SHTF What Rifle do you grab?

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  • Jimbob2.0

    Ultimate Member
    Feb 20, 2008
    16,600
    Hate to say it but AR15, my most proven gun is my Delton carbine and one of the first I built. Proven, easy to maintain. Small parts pack for small parts...………..and a Ruger Mk IV target pistol accurate enough for game and small enough to pack. Eotech for immediate tactical needs and quality back-up sights that have a fairly fine aperture. Ammo is relatively light as are the Pmags.

    Lets face it the first two guns you leave with will either be someone else's or you will be picking up someone else's depending on the nature of the event. You cant carry enough ammo to be sustainable.
     

    rockstarr

    Major Deplorable
    Feb 25, 2013
    4,592
    The Bolshevik Lands
    I could see if in a rural setting grabbing a .22 and heading for the hills might buy you some time. IMO your bigger threat in Md would be panic stricken people. Defense trumps food procurement, so in my present location I like 5.56, besides there are easier ways to get food than shooting it.

    Panic stricken folks coming for whatever they don’t have, and think you should give them. That situation turns ugly quick.
     

    owgriffin

    Member
    May 15, 2012
    51
    Bugout package

    One in 5.56, one in 7.63x39 and the 10/22.
    Hopefully there will be other people to help carry the loadout
     

    1841DNG

    Ultimate Member
    Apr 17, 2016
    1,143
    I am a large guy so I can could probably tote a little bit extra weight. I would probably take an AR-Pistol/SBR and a second upper for some versatility. And like others have said I would also grab a light 22lr target pistol.
     

    Magnumite

    Ultimate Member
    Dec 17, 2007
    6,564
    Harford County, Maryland
    Panic stricken folks coming for whatever they don’t have, and think you should give them. That situation turns ugly quick.

    A member of the 1911forum posted a link to an interview with a Serbian citizen, IIRC. Regular guy like us. When the infrastructure deteriorated because of the war he related how others will behave and how our own behaviors change. He related it was because the standards are different. He also related material priorities.
     

    scout6

    Active Member
    Sep 28, 2016
    599
    Ceciltucky
    Tl;dr AR-15 covers all scenarios



    Now the wall of text....


    Like many have said, depends on the situation.


    Short term SHTF scenario: Such as civil unrest, small geographical area storm damage. Isolated incidents.
    - Limited interruption to logistics, i.e. gas and food still rolling in.
    - Limited interruption to electrical grid
    - Medical still available, potential for reduced effectiveness.
    - Civil disturbance will be mostly centered in the urban districts, and will overwhelm local enforcement. Think LA riots. Be a roof Korean.
    - Shelter in place, form defensive neighborhood militia, neighbors helping neighbors
    - Short mini-bugout to family/friend nearby rally point for shelter in place. I.E a family farm house.
    Weapon of choice: Any and all weapons, as you'll have access to your full inventory and ammo supply. Biggest threats will be looters or wreck it mobs. Neither of which is going to want to stand toe to toe exchanging rounds or travel too far from their own base. Even a .22 will discourage someone who was looking for a soft target and doesn't want to risk their lives. Shotguns are equally affective.


    Mid length SHTF scenario: Larger natural disaster, energy-grid hacked and shut down short term, viral outbreak, etc
    - Intermediary interruption to logistics. Gas and food in limited quantities being brought in by emergency management to centralized distribution points. Household gardens providing limited food. (Pending time of year)
    - Longer interruption to electrical grid. Local solar, generator backups run, freezer food still viable for a short time extending household food supply for the short term. Game animals can provide some supplemental food , but limited.
    - Will affect a much larger geographical area, and will overwhelm local, state, and federal resources. Think Katrina but worse.
    - Medical Triage level of care. Medical available but significant life threatening injuries and long term care not realistically supportable.
    - Same plan of shelter in place as shorter scenario, unless dire need to evacuate. Begin plans for travel to family / friends outside of effected area if need be. Set aside spare gas to take with vehicles at expense of use in generators, etc.

    Weapon of choice: Any decent caliber weapons as before. You'll be facing aggressive humans. A .22 won't be your best bang unless you’re out of ammo for the rest. AR-15, AR-10, etc are first choice, hunting rifles are fine too. Leave the shotgun at home; you'll want range and capacity. Biggest threats will be the passing through crowds; those looking for food, water, and anything else they think they need and think you have. Potential larger organized groups causing increase in confrontations and risk. Neighborhood militia may need to become offensive to encourage the flow elsewhere and to convoy to the distribution points for group security. Movement groups may risk confrontation if they feel it is to their advantage.

    Long term SHTF: EMP, government collapse, Yellowstone blows up, zombie apocalypse, etc.
    - Logistics down. Gas and food won't be rolling in. Grocery stores empty.
    - Electrical grid out and won't be coming back any time soon
    - Significant area affected.
    - Medical care first responder level. If you can pack it to fix it, good to go, otherwise, SoL.
    - External help will be very limited.
    - Here is the hard part:
    -- Food will dry up, faster than you think. Americans are use to a lot of on-demand food. Rationing will have to be done at the very beginning with what you have. Very few people in America know what real hunger is. You can expect local militia, government, to confiscate your food, "for the good of the community". You'll have to give in or you'll have to fight to keep it. You'll have to face you own moral decisions. Do you give you're neighbor a can of food that you know you will need and risk another neighbor noticing. Word gets around that you have food.
    -- Game animals. Those expecting to be able to hunt a steady supply of food and thinking a .22 to be handy may want to rethink. It's a numbers game. A significant number of artificially fed humans (food grown elsewhere, mass processed, and shipped in) versus the number of available game animal. There won't be anything alive to shoot at before too long. "Hey, has anyone seen our Chihuahua,..... shut up and eat your rabbit stew child...."
    -- Medications. Not just the usual stuff, heart medication, diabetic supplies like insulin, antibiotics, etc. The big kick in the jimmie: anti-depressants, anti-psychotics. Think about a bunch of Schizophrenic, bi-polar, depressed people in a high stress chaotic environment who just went off their meds.....
    -- Cholera and other sanitation problems.
    -- It will be an all out fight for survival and shelter in place may not be viable. Everyone will be moving and taking what they can from whatever/whoever. People will be hungry and desperate. Sure, there will be good people, but charity will only hold out for so long.

    Is it time to bug out?. Hopefully you had a plan in advanced and a location that can provide long term security and food production.... AND, the locals are expecting and willing to take you in. Cabin in the woods? Willing to lay odds it hasn't already been ransacked or taken over already. The tricky part is to know when to move: the frog/water thing. It’s not the boiling water that kills the frog; it is that the frog does not know to jump sooner. Probably most of us will fall into the refugee heading to whatever greener pastures we think awaits us in a certain direction.

    This one is obviously the most difficult to fathom and plan for. I am no longer able to throw 150lbs on my back and move out using LPCs like I used to. Leather Personnel Carriers aka boots. My wife, mother, father, etc are not going to be able to either. Vehicles will get you only so far; as most likely, whatever you have in the tank is it plus dead vehicles blocking roadways. You'll be a target if you haven't moved early enough when supplies were available, and now people are looking for anything with gas. ATVs, off-road bikes a good alternative, but has its own drawbacks.

    Weapon of choice: Assuming you can and have to move, and most likely on foot the choice would have to be the AR-15 or similar. Weight, ease of use, commonality. Useful as a great visual threat / deterrence weapon. There will be scrounging of ammo including from government resources, the odds are in your favor to go with the most common.
     

    photoracer

    Competition Shooter
    Oct 22, 2010
    3,318
    West Virginia
    A lot should depend on your situation. I live on an almost 200 ac. cattle farm. Most of my sight lines are from 200-500 yards or more except down the main road which is covered by wide angle motion sensors. So a 3-gun AR makes sense. While I have bug-out supplies its more for hunkering down than bugging out. Few if any neighbors other than other working farms. In the city or suburbs I would opt for something designed for shorter engagement range, like shotgun, short-barreled AR or 9mm carbine, all of which I also have. All of them do competition duty.
     

    hogarth

    Ultimate Member
    Jun 13, 2009
    2,504
    In my mind nothing beats a 3-gun AR that you regularly shoot and compete with. Designed to engage targets from 10 feet to 600 yards without changing anything on the rifle already, handles any size magazine you use in competition no matter how big, a faster trigger than any mil-spec AR, and the most important thing is it feels like it belongs in your hands.
    Nothing worse than trying to defend you and yours with something you hardly ever shoot.

    A lot (not all) 3 gun ARs are set up with carbon fiber furniture (light but not robust), have brakes rather than flash hiders (advertising rather than reducing muzzle signature), lack back up sights (a must in a true SHTF scenario), and some competition triggers might be dicey to use when wearing gloves, etc. I'd go with other options.
     

    jimbobborg

    Oddball caliber fan
    Aug 2, 2010
    17,112
    Northern Virginia
    A lot (not all) 3 gun ARs are set up with carbon fiber furniture (light but not robust), have brakes rather than flash hiders (advertising rather than reducing muzzle signature), lack back up sights (a must in a true SHTF scenario), and some competition triggers might be dicey to use when wearing gloves, etc. I'd go with other options.

    Yeah, we're really delicate with our rifles when we dump them in barrels or slam into barriers during stages. BTW, most of my brakes double as flash suppressors, backup sights take a few minutes to install, and a lot of people use and recommend Geissele triggers for hard use carbines and 3-gun.
     

    jrhzn

    Banned
    BANNED!!!
    Aug 17, 2017
    280
    Tl;dr AR-15 covers all scenarios



    Now the wall of text....


    Like many have said, depends on the situation.


    Short term SHTF scenario: Such as civil unrest, small geographical area storm damage. Isolated incidents.
    - Limited interruption to logistics, i.e. gas and food still rolling in.
    - Limited interruption to electrical grid
    - Medical still available, potential for reduced effectiveness.
    - Civil disturbance will be mostly centered in the urban districts, and will overwhelm local enforcement. Think LA riots. Be a roof Korean.
    - Shelter in place, form defensive neighborhood militia, neighbors helping neighbors
    - Short mini-bugout to family/friend nearby rally point for shelter in place. I.E a family farm house.
    Weapon of choice: Any and all weapons, as you'll have access to your full inventory and ammo supply. Biggest threats will be looters or wreck it mobs. Neither of which is going to want to stand toe to toe exchanging rounds or travel too far from their own base. Even a .22 will discourage someone who was looking for a soft target and doesn't want to risk their lives. Shotguns are equally affective.


    Mid length SHTF scenario: Larger natural disaster, energy-grid hacked and shut down short term, viral outbreak, etc
    - Intermediary interruption to logistics. Gas and food in limited quantities being brought in by emergency management to centralized distribution points. Household gardens providing limited food. (Pending time of year)
    - Longer interruption to electrical grid. Local solar, generator backups run, freezer food still viable for a short time extending household food supply for the short term. Game animals can provide some supplemental food , but limited.
    - Will affect a much larger geographical area, and will overwhelm local, state, and federal resources. Think Katrina but worse.
    - Medical Triage level of care. Medical available but significant life threatening injuries and long term care not realistically supportable.
    - Same plan of shelter in place as shorter scenario, unless dire need to evacuate. Begin plans for travel to family / friends outside of effected area if need be. Set aside spare gas to take with vehicles at expense of use in generators, etc.

    Weapon of choice: Any decent caliber weapons as before. You'll be facing aggressive humans. A .22 won't be your best bang unless you’re out of ammo for the rest. AR-15, AR-10, etc are first choice, hunting rifles are fine too. Leave the shotgun at home; you'll want range and capacity. Biggest threats will be the passing through crowds; those looking for food, water, and anything else they think they need and think you have. Potential larger organized groups causing increase in confrontations and risk. Neighborhood militia may need to become offensive to encourage the flow elsewhere and to convoy to the distribution points for group security. Movement groups may risk confrontation if they feel it is to their advantage.

    Long term SHTF: EMP, government collapse, Yellowstone blows up, zombie apocalypse, etc.
    - Logistics down. Gas and food won't be rolling in. Grocery stores empty.
    - Electrical grid out and won't be coming back any time soon
    - Significant area affected.
    - Medical care first responder level. If you can pack it to fix it, good to go, otherwise, SoL.
    - External help will be very limited.
    - Here is the hard part:
    -- Food will dry up, faster than you think. Americans are use to a lot of on-demand food. Rationing will have to be done at the very beginning with what you have. Very few people in America know what real hunger is. You can expect local militia, government, to confiscate your food, "for the good of the community". You'll have to give in or you'll have to fight to keep it. You'll have to face you own moral decisions. Do you give you're neighbor a can of food that you know you will need and risk another neighbor noticing. Word gets around that you have food.
    -- Game animals. Those expecting to be able to hunt a steady supply of food and thinking a .22 to be handy may want to rethink. It's a numbers game. A significant number of artificially fed humans (food grown elsewhere, mass processed, and shipped in) versus the number of available game animal. There won't be anything alive to shoot at before too long. "Hey, has anyone seen our Chihuahua,..... shut up and eat your rabbit stew child...."
    -- Medications. Not just the usual stuff, heart medication, diabetic supplies like insulin, antibiotics, etc. The big kick in the jimmie: anti-depressants, anti-psychotics. Think about a bunch of Schizophrenic, bi-polar, depressed people in a high stress chaotic environment who just went off their meds.....
    -- Cholera and other sanitation problems.
    -- It will be an all out fight for survival and shelter in place may not be viable. Everyone will be moving and taking what they can from whatever/whoever. People will be hungry and desperate. Sure, there will be good people, but charity will only hold out for so long.

    Is it time to bug out?. Hopefully you had a plan in advanced and a location that can provide long term security and food production.... AND, the locals are expecting and willing to take you in. Cabin in the woods? Willing to lay odds it hasn't already been ransacked or taken over already. The tricky part is to know when to move: the frog/water thing. It’s not the boiling water that kills the frog; it is that the frog does not know to jump sooner. Probably most of us will fall into the refugee heading to whatever greener pastures we think awaits us in a certain direction.

    This one is obviously the most difficult to fathom and plan for. I am no longer able to throw 150lbs on my back and move out using LPCs like I used to. Leather Personnel Carriers aka boots. My wife, mother, father, etc are not going to be able to either. Vehicles will get you only so far; as most likely, whatever you have in the tank is it plus dead vehicles blocking roadways. You'll be a target if you haven't moved early enough when supplies were available, and now people are looking for anything with gas. ATVs, off-road bikes a good alternative, but has its own drawbacks.

    Weapon of choice: Assuming you can and have to move, and most likely on foot the choice would have to be the AR-15 or similar. Weight, ease of use, commonality. Useful as a great visual threat / deterrence weapon. There will be scrounging of ammo including from government resources, the odds are in your favor to go with the most common.

    Great write up and explanation!!!
     

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