Oswald Bastable has kindly written this excellent article for us. Hopefully it will stimulate some debate and ideas from CR readers.
‘I have been asked to write a short piece on firearms suitable for food-gathering in a SHTF scenario and for defense- obviously in the event evil aliens land, as it would unthinkable to use a firearm in self defense in the Socialist Republic of New Zealand. All laws are out the window when the rocks fall from the sky!
Obviously, the best firearm for both situations is the one you have. You had better have one, preferably more, before the shops board up their now empty windows.
You can’t go wrong with a good bolt action .22 rifle for gathering food.
Don’t bother with a semi-auto and do get one with good iron sights. No backup sights and a busted scope and you have something suitable for killing livestock in the yards. If you can, get one with a silencer. You probably don’t want to advertise your hunting, lest you become the hunted.
Ammo is cheap and portable. If you can, get an after market peep sight and PRACTICE.
The other food gatherer is the shotgun, if noise is not an issue. Get a 12 gauge, as ammo is more common. If recoil is a problem, use trap loads. You will have to get a little closer to your game, but that is what real hunting is all about and in a survival situation, ducks on the ground are a sure meal.
If you want a centerfire for hunting, get a common caliber such as .308, 7-08, .223, 7.62×39 or .243. they would be the most popular in NZ. If you can afford it, do get an over the barrel silencer. It will bring the report down to about the level of a .22 magnum, plus reduce recoil, flash and it will not be obvious to tell where the shot come from. Stick to a simple bolt action, unless you have a military background, or a lot of expensive training in how to maintain and use a semi-auto. As before, do get one that has iron sights fitted.
OK, You need to DEFEND from the evil aliens, now landing with barbecue sauce and a taste for you.
Their physiology is much the same as ours. Air goes in and out, blood goes round and round- anything else is a bad thing for them. The military version has body armour, the others do not. Their firearms shoot projectiles and only the big ships have lasers. OK, our bullets kill them.
We far outnumber them, but they control communications, so we are unorganised- a weakness they do not have.
But we are on our home ground.
Every time they used to walk down a street, a .22 slug comes unheard and hits one of them in the face. They had no idea where it came from. They don’t walk down streets much anymore.
In the home, it was soon found that a shotgun blast to the face was an answer to body armour. A short barrelled shotgun is best- preferably a Remington 870 or a Mossberg. Every home should have one. Follow up shots are fast, should you have multiple intruders or heavy body armour to deal with.
The centerfire rifle you use to hunt deer is also very effective. Just shoot one or two into a patrol and get the hell out of there to a pre-arranged hiding place. The common hunting rifles mentioned above will all take care of business at a decent stand off range. About a thousand bucks will buy a good piece.
As before, I recommend a bolt action for simplicity- if you are looking for ideas here, you are probably new to the game and should avoid military style weapons, as they require quite a bit of training and maintenance. It is a good idea to have a firearm in your inventory that is in the same caliber as your military uses.
Don’t be shy about picking up the enemies weapons. If you can, they don’t need them anymore.’
I don’t have a shotgun any more, Os. What are your thoughts on fitting the .357 lever gun with a ghost ring sight?
Good idea. They were the assault rifle of the 19 th century.
Thanks. It’s a handy little rifle for the job.
Since writing the above I’ve been looking online, but can’t find a NZ company that sells them. Will keep looking.
http://www.guncity.com/info-centre/marlin-parts-list
Thanks Os. I don’t see a ghost ring listed there, so I’ll call them. They sure stock a lot of parts.
Some of the Marlins they stock are advertised with ghost rings, so I guess they have them or can get them.
I’ll ask ’em to order one for the 1894.
Outstanding post. Also a depressing reminder of some of the toys you lads get to play with which are verboten on the big island for us peasants.
However, you forgot the humble .22 pistol with the threaded barrel, for dealing with alien collaborators in situations where open carry is an issue..
All good suggestions,but the .22l is a bit too modern a weapon for SHTF food gathering.A Kentucky long rifle preferably a Flintlock will put meat on the table and they range from .28 to .54 caliber.No part on the gun requires the use of modern tools to repair or replace including flint,lead balls and powder.If you are 40+ and SHTF civilization won’t be back in your lifetime,the Wal-Mart will be closed and stay that way.Rimfire and centerfire ammo will get scarce and expensive quick.
Save the centerfire stuff for self defense,you can bet that if SHTF there will be roving bands of 4+ people wandering the countryside looking for opportunity.Bolt action will get the job done,if you see them coming at a distance.Up close and personal you need at a minimum a good revolver.Even a black powder cap and ball revolver will suffice,they did after all do much of the intrapersonal killing in the 19th century.
Centerfire bolt action rifle,you can’t go wrong with a Mosin Nagant,$100 will buy you one,they have been in use since 1891 and fire a full power cartridge in 7.62-54r.Ammo is cheap right now $125 will buy you 880 rounds in a sealed spam can that’s been stored under a dairy barn outside Kiev since 1945 and is no worse for wear.Rifle includes 16″ of cold steel pig sticker for a variety of uses.
http://7.62x54r.net/MosinID/MosinHumor.htm
Funny stuff Darin, but probably largely true
Mosin Nagant
You can knock down everyone else’s target with the shock wave of your bullet going downrange.
Mosin Nagants and pressure checks.
The other version of Russian roulette.
Pressure checks?Pffft…if it didn’t blow up on the first 15,000 rounds it ain’t going to on this one either
I guess you’re just wearing your safety glasses ’cause the RO told you to.
On a tangeant, if you’re going to use a Nagant then you might as well bring it in to the new millenium.
http://www.archangelmanufacturing.com/2014/05/14/archangel-opfor-precision-rifle-stock-for-mosin-nagant-m1891-and-variants/
In the past thirty years I’ve only been to a range for a supervised shoot once.
Never again. The RO was a prissy power-mad prick who succeeded in sucking away any pleasure it might have held.
I’ve no objection to commonsense safety measure when around other people, but this guy was a pedantic arsehole.
Range nazis is more like it,I have met a few that are even handed knowledgeable folk,but I have also met a few total arseholes.
By “range” these days I mean either my budd from work at his BIL’s range,totally private,but only 160yrds.
Or the range down at a customers gravel pit.It’s still private,but has shooting houses,benches and targets out to 1200 yards.I can slap the 20″ steel gong with the carbine at 850 yrds with the iron sights.Not bad for a 75 year old $100 rifle
I’m incredibly lucky to have a range with great ROs. Which is important, because you’ve got to get 6 attendances a year if you want to own a handgun over here.
For example, at the end of the year we get rid of all our old social-club expired soft-drink cans.
Guess how.
“On a tangeant, if you’re going to use a Nagant then you might as well bring it in to the new millenium.”
Range officer
Way ahead of ya,got a M39 carbine that I sporterized,a 91/30 that’s getting a scope mount,AA stock and my own muzzle brake.Similar to this without the rambo-camo
http://youtu.be/BG0wM-gzfaQ
Me rikey rerry ruch!
Particularly when it gets a foul look from the visiting constabulary with their checklist.
“Oh, that old thing? I think there’s still some Nazi blood in the crown.”
Indeed and I have one, but they are not for beginners.
I picked up an SKS for about $400. A nice compact and solid piece.
I had one of those,wish I had it back.Bought it 20 years ago when they first were being imported here.Mine was Chicom complete with folding bayonet and crappy iron sights.Paid $69.95 still sopping wet with Cosmoline
Lurk: Off
Not sure if you’ve seen it, but at CPAC Judge Napolitano had Gen Hayden dancing on the head of a pin.
Not a huge fan of the Judge – I think like Alex Jones, he’s a Putinfile funded by Russia – but when he hits one, it goes out of the park.
Lurk: On
Why lurking?
Bloody busy. Finishing up at work during April, so multi-tasking, trying to do 6 months of delivery in the next 6 weeks, plus looking for a new mortgage-paying, child-funding mechanism.
Aah…good luck with it. I look forward to hearing from you when things settle down.
Don’t forget that strategy should dictate tactics.
Pre-selecting specific types of weapons may put the cart before the horse and create a limiting commitment which forces your strategy and dictates your tactics.
Strategies for urbanized/semi-rural dwellers may be very different from those in deep rural environments. *Not* having direct possession of a firearm can be a desirable survival option in many instances.
On the flip-side, it’s very easy for the bad guys to lean hard on individuals (e.g. a family member) to get them to reveal where guns are hidden and passing a law making it a mandatory 10 year prison term for even possessing a live round can (and has) made an off-the-books firearm an extremely high risk dalliance.
If it comes to that then we’ve already lost, and I should in theory already be dead.
I decided to stay away from tactics, as there are far more knowledgable folk than I on that subject.
I know the basics.
Don’t get spotted.
First one to die, loses.
Tracers and laser work both ways.
“..can (and has) made an off-the-books firearm an extremely high risk dalliance.”
True. But we have to ask ourselves if being without one would be a far greater risk in a SHTF situation, Flashman.
In that situation LEO’s will fold on the idea of search and seizure if everytime they start kicking in a door they get shot in the back from across the street.
Pick your battles,but if a fight starts,don’t hesitate,finish it.
Just understand that if you’re the guy across the road then you damn well better have an evac location and a fair bit of stuff cached away.
Unless you’re old enough to consider DIP tactics acceptable.
Yep!
I hope that’s an affirmative answer to the former option.
I’d like to hope that one day we can all meet up for lunch and say “yep, we called it alright!”
No, it’s an affirmative answer to the second, Wombat.
We’ll meet in Valhalla and compare notes.
Us poor poms have to make do with slingshots and kitchen knives. Until we pick up the evil alien’s discarded ray guns and such. My only worry is that very few of us have ever seen a firearm, let alone be competent.
There’ll be enough to teach the others, Andy.
There is always an ex- serviceman around who knows how they work
Honestly, if I woke up and found myself stuck in a nation where I had no guns and none could legally be acquired I would take, shall we say, “extralegal” measures to obtain one.
These days it’s easier than ever.
Absolutely.
To be unarmed nowadays is very, very foolish. A triumph of optimism over evidence.
Guns are like fire extinguishers,it’s better to have one and not need it,than to need one and not have it.
I tells ya, I wish libertarianism ran deeply enough in my family for a shipping container to be buried somewhere with my name on it.
Sadly I’m second generation conspiracy theorist and first generation libertarian.
Seems like conspiracy theories are getting scarcer, Wombat. Mostly because so many are proving to be conspiracy fact.
The aliens have been down for a while now, and we are gathering a bit of information on them. That big ship in orbit behind the moon was it.
A pile of them landed and the attacks succeeded mostly because of they control space. But they only have a few ships up there and can’t watch everywhere- just their landing strongholds.
Their warrior class is totally professional- well armed and trained, but it’s a numbers game. We can afford to trade a thousand to one and the odds are better than that. They only have enough troops to hold their LZ’s and the surrounding area, as well as keep our own professional armies from regrouping.
What the resistance are now dealing with are the Quislings. They are supplied by the Aliens, but are wannabes, not warriors. They are the key to the aliens expanding their conquered territories. They are the informants, the tax collectors, the collaborators.
They are our enemy.
They are our targets.
What’s more, the potential for sabotage and simple non-cooperation has barely been explored. They may ultimately prove to be far more effective weapons than open combat.
The alien machine is poised on a knife-edge and it would take very little to destabilize it.
Water. Power. Communications.
And probably more suited to the great majority of patriots.
Yes indeed.
On a related note, there are lots of people who speak casually of killing but very few who could actually pull the trigger or wield the knife at the crucial moment.
Too many video games, and they have a genuine belief that they know what killing is all about.
Very true.
The experiences of ww2 proved that. Many never fired their weapon and from what I have heard, it was a couple of guys in each platoon that did most of the killing.
Yep. The book “On Killing” (forget the author’s name) goes into that in some detail.
Found a free on- line copy
Me too. Thanks for the heads up.
Molotovs are cheap and alien/quisling offices are eminently flammable.
I saw a reference to this (free) book in comments over at Liberty’s Torch.
‘On April 30, 1995, William S. Lind published an op ed in The Washington Post that foresaw a future breakup of the United States, driven by multiculturalism. The piece described not only America’s second civil war, but also a recovery of our traditional, Western, Christian culture. That cultural and moral recovery was led by a new country located in the northeast, which named itself Victoria because it had returned to Victorian values.
Mr. Lind’s op ed has since been turned into a book, Victoria: A Novel of Fourth Generation War, by “Thomas Hobbes,” the well-known theorist of the state and author of Leviathan…’
The book is here:
https://www.traditionalright.com/victoria/
https://archive.org/stream/On_Killing/On_Killing_djvu.txt
Aha! Thanks for that link.
‘On killing’
has the last pieces I need for the book I’m working on!
A very powerful work and full Of stuff I had long suspected. I have seen the reluctance to fire on people on exercise, when others fired in the air or wildly, even with blanks. You could see the real players. They fired carefully aimed shots, ethen though they too had blanks. I was one of them and for VERY frustrated that people did not drop when I fired a shot that I knew would have gone true.