Hypothetical gun choice: SKS vs M1 Carbine

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  • Doctor_M

    Certified Mad Scientist
    MDS Supporter
    I spend a lot of time in the car, so my brain comes up with stupid stuff like this all the time.

    Hypothetical SHTF scenario. You are relaxing in your home when suddenly you realize that the end of the world has crept up on you and it is time to bug out to a safer location. You have your go bag ready with enough essentials to keep you going for a week or more (enough to get you where you are going), but you are loaded down and can't take too much extra weight. The hordes are coming and you have just enough time to grab your bag and one of two weapons sitting in the corner.

    1) SKS with a standard 10 round box magazine and a few stripper clips and 50 rounds of 7.62x39

    or

    2) M1 Carbine with a standard 15 round detachable magazine (and a spare) and 50 rounds of .30 carbine

    Which do you grab knowing that you don't know what you are going to face on the trail?

    Bonus question... would your answer change if you had a 30 round magazine for the carbine?

    I love my M1s but in a survival SHTF situation, I would probably grab the SKS. The extra power would be a better man-stopper and would also be capable of taking a deer while on the trail if needed. Neither are tack drivers and both are most effective under 150 yards, so no real advantage there.

    I might reconsider this if the carbine had a 30 round mag as that would be preferable if encountering human predators... but with only 50 rounds of ammo, I'm not sure how much of a factor reloading would be. My choice would be to escape not stand and confront. So, I guess I'm going to stick with the SKS answer.

    Anybody else want to play?
     

    tallen702

    Ultimate Member
    MDS Supporter
    Sep 3, 2012
    5,102
    In the boonies of MoCo
    SKS. Hate to say it because I love the M1 Carbine, but .30 carbine is a much weaker round. The added lethal range of x39mm, added stopping power, multi-roll capabilities, and honestly, the stripper clip loading situation works better for me. Once you've dumped 2 mags of .30 carbine, you're going to have to beat a hasty retreat or stop to reload a mag. With strippers in the internal mag of an SKS, you reload more often, but much more quickly. Also, in a survival scenario, additional 7.62x39 is going to be far more plentiful to scrounge than .30 carbine. Every big box store that sells ammo (and every LGS for that matter) stocks x39, not so much .30car.
     

    44man

    Ultimate Member
    MDS Supporter
    Feb 19, 2013
    10,129
    southern md
    My sks takes ak mags but since you don’t have that in the scope, ....... since 30 carbone rounds are difficult to find sometimes I would still go sks since there’s a better chance at finding ammo, at least in my mind
     

    Boom Boom

    Hold my beer. Watch this.
    Jul 16, 2010
    16,834
    Carroll
    Easy choice between those two: SKS. In general, I think an AR-15 carbine would be a better choice.
     

    Ap1026

    Active Member
    Jul 25, 2017
    114
    I also say SKS, the ammo is more plentiful which is a huge deciding factor for me. The added power of 7.62x39 is nice as well.
     

    Melnic

    Ultimate Member
    MDS Supporter
    Dec 27, 2012
    15,280
    HoCo
    Not a fair fight. SKS
    I think you need a tougher opponent for the SKS.
    You can defend better and if needed hunt with SKS better

    Neither will allow you to defend against the hordes alone.
    Better have a Bayo w/ that M1 also. Cause when you run out of ammo, at least the SKS will scare some of the horde off.
     

    bkuether

    Judge not this race .....
    Jan 18, 2012
    6,212
    Marriottsville, MD
    Not a fair fight. SKS
    I think you need a tougher opponent for the SKS.
    You can defend better and if needed hunt with SKS better

    Neither will allow you to defend against the hordes alone.
    Better have a Bayo w/ that M1 also. Cause when you run out of ammo, at least the SKS will scare some of the horde off.

    Good point. The bayo on my Yugo is enough to scare anyone! Also have that scary grenade launcher, so pretty much my SKS is a libtard hoard scary machine!
     

    Melnic

    Ultimate Member
    MDS Supporter
    Dec 27, 2012
    15,280
    HoCo
    Good point. The bayo on my Yugo is enough to scare anyone! Also have that scary grenade launcher, so pretty much my SKS is a libtard hoard scary machine!

    If its a horde of snowflakes, you only need to launch a bag of dum dum lollipops to disperse the crowd.
     

    Biggfoot44

    Ultimate Member
    Aug 2, 2009
    32,877
    You stacked the question to get an answer of SKS .

    If you changed the parameters to grab gun and 500rds of ammo , the answer would be M-1 Carbine .
     

    zoopal

    Active Member
    Jun 13, 2013
    232
    I spend a lot of time in the car, so my brain comes up with stupid stuff like this all the time.

    Hypothetical SHTF scenario. You are relaxing in your home when suddenly you realize that the end of the world has crept up on you and it is time to bug out to a safer location. You have your go bag ready with enough essentials to keep you going for a week or more (enough to get you where you are going), but you are loaded down and can't take too much extra weight. The hordes are coming and you have just enough time to grab your bag and one of two weapons sitting in the corner.

    1) SKS with a standard 10 round box magazine and a few stripper clips and 50 rounds of 7.62x39

    or

    2) M1 Carbine with a standard 15 round detachable magazine (and a spare) and 50 rounds of .30 carbine

    Which do you grab knowing that you don't know what you are going to face on the trail?

    Bonus question... would your answer change if you had a 30 round magazine for the carbine?

    I love my M1s but in a survival SHTF situation, I would probably grab the SKS. The extra power would be a better man-stopper and would also be capable of taking a deer while on the trail if needed. Neither are tack drivers and both are most effective under 150 yards, so no real advantage there.

    I might reconsider this if the carbine had a 30 round mag as that would be preferable if encountering human predators... but with only 50 rounds of ammo, I'm not sure how much of a factor reloading would be. My choice would be to escape not stand and confront. So, I guess I'm going to stick with the SKS answer.

    Anybody else want to play?

    For me, pick the one you feel more comfortable with
     

    Doctor_M

    Certified Mad Scientist
    MDS Supporter
    Biggfoot44... I'll accept that variable change... how bout we say that you can grab your rifle and 10 lbs of ammo. The weight of 7.62 vs .30car is actually a serious consideration.

    By my back of the envelop that would be:

    276 rounds of 7.62x39

    or

    420 rounds of .30 carbine.
    and I'll even throw in a bayonet for the carbine.

    Anybody want to change their answer? 50% more ammo is tempting, but again, my strategy would be to stay low, not engage unless needed, and get were I needed to be as quickly as possible... I would hope that I wouldn't need a double combat load of ammo to do that... but it is a fun mental exercise.
     

    campns

    Ultimate Member
    Mar 6, 2013
    1,191
    Germantown, MD
    Biggfoot44... I'll accept that variable change... how bout we say that you can grab your rifle and 10 lbs of ammo. The weight of 7.62 vs .30car is actually a serious consideration.

    By my back of the envelop that would be:

    276 rounds of 7.62x39

    or

    420 rounds of .30 carbine.
    and I'll even throw in a bayonet for the carbine.

    Anybody want to change their answer? 50% more ammo is tempting, but again, my strategy would be to stay low, not engage unless needed, and get were I needed to be as quickly as possible... I would hope that I wouldn't need a double combat load of ammo to do that... but it is a fun mental exercise.

    That is where my mind is going ... if your going to packing all of this on your back weight is really the biggest factor. hence why I think the 30 carbine but I would rather use an AR platform for that purpose alone which yields you about 350+ rounds plus gets you scroungability.
     

    Melnic

    Ultimate Member
    MDS Supporter
    Dec 27, 2012
    15,280
    HoCo
    I think I would be putting ammo/stripper clips/mags in a 30 cal ammo can.
    Is that 10 lbs? I never measured it.
    For range convenience and possible SHTF, that is how I store my AR, Garand and SKS ammo (but not my M1 Carbine ammo)
    AR on stripper clips plus 2 mags in the can
    SKS all on stripper clips
    Garand all on enbloc clips

    I"m not so much a prepper. I do believe in the possible "shelter in your home" for 2 weeks scenario.
     

    Half-cocked

    Senior Meatbag
    Mar 14, 2006
    23,937
    SKS, no question.

    In addition to power, 7.62x39 ammo will be 1000X more plentiful than .30 carbine, post-SHTF.
     

    tallen702

    Ultimate Member
    MDS Supporter
    Sep 3, 2012
    5,102
    In the boonies of MoCo
    Biggfoot44... I'll accept that variable change... how bout we say that you can grab your rifle and 10 lbs of ammo. The weight of 7.62 vs .30car is actually a serious consideration.

    By my back of the envelop that would be:

    276 rounds of 7.62x39

    or

    420 rounds of .30 carbine.
    and I'll even throw in a bayonet for the carbine.

    Anybody want to change their answer? 50% more ammo is tempting, but again, my strategy would be to stay low, not engage unless needed, and get were I needed to be as quickly as possible... I would hope that I wouldn't need a double combat load of ammo to do that... but it is a fun mental exercise.

    Still going SKS. Scroungeability is HUGE. In a SHTF scenario, you don't know what the future holds. 420 rounds may be enough, it might not. So I want to be sure and keep the rifle that is going to make it easier to find more ammo in the long run.

    Also, SKS is far easier to repair with minimal tooling. As seen in Chechnya and other post-soviet hell-holes the world over, you can take parts from a SKS or AK and make a working weapon out of them and standard hardware store findings. I don't think you can say as much for the M1 Carbine.
     

    TexDefender

    Ultimate Member
    Feb 28, 2017
    1,572
    I personally would go with the M1 Carbine. This is do to the fact the carbine is shorter and lighter. Hence, if the goal is to evade and travel fast, then stopping power is not necessary a huge factor. The .30 cal is still lethal, so if push comes to shove you could still use the carbine to obtain a more powerful weapon, under the right situation or circumstance.
     

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