Best survivalist gun?

Way too much "call of duty"(sigh)

 

Billa, the only reason I haven't blocked you is that you're so damned funny.

 

I already have a suppressed rifle with a wide scope that just drinks in light, you don't need to explain anything.
I dislike active night vision systems that rely on infra red lamps as you might as well be sending up a damn flare to anyone else who also used night vision. I prefer to use ambient light.
Frankly Billa you've turned up here trash talking experienced members that you could learn from. Stop assuming that you know it all and maybe I'll start paying more attention instead of writing you off as a bullshitter.

 

billa, about all you need for survival is a bottle of water and a candy bar. If you are this rude in real life you won't live long enough to need more.

Now back to the original discussion. I have always thought that there is a lot to be said for the old Savage 24V in a .357 mag over a 20 gauge. The 357/38 can cover anything from bunnies to deer and the 20 gauge will do the same and make an effective close quarters defense shotgun. The 20 gauge shells are lighter than 12 gauge and actually I've never felt under-gunned with a 20 gauge except for pass shooting geese. I generally did most of my hunting with a 20. A .357 mag with the inclusion of 38 specials is an amazingly flexable round and out of a rifle is plenty for nearly anything I might want to shoot.

They are tough as nails and simple. You can carry a rebuild kit in a pill bottle. While it isn't the very best at anything it is anywhere from OK to pretty good for nearly anything. I'm not much for scopes on survival guns. They are fragile and on so many rifles these days if it has a scope there are no open sights. It also matters that I live in a heavily forested place and long shots are not the only way to make a kill.

The inclusion of a few of those chamber adapters can make it something that will shoot almost anything. I'm not usually all that impressed with them in shotguns because shotguns in general don't have rifle sights but in this case you have good sights. I have one that allows me to shoot a 9mm from a 410 and it, even without sights, is good enough for a bunny that isn't moving.

In some ways it might even be one of the safest possible weapons. It isn't anything that is going to make you act a fool. There is a lot to be said for avoiding trouble and just not being seen and if you have something like this and you want to survive you will not be getting in any gun fights that you could have avoided. This sort of gun will feed you and offer a certain minimal level of self protection. If that makes you more careful because it isn't a big bad assault rifle...well that may be a good thing in the long run. There a lot more older rabbits than there are older wolves.

 

You like to argue...I don't. You are rude. I can go there too but generally try to resist that urge. You like to talk to yourself. Have you noticed that when you post several times in a row people tend to not respond?

I never inferred that I would be the only person with a gun anywhere. I wonder about your reading skills some times. Your idea about survival is based on movies evidently and you plan on a constant all day every day shoot'em up like road warriors or something. My friend, combat is not even like that in a war zone. It is hours and hours of endless nervous boredom followed by minutes of pure adrenaline driven terror. LOL you usually don't respond to the terror part until it is over and then you start to shake. Understand this though when you get so you don't shake anymore you are in trouble. You have become adrenaline addicted and resistant to it. When you try to go home and leave it behind you you are like any junkie without his drug. This is at the roots of all the PTSD that is going around. They just send you home and don't make any effort to "detox" you.

Survival means more than killing a lot of people or being the baddest bad boy out there. It means being someone that some other person might be able to to admire. It means being able to love and smile again. Living is not all there is to surviving. If you lose yourself you didn't make the trip even though your body is still walking around. Sometime go and talk to some of the older homeless men. A lot of them are Vietnam vets that left their souls in the jungle of Nam. This is something that I know about and your method is going to kill you even if your body survives.

 

A sling bow is inferior to a long bow much less a crossbow or good compound bow. In the hands of an experienced archer in wooded lands he is not at all handicapped as far as hunting is concerned over any rifle. While they aren't quite as powerful initially a good long bow was one of the deadliest weapons in history and until the advent of repeating weapons were better than guns in places without long open views. If you learn how to make your own bows and arrows you will never run out of ammo.

 

I like bows, always have done.

 

Damn that was rude!! You don't go out much do you. If you do you gotta have better mouth control than this or you would be in the hospital a lot.

How long exactly do you expect the latex bands on your sling bow to last? You don't seem to understand that it only takes one bullet or arrow to kill you. rat a tat tat is cute on TV or at the movies but in real life I'll only need one bullet to kill you. One arrow will do it just as surely. My compound bow is a couple of decades old and has never given me any trouble. I have spare strings and a kits for installing it but also have three long bows. One of which I made myself.

I'm going to be nice. I have friends and family. I have neighbors that I will help that will help me. We are all pretty self sufficient with goats, cattle, horses, hogs, chickens ducks gardens and lots of guns. We are going to be a tough group to cross. If attacked we will feed you to the hogs. Put your head on a pike. Collect your guns and whatever is left will be fertilizer. Roving gangs of thugs are not the same as trained warriors. When confronted by a stranger sneaking towards their area a soldier says "Halt, who goes there??" A warrior shoots you dead and then goes over to see what sort of fool tried to get by him.

 

On the black market in Great Britain and in Europe, you can buy whatever you want to buy. Just a few years back two female cops were killed in a handgun and grenade attack. Not thinking grenades are particularly legal over there!

My dad, his brothers, and their lot lived on the other side of the law when it came to their "careers". They didn't make waves, they paid off the gov folk and the locals with whom they did business paid off the cops -- there is always a separate economy. Last numbers I read said that 40% of the U.S. overall economy was black market. Me, I was able to go to school and be on the legal side; so it goes. If you want something & you got the money/barter, then you get to buy it (always share with the cops or they'll bust you; too, cops have the best ganja and the best black market contacts which they'll share with you if you "do right by them").

Great Britain's good fellows, their mates, and ex-military are armed. Europe's good fellows, their mates, and ex-military are armed. The law simply raises the prices of those things made illegal. I did read that Austria ran out of shotguns for sale; so they'll just have to go buy Eastern Block Makarovs, or Tokarevs, or AKs, or whatever else they need at some back-alley bar. Welcome to Earth. Welcome to our species.

 

Damn billa why do you even want to survive? If you really think the world and people are ALL just a bunch of evil monsters how do you keep from killing yourself? I have lots of people that I can depend on. Many brothers from other mothers who have been tested under fire. Maybe you don't have people like this in your life but some of us do. I truly feel sorry for you. You live in a ugly world by choice. That is sad.

 

Billa I don't think that all that many people will have much trouble killing after a VERY short period of adjustment. We like to pretty ourselves up and pretend that we are civilized but the facts are against us. We are killers. All a serial killer is is a person with a little less control than the rest of us. Take a look at the gross on the average slasher movie and tell me how people don't want to and like the thought of killing other people.

This has been both our blessing and bane throughout our history. It has made us the REAL king of beasts and helped us build empires but then when we have won...we start killing eachother. My many good and kind friends one an all have faced their personal monsters. At least half are experienced killers. I have a gay friend that is still in the closet that is the sweetest guy you would ever want to know. He is a veteran marine sniper with many confirmed kills in Iraq and Afghanistan.

You my friend need to find a better class of people to associate with. I agree that 90% or the people out there are weak. That is because our culture has allowed them to be weak and if things go bad they will probably die before they can learn otherwise but that is going to still leave over half a billion people that you will be better of to have as friends than enemies.

MOST of those people are going to be in the parts of the world that are now civilized and cultured. This is because the people in the third world countries that we have been feeding for the last 4 generations have so overpopulated that they will starve within WEEKS by the millions while we have better controlled our populations in general. The Ant pile cities will be an almost total loss but the rest of us will probably have a 50% to 75% survival rate.

Just so this is on topic, the best survival gun is the one that you never HAVE to use. Also what do you think about the bullpup designs?

 

Getting out of the cities will be a NIGHTMARE! You will have to walk out of most of them. The roads will be blocked. Your chances of surviving in most of the mega-cities will be basically ZERO. The chances anywhere is going to be pretty slim but it is a LOT better in a small town in ranching country than in a city. Country people are different Billa. Their desire to live out and away from other people and cops and such indicates a difference right off. I have seen their reaction to city folks crowding them and it was pretty ugly in places. They (The local cops) blocked the bridge where I live to keep them out during one of the hurricanes.

there is noplace that will be totally safe but I will chose to be among friends and people that I know over being just another refugee running with nothing but what they can carry. Where I live EVERYONE has guns and knows real well how to use them. We have lots of food and water and only have to protect it. These people are up to that. Just among my 5 closest friends there are a couple of AR framed 300 blackout rifles, 2 M14s 5 ARs shooting the 5.56, 4 AKs and probably about a hundred other guns of less military type. Three of us reload. Three were special forces. I am a bomb making crazy man that will turn out my version of claymores and step on then an lose your leg mines. Anybody can make bombs it just takes a little knowledge and chemistry. If you blow the only bridge over the river for 20 miles in any direction that sort of stops the city folks.

There are all sorts of things that people in small towns can do to make the locust go someplace else. There is a huge difference between refugees and an army! There are places around me where you can just fade into the woods and never be found. 10,000 acres makes a pretty good hiding spot and a small town in that area can block the roads with trees. LOL, if Bigfoot can hide in that patch of woods and only be seen once or twice then I can too. LOL. The Sam Houston National Forrest is huge.

 

I understand lonewolf. There are a lot of really crappy people out there. I've been screwed over and over and at times wanted to just give up on people. I guess that I've also been lucky in that I have also known and met some really wonderful people. I just can't toss out the good with the bad and lose them. I have little doubt that some of them will fail me but I guess I would rather have them in my life and hope rather than just hate all because of the actions of some. Until they screw me I will offer then my friendship. To me a life that is closed and alone without anyone to love wouldn't be a life worth living.

 

I remember my Dad trying to explain to me, when I was in my teens, that friends come and go. You need to enjoy them but understand that they are mostly temporary. I was sure that he was wrong. When you have lived many more years than I had at that point you see that he was right. I've had friends that were, I thought, were like brothers and sisters that over the many years just changed and moved on without ever looking back. I guess family can't do that because they are stuck with you. I went several years not letting anyone get close to me after the last time but I finally realized that the good that they had brought into my life out weighed the pain of losing them. I have close friends now but don't have the belief that anyone is forever except my wife and blood kin. Friends are a lot like dogs and cats. When one dies you swear that you don't ever want another one...then you start again with a new furry child. You have to accept new friends understanding that they may not be forever.

I live in the country and have for the last 30 or so years. Even before that though I was a country boy and had deep roots and a rural sort of childhood with horses and ranch and farm life. Rural people are just different. They are generally rather unsophisticated by the urban rules. They don't keep up with what is "stylish" and a lot don't have a clue about the latest movies or Hollywood people. They talk about silly things like hunting, fishing, local sports, kids and gardening. Generally they are not very active politically other than complaining about liberals and the government in general. Here, we wear blue jeans, cowboy boots and nearly always have some sort of cap or hat on. We like plaid flannel shirts over T-shirts for winter wear and leave the flannel shirt off in the summer. We sleep good in homes with the windows open and the doors unlocked. We don't need cops and unlike urban people if we hear someone breaking into our home we grab a gun. The call to the cops is for them to come haul the body away!

My friends are ALL basically survival friendly at least and most are rather active in some way in being prepared. The thing is that, as you could tell from the way we handled the floods in Houston and all of the Texas coast, Texans are in general a pretty hands on ready to jump in and help both ourselves and others. We HUNKER down and then get going as soon as the threat passes rather than sit and whine.

 

Lets face it, I don't think many of us here would ever have been exactly what you call party animals. I never liked the crowds or bright lights and while I wasn't purely a loner I was alone a lot and still like a lot of alone time. Self sufficiency has always been something that separates people from the herd. Sheep flock tightly together and depend on hiding behind each other from bad things. Anyone that separates themselves from that close packed group is seen as an outsider and possibly a danger.

I've spent a lot of my life trying to understand people and why I'm different enough that I don't seem to fit well into the masses. Basically I think that there has always been a slightly different species of Homo-sapient. There always are the people that seem to have to see what is over that next mountain. Once they find out and make it a known place the Sheep come if they are too crowded where they are at and these people move on. Those that are left behind become less and less adventurous and generally peaceful.

It mostly worked well for a long time. It doesn't work anymore for the simple reason that there are no more frontiers. Also after the wild men moved on the ones that were left lost a certain protection. Now in almost every one of the Western top line countries they are being flooded by immigrants from other countries. UNDERSTAND, these people that you are letting into your countries are basically the same sort of people that took the lands and lives of the Tanzanians, the Native Americans, The Caribbean Indians... The countries that used to lead now are the places that the pioneers are coming to to conquer.

Great Britain spread out and ruled the WORLD. Their people went out and conquered all over and then that was where these wild men stayed. Over time the people at home became less and less like the wild men that had left until eventually a Great Empire, never defeated, just passed into old age.

The US has done the same thing and AMAZINGLY managed to do in a little less than 300 years to land in the early stages of that same old age. I think that modern society just does everything faster and now days the Wild men don't tend to breed and have as many kids as the sheep. I think that the wild ones that used to go out and open new lands are now sometimes becoming predatory. This is really sad but I'm not sure that we don't NEED a big freaking war at the very least to level this imbalance out again.

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Where we went wrong in the USA was when were stopped taking in people that wanted to come here, work learn out ways and languages and become Americans. These whiny refugees from all over the world just come here, get on welfare, sell and use drugs, refuse to learn English so there is NO hope they can get a decent job. Most were illiterate in their own language. They HATE us because we have a little more than they do because we work. Now thanks to Obummer and that witch Hillary we have thousands of future terrorists that they imported from countries with an avowed hatred for America and Americans. We have killed our country with kindness. Too stupid to survive as a country much longer.

 

I personally don't think most people will run towards the sound of a gunshot so I'm little worried about the sound of a gunshot. Where I live the sound of gun shots is sort of like the sound of sirens in the cities. Most people can indeed build a raft and cross a river. The numbers that will do so though will not be the masses that will be swarming along the easier routes. Those that actually do manage might actually be worthwhile versus those that will be turned aside.

 

Where you live I would run TOO!! When everybody doesn't have guns those that do may not be nice people at all. When it is mostly a crime to have a gun most people that have guns are criminals.

Things are different here because EVERYBODY has guns and for us going out shooting is sort of like going bowling for city folks. I shoot in my yard as do my neighbors. In the evening, especially this time of year, it is rare to sit outside and NOT hear gunfire in the distance. Deer and hunting season is coming and everyone is sighting in their guns and just shooting for fun getting ready for opening day.

LOL, in East Texas Opening Day of deer season is bigger than Thanksgiving. Everyone is going to the camp and families are getting together for the hunt and then the processing of the harvest. Here this isn't anywhere close to an all male thing eight. I know a lot of single and married women that are wild about deer and hog hunting and then later the ducks and doves. It is a good clean family get together sort of thing.

 

How much buck shot is available there? I would hate to have to depend on bird shot or trap and skeet loads for defense. I am ignorant about this. Do they even have deer to hunt left in Wales?

 

Wow! We have a special season just for bow hunting that is before the gun season and is VERY popular. You can use any kind of bow as long as it is 45 pounds or more pull weight. Long Bow, Compound Bow or Crossbows are all allowed.

I guess because I never hear or read about hunting in Great Britain other than rabbits I had sort of assumed that there wasn't much there to hunt. This is one of the things that I like best about this board. People tend to not really know or understand that people in other countries life in a totally different culture than they do. Basically most Americans just think of British people as being basically about the same as they are just with funny accents.

One of the odd things that I am learning is that to someone from a big city in most of Europe, Texas would be a pretty terrifying place. Guns are everywhere and the people here while extremely friendly are always willing to fight anyone that attacks them. On the flip side I'll tell you, living someplace where it is basically illegal to defend myself; where only the bad people have guns that they can use SCARES THE CRAP OUT OF ME!!!!! I don't count guns locked up in a gun case as "having" a gun. If someone invades your house you will be dead before you can get to it, get it out, get it loaded... I like having a gun in my car and if I'm someplace that is a little rough I like having a gun on me.

I can sort of understand why this would be frightening to someone raised to believe that guns are bad and the cause of people getting shot. They have been brain washed to believe that somehow the guns MAKE people shoot other people and if you take away the guns then all people will be happy safe and life will be just peachy! I am 65 years old and have had guns all of my life. I've sold guns and been a gunsmith. I've worked at ranges and taught people how to shoot. I've never yet had an uncontrollable urge to use a gun to shoot someone. Not once have I shot a gun at a person (other than paint ball guns or BB guns when I was a stupid kid) When I see someone in a grocery store with a pistol on their hip the only thing that I think about is try to figure out what he or she is packing.

I mentioned this somewhere else but hunting is so big here that our convergence stores sell 50 pound bags of deer corn for the hunters to use in their deer feeders. We have the fattest deer you've ever seen!! They feed them corn, mineral blocks that have all the vitamins and minerals they need to make big horns, and they plant browse plots of Rye grass, oats, wheat and peas and such so they will have plenty of good food all year long.

My best friend is a big hunter and he works his butt off year around taking care of his lease and making sure the deer are healthy and not bothered by things like wild dogs, coyotes wolves or their food eaten by wild hogs. This sort of dedication to hinting is pretty common here.

It is like we live on different planets in some ways...

 

Honestly I'm amazed that your government allows you to have kitchen knives. When you start talking about registering BB guns you are passing the insane paranoia city limit sign!! Even the communist USSR didn't oppress the rights of their people to this level. It makes my skin crawl!! Scary!

What the liberal left in your country and mine can't seem to understand is that freedom is not something you get or keep by saying "pretty please". It is earned and demanded by a free and armed people that can take and insure that freedom, if necessary, by revolutionary means. The original founders here understood this totally and made the right to have guns the second thing that they assured after declaring their constitution and their freedom.

A people without weapons are only allowed to have their illusion of freedom as long as they are obedient. The second they cross their government they will quickly find out exactly how illusionary that freedom actually is.

 

Today's reading shall be from the Book of Felix, Chapter 13

1.He did come down from the hillside and spake unto them saying, 2.There are among you sparing cats and no harm shall come unto him who so doeth should this be for the annihilation of the evil rodent 3.But woe betide that man or that woman who, with unGodly intent, doth spareth the cat that does the will of Satan. 4.For the cat is given to those things of dark purpose and witchery 5.Seeing every opportunity to entice those who were once of God to the purpose of the evil whisperer. 6.Lay thou holt upon thine air rifle and do bring such to bear upon the surfeit of cats in thine home place and that of your poor who are unable to do God's Will! 7. Returneth thou such unholy furry creatures to the flames from which they escaped to draw down the souls of the weak and those given to evil. AMEN

 

Ha ha ho ho ho ho ha ho ha ha ha ha ha ohhh ho ho ho ...!

Mischievous boys can turn rat traps into mini-catapults. And rats, they are living beings too! Ban rat traps!

https://nitratediva.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/jeanette.gif?w=584&h=485

 

Liberal and conservative divide in the US is basically the liberals live in the huge mega cities and the conservatives live in the rest of the country. This is true whether you are in Texas or California.

 

The mega cities are much the same everywhere I think. Most produce almost nothing in the way of physical wealth. The land in a mega city is so expensive that as they grow the more space demanding things like farms, mines, factories and such move out and away. For one thing if you have a big factory in one of these places you have to pay very high wages because you can't live there on peanut pay levels. Without the workers you just can't operate a business so they have to go where they can find the kind of people that they need at a price that they can afford.

Over time a city occupied by almost nothing but people in only white collar financial endeavors develops a very unreal view of the world. To them the rest of the people are there strictly to provide for them. They have no connection between the real work that provides the food and resources that they only see as finished products. About the only blue collar people that they ever see are construction workers that are building places for THEM or janitorial staff that are cleaning for THEM or servers at restaurants that are serving THEM.

This is the core of the liberal philosophy...it is all about THEM because they have no conception of what it takes to put that food on their tables or the clothes that they wear. The fact is that they see people that work and get dirty for a living as somehow less than them. That means that if they see someone that doesn't work then they can only imagine just giving them money because they can't really imagine telling them to get a dirty old working class job or putting them to work doing things like cleaning the roads and streets. To a liberal white collar worker that would be an unforgivable insult were it offered to them.

When ever you have more bosses than workers you are already a dying culture and are just to moribund to notice it as a culture.

 

A part of one's battery of survival weapons should include a centerfire repeating rifle that would lie within the deer rifle family. It does not have to be a bolt-action, nor a semi-automatic. A used lever action in the tried and true 30-30 caliber will do just fine. Below I've included some videos to make my point.

Don't underestimate the old 30-30 lever action rifle:


Old lever with obsolete caliber hitting target 1000 yards out:


Sighting in a rifle with open sights, also called iron sights:

(Most rifles do not have a set screw on the rear sight; their metallic dove-tail is more firm.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_sights

Sighting in a scoped rifle:



Using a rifle sling for accuracy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HtaLUbTwZM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-lzvjGPgKE

 

I have always thought that the lever action was a great design. It is fast to shoot, easy to carry and the 30-30 has plenty of power and accuracy for forested medium large sized animals. It isn't great for 300 yards shots in the open places and it can't put as much lead in the air as a semiautomatic but it does soooooo many things really well and has passed the test of time. Truthfully for the average person who is wanting to survive and not go off on some sort of road warrior war path I think it is about the best rifle out there for most survival uses. Like Tom Williams I have them in 22 LR, .357 mag, 30-39 and 300 Savage. I sold my assault rifles for a just insane profit quite a few years ago.

Another great choice for any budget conscious survivalist is the Russian Nagant in 7.62 X 54R. It is a rock solid bolt action that I have seen for as little as a hundred bucks. The ammo can be bought in big sardine cans for cheap and there are all kinds of after market accessories out there for them. This is a true battle rifle and the round it fires is comparable to a 30-06.

All things considered I'm not sure that for a lot of people a tricked out Ruger 10-22 might not be a great choice. Inexpensive, dependable, a ton of accessories are available to customize them including hi capacity magazines. The cheap ammo means that you can shoot it a lot and be good with it. Gun fights are won by hits NOT the number of bullets that you put in the air. If you pick your shots you can kill most all of the game animals from deer sized down cleanly and bigger animals effectively but not cleanly. Ancient hunters seldom made fast clean kills. They wounded an animal with a deadly wound then tracked it down.

The thing that you need to understand is that you need to choose your weapon based on your plans and abilities. Then when it gets down to it you may have to adapt to what you have and ammo quantities. If you have a single shot shotgun you work your way along with that. You can do amazing things with little as long as you use it correctly. Single shot guns are deadly but require you to be cautious and sneaky.

Guns are tools they are only as deadly as the person holding them...

 

I have 5 12 ga shotguns. 2000 rounds of bird shot 1500 buckshot. Nice thing about shotgun shells is you can also load black powder in any cheap hull in good condition. You can find thousands at a skeet range, just need primers of which I have 5000.
I have a mini-14 with 2500 rounds. I have a bolt action ruger American in 7.62x39 with 20 round mags and it shoots all cheap Soviet ammo no problem. I have a Rossi 92 in . 357 with 1000 rounds and 2 .357 revolvers. I also have a Sig .40 cal.
I live in town. I hunt but I have no plans on running off into the woods. Go sit in the woods sometime and mentally record what you see. I’ve spent days in the woods and seen nothing but a squirrel and a bunch of tweety birds. Those that think they will survive feasting off deer meat good luck. Those deer won’t last 3 months before the locals shoot every one. In the swamps you have to deal with snakes and BUGS. No thank you. A shotgun will protect you and put food in the pot. That being said, a person alone has little chance. I feel people on farms and in the country will be targets for roaming gangs. I believe I read during the economic collapse in Argentina, people outside of town were routinely tied up and had horrible things done to them for days before being killed. In Croatia the police raided apartment buildings and murdered people for their stuff. Gangs formed in a mater of days. One story was of a man that picked up dismembered body parts and piled them in front of his home. That seemed to keep most gangs from attacking him fearing a large armed force inside. Nobody can predict what happens. I just feel safer in town. Maybe I’m wrong. It don’t matter what or how many guns you have. You can be shot by a creep with a $100 gun when you step out to take a dump at any time.

 

Oh I understand but I think it depends on where you live. If I lived on the west coast of Washington I could survive better. But the swamps of Florida? I doubt it. The heat can get unbearable, you need lots of water which isn’t a problem if you can filter it. Snake bites, what do you do? Bugs by the millions and a tent isn’t going to cut it when the big storms come. If you had a houseboat maybe. A well built one . You get sick out there your done. Indians survived by building houses and living in a group. I think the best way to survive here in town is in one of the gangs that will form. And they will, they always do.

 

I'd say the best SHTF gun would be the one with plenty of cheap ammunition available and I think that would be the .22 as of now. The round is small as hell, but my dad told me don't let that fool you. It's VERY lethal as it will go in and out of all kinds of organs as it tumbles through a body.

But like mentioned, you're not taking down big game with a .22. So that's where a second gun comes in at. I'm not sure what that is, but it should be of deer hunting capability. Ask the gun keep on what ammo is plentiful for a deer rifle.

Handguns are great for self-defense. I'd have a .380 with hollow points myself. Very small and concealable. In fact, they feel cheap really. My Bro has one. You can get one for around $200. Make sure it's double action.

As to the sound of a gun giving away your location. Well, that may be true, but guess what? You're armed so bring it on. .Another thing is that I know what it sounds like when you hear a gun shot in the woods. You may have a general direction of where it's at, but you may not be able to pin point it down. In an open field that may be different. Again, you are armed so if some dumb ass thinks he's gonna go against you then by all means take him out. And since this is a SHTF scenery, don't even worry about having to wear orange. F the feds! Where full blow camo for that area. Marpat preferably.

 

Can't edit my post. The word scenery should be scenario.