskets. That has not been the case for 150 years now. Even a mere .22lr can kill you very dead, very easily, from 100m or a bit further. There's no rush. He can shoot you and wait a day for the fever and weakness to render you unable to defend yourself further.

 

Even the Beatles knew that ...

"Bang! Bang! Maxwell's silver hammer
Came down upon her head
Bang! Bang! Maxwell's silver hammer
Made sure that she was dead

"Back in school again Maxwell plays the fool again
Teacher gets annoyed
Wishing to avoid and unpleasant
Sce, e, e, ene

"She tells Max to stay when the class has gone away
So he waits behind
Writing fifty times "I must not be
So, o, o, o

"But when she turns her back on the boy
He creeps up from behind

"Bang! Bang! Maxwell's silver hammer
Came down upon her head
Bang! Bang! Maxwell's silver hammer
Made sure that she was dead"

 

When it comes to weapons the one that is most deadly is the human mind. If it is well stocked there are weapons everywhere you look. I have made bows and arrows, I make a lot of knives, I have made a couple of guns but in the end give me a knife and I will eventually have all the weapons that I need.

What many people don't seem to be able to grasp is the rules of survival are not like any sort of sport. I won't hunt animals...I will harvest them. Hunting as most people know it is a sporting activity with too many stupid rules. The same thing goes for defending myself. I'm not going to fight with you. Fighting infers that I am going to give you a chance to hurt me. You are not going to stand a chance. You probably will never see me or hear the shot that killed you.

When it comes to survival there are no rules, just survivors and the dead. Don't be like a hunter be like a poacher. Don't be a soldier be an assassin. Civilized behavior is for civilized places and times. There is a lot more to be gained by being sneaky than from being brave.

 

The .22 lr is more of a small gamer. For dogs and above, certainly humans, one must go at least .22 mag. -- it gets the job done. The copper jacket helps get through gristle and skull. A .22 lr at 100 yards just usually doesn't cut it on a feral dog or a feral human. And lord, lord does the .22 lr ever drop at 100yrs! The 60 grain lr. does not stabilize in most rifles.

The wet-job pro never goes below .32 and he never goes rimfire. Good time back -- decades -- rimfire rifles had double firing pins to ensure that the cartridge fired. Rare the misfire on a centerfire. Even the stupid .25 auto is more reliable than the rimfire and you got 50 grains of copper jacketed lead. Steal, disguise yourself, shoot, drop, keep on truckin' -- the cosa nostra knew the routine. Every body panics. Out the back door. Lose the beard and hat.

 

22lr are not too bad out to a hundred yards but after that they fall dead. I actually can shoot good groups out at 100 yards with a 3x9 scope and sand bags but the stopping power out there is nonexistent on anything much bigger than a rabbit or small coyote. That said, it will kill out that far just not quickly. It will penetrate soft tissues and without a doctor you might be better off if they had shot you with an elephant gun. The hyper velocity rounds like the Remington viper loads with the truncated bullets do pretty well out to about 75 yards. My criminal brother in law used those to poach spotlighted deer at night. All head shots and all one shot kills.

If you think that you HAVE to have a gun to be dangerous then you will be a dead man walking after things get bad. In Vietnam they had weapons a lot better than any 22lr but the hawk was still a popular carry along weapon. The more weapons that you are capable with the more likely you are to survive. Thinking that only guns are dangerous will make you idiotically blind to the fact that a pointed stick in your chest is just as deadly as any gun. The guy with the musket will kill you with his one shot because that is the only shot he has while someone with a 22lr automatic will probably be more likely to just start shooting instead of waiting for that one clear shot.

 

With a good scope I am as good at a couple hundred yards as I would be at 25 yards with open sights with centerfire weapons. With the 22lr I will take a squirrel or bunny out to 75 yards if they will pause for a second. Most of my really long range shooting was at metallic silhouettes usually with a hand gun out to 300 meters. With rifles I spent more time trying to make one hole groups at 100 yards than really long range shots. Most of my shooting back then was like bowling and about skill technique and reloading. Later I got more into combat style shooting.

 

.22lr, if you can get the hit, which aint likely, will inflict a mortal wound still at 150 yds. you might take a week to die of gangreen, but die you will. In a month or so after shtf, nearly everyone is going to be aware of that fact and the sound suppressed .22lr autorifle will be the most desired gun available. If you shoot left handed, the non firing hand can be used to hold shut the bolt, when you need utmost suppression of sound, as vs rapidfire. The bolt will then of course have to be manually cycled, but the Idea is to end the problem with one shot. If you let the autorifles' bolt cycle normally, the sound is like a very mild handclap. If you hold shut the bolt, subsonic ammo (or regular .22lr ammo in a barrel 6" or less in length) literally is as quiet a a BB gun. The bullet hitting a rabbit is a louder sound than the signature of the weapon. On a quiet day, you can hear the bullet click thru a paper target at 50m, but the only thing noticable at the gun is the same click that you hear when you drysnap the piece.

 

I thought the topic was weapon skills not the weapons themselves!

Get intimate with your weapon, know its range max, min and ideal
Know its strengths and its weakness's
Care for it
Carry a backup if you can
If it stuffs up can you fix it
Have multiple weapons
A sharp stick will with a good thrust go through a plaster wall and still impale someone behind it, you don't need to always use a gun just because you have one!

Use tactics that compliment your weapons

Learn a bit about the human anatomy so you can strike with precision

 

Knowing your weapon and its capabilities is an important part of weapon skills. I sat on a jury that sent a man to prison for life for attempted murder. The reason it was attempted was that he shot a guy three times with a cheap 25 caliber revolver from across the width of a car. It was winter and it was like he was shooting with a BB gun and none of the bullets penetrated more than just under the skin. If his skill set had included having a clue about the power of his weapon maybe at least he would have had the satisfaction of killing the guy that was making time with his lady when he went to prison for life. He shot a nice group but failed in not understanding the potential of his chosen weapon.

In the case of the 22lr people seem to either over estimate their power or underestimate their potentials. I can shoot a 22lr out to over a hundred yards and generally hit a playing card. Up close a 22lr is pretty deadly. I've killed a lot of hogs for butcher with a 22lr round. I also hope that I NEVER have to try and defend myself from an armed attacker with one. They WILL kill but unless you can manage a sinus shot they may kill you before they die.

A major part of weapon skills is KNOWING what is the best tool for the job. I shot up a lot of cars and a few houses learning what different rounds will and will NOT do.

 

the rifle's extra 300 fps make all the difference with the .22lr. Once shtf, a silenced .22lr autorifle will be the most feared weapon, especially if it's using a heavy, subsonic bullet, like the 60 gr Aquila. The pistol's shorter barrel renders the .22lr much less able to pierce sternum, ribs, skull. No way to know where the silenced .22lr bullet came from and that waxed slug drags enough bacteria and clothing debris into the wound to almost insure your death of infection. Since they wont know where you are, it wont matter that it might take a day for the blood loss and fever to disable them, they've had it. They'll either collapse from the knowledge, run off, or go wild, shooting randomly, charging around randomly, letting you brain them pretty easily.

No gun is anything but a club when you run out of ammo for it. The 60 gr ammo is 100 shots to the lb. The Marlin Papoose weighs 4 lbs. A scope and mount is a lb. A muzzle loader is 10 lbs, the balls run 50 to the lb for a .45 bore, less than 40 for a 68 bore. you need 70 grs of powder for a shot with a .68, and there's 7000 grs in a lb. Do the math You wont have 100 shots with you if all you've got is a muzzleloader and the total weight of gun and components is 13 lbs. Shorten the barrel of the Papoose to 6", and the silencer's added weight will be less than the barrel removed. 2x7 scope in a see thru mount, luminous paint on the sights. 8 lbs of the Aquila load is 800 shots. So wth would you choose the front stuffer, 1 shot every 20 seconds, over the 22, 100 shots in 20 second? The charcoal burner obscures your vision, reveals your position and has to be constantly cleaned and lubed. Such guns are a huge risk and pita, and for what? .22lr ammo is very compact and lw, making it easily smuggled. The IRA got plenty of it into England during the Struggles.

 

In the day, let me tell you, wet jobs were done with .32 handguns. Centerfires just don't misfire. The 32's "got enough lead to get into the head." Buy an old revolver off some fence, use it, drop it.

The .32 is relatively quiet. For the most part, the pro.s didn't use silencers. Auto 32 gotta fixed barrel; good for threading. 1950's and before, there was this crew of cops up Chicago way what made these very good silencers. These silencers got used enough to make a name for themselves on the street. Guess what, nobody messed with the cops who made them / sold them. Sacred turf. All that.

Understand something here, the good fellows and the cops rode together after the sun went down.

I'm a little boy. We're at the family house. My uncle's a decorated combat veteran, Europe. F### knows how many people he'd killed. Total kill or be killed, he lived that, constant hell, he lived that existence in war. My dad drove armor forward to support tanker companies. Pap taught his sons, my dad & my dad's brothers, to hunt when they were little boys (plus, they slaughtered hogs, all that) -- my Pap was way past deadly with a gun, shot people too. Pap was my bestest best best best best friend. Pap was gold. OK, so we are at the family house, this night, that night, night after night, my uncle packs up for his night prowls. Always he'd drop some snub (one was a .32 snub nickel-plated, fancy grips) in his back pocket, then he was out the door.

The 32-20 used to be a big favorite. Was Pap's favorite. Pump rifle, lever rifle, revolver ... got the job done. Accurate as all get-out.

 

apparently some folks expect to have to do a lot of killing if S.H.T.F. That could be so depending on where they live and type of neighbors they have . something to consider , if you are surrounded by that kind of people they will most likely attack at night . so choosing a night weapon as well as a day weapon would be reasonable . make sure you have plenty of ammunition . personally I don't expect to have to go on a killing spree . But that is because of surrounding environment . I do have plenty of guns and ammunition but that is primarily for food gathering . We used to use flairs in Nam to light up the night to shoot gooks , they worked great . A few flairs in your survival stash would be good .

 

If you plan on relying on a gun I bet you fall short if you don't have any more weapons skills than pulling a trigger you won't last long.

 

Got some seriously shady neighbors. Drug dealing. Fighting. Attempts to loot post-SHTF guaranteed.

Wife wants to bug out to my home state even now, but there's no jobs. My son further down South has zero room for us.

I've plans to stay and plans to bug-out via remote state highways. How things go sideways will morph our behavior. When getting back to home state to visit family, we take alternate highways to scout them. Good thing I have, because I've gotten surprised by what I've discovered. Can't be making discoveries when there's a grease fire on the stove.

On the road, you gotta think about blinding people with lasers / blowing windshield glass into their eyes. Those sorts of things. Use of flares, roman candles, pouring oil on the road, throwing paint cans onto car/truck windshields driving behind you / shooting at you.

The odds that I'll have to shoot some people are very high. I have no qualms about killing. Lord have mercy on us, people are getting mentally ill even now -- and the SHTF hasn't happened yet! Trying to find sane people nowadays is getting tough to impossible. The wife's running into all manner of psych cases working at / visiting her place of work. The world's gone mad.

 

A dangerous weapon is one that isn't well made and safe to fire. A dangerous person is able to be a threat no matter what. The problem with guns is that most people don't actually understand them or their use. They have watched too many movies and TV shows where people wave a gun around shooting and the bad guy just fall down. You have all heard the old thing about bringing a knife to a gun fight... well in a lot of cases that is stupid. If you let me get less than ten feet from you with a knife you are screwed no matter what gun you have. Guns are for shooting people when they are not close. A knife is a much better weapon up close and a hawk is even better.

 

So I had better turn my guns in for a toilet brush and the three day uni course that go's with it !

 

Bishop I always love your videos. They make the point about what exactly makes a person dangerous so clearly. It isn't the weapons that you buy that make you dangerous it is the knowledge and active practice that counts.

Lonewolf is right about disease being the biggest killer. I'm not talking bio-weapons either. The regular old killers that people in modern countries have forgotten will come back with a devastating "new" virulence. Because we live in very clean and sanitary environments now our immune systems aren't challenged almost constantly and have not been for several generations. We are going to be a lot like the Native Americans when the Europeans came to them. Dysentery, cholera, typhus fever, typhoid, schistosomiasis and trachoma all still exist and are just waiting for us to forget them and fail to properly handle our waste. That also doesn't cover the regular diseases and infections that we all have but they are generally handled by a quick trip to the Doctor and then to the Drug Store for the appropriate pill. Pneumonia will return as a major killer and the flu will be more than just an inconvenience when you are living in less than the best eating the best diet.

This is one of the problems that will be made worse by moving around a lot. You can boil your water to drink but what about bathing, washing your clothes and dishes? Contact with water that is contaminated as ALL free flowing water will be as people stop treating their sewage like poison can be deadly.

It is more than possible that the best weapon that you can have in the post apocalyptic world might be a shovel for digging wells, latrines and graves.

 

Thank you here is another one .

 

badminton and tennis both employ a racket, a net and a court, but there's no comparison. Same with slowfire and real rapidfire ability. In fact, you folks have no clue what real ability with a gun IS.



https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=miculek+new+record+AR15

 

That's good for 8 feet and non moving target that don't shot back. fact is i do know how to shoot. I also know how to. shoot under pressure. But there comes a time where you won't have a gun and will not be able to get to one so different wrspowe skills come in handy a weapon of opportunity is a lot of times better than a gun like right now I assume you have a ccw license what happens when your in a bar bank Post office high school or sporting event and things go bad what happens when you are in your vehicle and get ambush with a family member with you you going to run and pull your bug out bag or just get your family member and big out I can tell you what happens if you stay and fight.

 

Why you you ASSUME "you folks do not have a clue" about "what real ability with a gun is"
Do you have some unique ability ? In my youth I was taught by a few surviving members of the SS and Gestapo, you know the ones that went through a real war and actually survived! but hey you must be so much better ay?

 

So true. My dad's company during WWII was disabled not my artillery, but by dysentery due to the kitchen folk not being clean enough. During most wars, the highest losses were often due to rampant diseases among the troop. Today's armies pay a whole lot of attention to hygiene, drinkable water, and safe MREs.

"..., once the power and water goes off." Yes. Spot on. City folk will be disabled, for they have no ideal as to how to purify water. Without electricity for days on end, they will decompensate. And how long will the gas companies maintain their operations?

City dwellers would do well to study what happened in Sarajevo during the Bosnian War back in the 1990's. Do today's British and U.S. citizens have the guts and the wherewithal to handle that sort of stress? Some will but not enough. Most city-dwellers will go off the deep end.