Primitive Weaponry

Primitive Weaponry

We haven't talked about this for a while and I wonder what you all think about the value of cutting, chopping, stabbing and bludgeoning weapons. I know that it would be bad to show up to a gun fight with a sword but does that make it useless. How about the ax family and the spears. I have a lot of guns but also have several aluminum baseball bats in various strategic locations.

I have to confess that I have a special affinity for sharp, pointy edged weapons and have a lot of them. A gun might frighten someone but most people will totally freak if you come at them with a battle ax or a sword. They are worth while to me if for nothing else than the intimidation factor when you really don't want to fight.

I honestly don't want to deal with a bunch of bodies and would rather not shoot a bunch of people if I can get away without doing that. A person that sees me walking around with a battle ax is probably not going to want to mess with me unless they intend to kill me. An ax would actually be used more as a distraction than a first choice weapon. I throw left handed but draw and shoot right handed. While you are looking at me throw the ax I'll draw and shoot you. If you get close to me I won't need the gun.

A sword/machete is an awfully handy tool and a weapon. I have a bit of a collection of machetes that cross the line into being swords and find them better all around than my real swords. A sword is generally lighter for the length than a machete and made of a much harder steel. I just can't see me hacking at wood with a 200 or 300 dollar sword.

Hawks and hatchets are great all around tools and deadly weapons as well. Axes are just too heavy to handle as a weapon. They either hit or you are pulled out of position and vulnerable. I like the hatchets that also have a hammer face on the back. A roofing hatchet is a lighter alternative that I also like. Even some of my true hawks have a small head on them. The throwing hawks don't have this and generally have a slightly more curved edge. I also like the viking bearded axes. The longer cutting edge makes it a great cutter and the beard also allows you to hook and pull something to you.

Spears are a great tool for dispatching an animal that you have caught in a trap without having to waste a bullet. They also offer you both more reach and the limited ability to throw the weapon. The cold steel bushman knives/spear heads are great survival tools and weapons I also have tridents and gigs that will fit on the same shaft as the cold steel bushman spears. Tridents and gigs make then good for gathering in fish, frogs and other water critters like snakes. My big trident would make a pretty wicked weapon.

I also like the big Bowie type knives for their wood chopping and batoning use. That along with daggers, push daggers and the various maces, Morning stars and war hammers sort of rounds out the various options. Do you have any of these and do you think that they will actually have much value as weapons other than in the case of the Zombie apocalypse.

 

There are a great many legitimate bushcraft tools that can be pressed into service as a weapon of opportunity. Almost anything can be a weapon if you're prepared to use it as such.

 

I like primitive weapons I use a sling a bow bolas kily stick rabbit stick atlatl spear blow gun Hawks slingshot pana Swiss arrow stick rock and blades of all kinds.

 

I'd like to have a decent crossbow. Some have handy cocking mechanisms / tricks to make reloading faster.

 

My wife wants a crossbow. I am thinking about getting her one. In Texas you can use a crossbow during bow season for deer.

 

Does the Benjamin Air Bow count as a bow for hunting season?....I know it sidesteps all of our firearms legislation.

 

I don't think it would go. I know that they disallow airguns for game hunting even though there are airguns fully capable of taking deer. Lewis and Clark put meat on their table with airguns so air rifles would indeed pass as primitive or at least antique era weapons.

Repeating firearms mostly made swords an unneeded accessory to a soldiers kit. With muzzle loaders you often ended up in close quarters with a desperate need for a rapid action weapon. Even if you carried a couple of pistols you still only had three shots and hope that you would have time to reload. That is why the charge was such a military monster. Sadly they kept doing it even in WW1. Against repeating rifles and machine guns it was a suicidal mess. After WW1 even the use of the bayonet was greatly reduced.

 

You can hunt with sir guns and air bows in fla

 

I don't see a problem with an air gun as long as it has the power to make clean kills in your prey size. The problem is that some idiots would be out there peppering Bambi with a Benjamin 22 cal air rifle. Also the game laws are mostly made by lawyers that are dumb as a box of rocks and a lot of the rules make little to no sense at all.

 

Texdanm,

Yes indeed. The Elders and Historians who taught me....told me... that they kept the thinking of the last war...and in early WW1 the thinking was to make a hole wherein the Calvary could enter followed by the infantry ..because the thinking was that it takes 8 rounds to bring down a horse.

But someone invented the Maxim Gun. Charges became a huge suicide run. The British and French both lost huge amounts of men and material under General Haig.

As is often said..."There will never be another Haig." They are referring to Douglas Haig of WW1 Fame.


Technology and the changing thinking makes it suicide to fight and think using the last war's thinking and or understandings.

This was proven out in both recent Desert Wars. Technology allowed not only the troops to move and navigate across desert without any visible landmarks...but also the supplies..the bacon, beans, gas, and even the mail to do the same...both moving very very fast.....even faster than previous wars and conflicts.

You cannot remain static in todays war plans and thinking.

They kept trying to fight using the last war's thinking and this is what Saddam's people did.

When our people saw that the bulk of Saddam's forces were digging in ....we knew we had them.


The people who can move and adapt faster than their opposition can keep up...are going to win.

This is called "Energy Maneuvering" or "Maneuver Warfare."

And today it is very fast....very dynamic...rapidly changing and moving.


My non Ishmaelite .02,

Watcherchris

 

I have a PCP air gun in 22 cal that I have taken hogs with shooting 36gr pellets at 40 yards that have dropped them in there tracks

 

Bishop ..I am not sure what is a PCP air gun.???


Ahhh,...ok...I decided to look it up..Pre Charged Pneumatic.

My friend has one in .45 caliber. That is a big big..bullet in an air rifle. He has both some kind of manual pump for it and also an electric pump. It is quite a set up.

They are nice but expensive. I was a bit stunned to find out what it costs for a good one.



I settled for a pump in .22 calibration and also a break type for which the barrels can be changed from .177 to .22 Caliber.

I like some of these new ones..also PCP in .308 calibration. However ..I am not sure I can justify the cost verses the reloading I do in center fire ammunition.


On the other hand..I do have a crossbow in 150 lb draw with a cocking tool. I have taught myself how to make crude bolts for it and work the fletching...even to make blunt tipped bolts for special applications.

I am also considering a take down type bow further down the road.

I can admire the bow and arrow for its silence.


Thanks,
Watcherchris

Not an Ishmaelite

 

They make PCP air guns in 177 22 25 9 mm 30 357 40 45 and 50 cal the one I have I can take crows out to 100yards with a mil dot scope big game can be taken with 9 mm and up

 

I used a knife to get myself out of a bad situation once. While in Nam I walked across a area with signs saying "mine field" to get to a Vietnamese village . There a beautiful young woman beckoned me to follow her into a straw and plywood hut built on stilts above a pond . A plank was the walkway into the hut. The hut was divided into small rooms with an older lady there to run the business . In the small room the only furniture was a mattress laying on the floor . I took off my shirt and threw it onto the floor . The girl picked it up and hung it on a nail over a window .That immediately aroused my suspicion so I looked out the window and there stood 5 black clad fellows looking back at me . It didn't take long for the Viet Cong to come up the plank and enter the hut .My only weapon was a knife .I put the knife to the girls throat . That brought an uproar on the other side of that sheet of plywood that served as a wall. I later found out such places have peep holes mainly for the girls safety .There was a lot of cussing on the other side of the wall which I couldn't understand a word of it because it was in Vietnamese .Eventually the head lady convinced those guys to leave .I didn't harm the girl and took the knife off her throat . I heard later two guys went into that same village and disappeared . Their bodies were later found, They had been taken into the jungle and slowly cut into pieces , cutting off one body part at a time .

 

You also probably narrowly escaped from a case of rachucockoff!!

I also have used a knife to get out of a tough situation a couple of times. I also used a sort of Mace one time to talk several people out of messing with me. It was a 2" steel ball on a 10" chain on an 18" club. The ball was on my floor shift until I switched to a T handle for the shifter. I have always liked the old more brutal weapons for intimidation tools. Eventually a cop confiscated it from me so I started carrying a light 2.5 pound double bit ax. That turned out to be totally legal and a more intimidating thing to come out of a car with.

I was 18 and stupid, what can I say!?

 

When I was young I was always very observant about what was going on around me...My problem was that I was young, dumb and didn't care if I was in a bad place really. I swear I was such a dumbass!!! It's a wonder that I survived my stupidity. Fortunately you really do get a little smarted as you get older. I think that people are a little put off from messing with you if they think that you might just be more than a little CRAZY!!

 

this is kind of a combination of several topics going on . I am assuming the transportation thing is mainly for entertainment for some but leaves me thinking some actually do plan to cut and run supplied with tools for stealing and looting . For those that did actually prepare , these looters is exactly the folks that will be their foe. One such deterant is to build pungy pits for the looters to step into , covered with human waste . It won't kill fast but blood poisoning will set in ending their looting .

 

My bugler tools are not for stealing. They are for scavenging after over half of the people are dead and gone. Laws only have meaning when the culture that made them is still existent. Are you going to stop hunting and fishing when your license expires or do you plan on being a poacher. When the stores all close and your family has needs you don't let laws that actually no longer have any real effect keep you from taking care of them.

You need to understand that preparing means that you try to foresee all possible needs and methods of acquiring those needs. Your pungy pits are illegal in every place in the civilized world. You will use them to protect what you have and even though it is illegal it will be the RIGHT thing to do in a post apocalyptic world.

This topic is about primitive weapons. You need to understand that the most important primitive weapon is the human primitive and uncivilized ATTITUDE that you will have to convert to if you wish to survive in a primitive world. Forget about sport hunting laws, stealing only applies to taking something from somebody that is still alive, murder is killing someone that is no threat to you... If they are dead and you need what they had you take it. If someone threatens you you kill them. you stop hunting and start harvesting and do it in the most effective way possible. The alternative is to cripple your chances of survival.

 

Tex I honestly appreciate your thoughts on this matter .