Rural Lifestyle

Life in Rural America

Tag: 22 long rifle for shtf

Firearm for Rural SHTF Bug Out Location

Preparedness Articles, Survival Gear
3 Comments
Shooting AK-47 with ERGO Grip SUREGRIP

What is your ideal firearm for a rural small farm (Bug Out Location)? Purpose is to protect property and livestock. For this article, lets say the setting can be during normal everyday life, and during a long term SHTF / TEOTWAWKI event.

During a SHTF setting, livestock are going to be very difficult to replace.

Its 10 pm, your chickens start making a fuss, what firearm do you grab? Do you use a shotgun, small caliber rifle, medium caliber rifle, or something else?

One of my ideal setups would be for a rifle and a pistol setup to share the same caliber. There are several manufacturers that make carbines in various pistol calibers, such as the 17 HMR, 22 long rifle, 9mm, 357 magnum and 45 acp.

This article will be divided into 3 phases, discussion on shotguns, small calibers for everyday life, larger calibers for post-SHTF / a world without law. Since followup shots may be needed rather quickly, single shot firearms will not be discussed.

Shotgun For Bug Out Location

While a shotgun may be ideal for nighttime, there is a high risk of collateral damage. We want to protect the livestock, and not take the livestock out along with the predator.

Even though the Mossberg 590 is one of my favorite SHTF shotguns, I do not think it is appropriate for livestock protection. The 590 does not have a choke that can be used to change the pattern of the shot. The short barrel of the Mossberg 590 will have a negative effect on the shot pattern as well.

Best Well Rounded Rifle Calibers for Survivalist

Hunting, Survival Gear
Comments
Hunting after SHTF teotwawki

What are some of the best rifle calibers for survivalist? These calibers should be able to fit a range of needs, including hunting wild game in a given area.

There is an old saying I sometimes like to quote, “Always use enough gun.” Because of that, smaller calibers such as the 223/5.56mm, 6mm, and the 243 Winchester should be excluded from the list.

Can small calibers take deer sized game? Sure they can. The question is how humane are they to use?

For my area here in Southeast Texas, the most common calibers are:

  1. 30-30 Winchester
  2. 308 Winchester
  3. 270 Winchester
  4. 30-06 Springfield

Available game are hogs and whitetail deer. Longest shot is going to be around 125 yards. If you are on a pipeline or highline, shots might get out to the 200 yard mark. The rolling hills and thick timber stop the shots from being too long.

Question To The Community

Two Rifle Calibers for SHTF survival

Preparedness Articles, Survival Gear
Comments
22 Long Rifle For SHTF

This evening my wife and I went to the camp (aka Bug Out Location) to check on things. While I was looking through the ammunition stocks, it was like someone turned on a light. I realized the ammo that I was looking at was divided into 2 categories – small rifle (22 long rifle) and medium/large rifle (30-30, 308 and 30-06).

The 223 and 7.62×39 are stored separately from the main hunting calibers. When my family goes to the camp during deer season, they do not need to dig through 500+ rounds of 223 to find a box of 30-06 or 308.

While I was looking at the 22 long rifle and the 30-30, 308 and 30-06 I realized that most people would only need 2 calibers for a shtf survival situation.

1 rifle caliber for small game hunting.

1 rifle caliber for everything else.

22 Long Rifle for SHTF

Stockpiling Ammunition For a Long Term Survival Situation

Hunting, Survival Gear
1 Comment
Stockpiling food and ammunition for long term SHTF situation

Last week my buddy and I were talking about stockpiling ammo for a survival situation – this is when something happens to cause society to break down. Examples are civil unrest, some new disease, climate change,,,,,, something that causes the fabric of mankind to unravel. In general we talked about stockpiling 308, 223, 7.62×39, 22 long rifle and shotgun shells.

My buddy stockpiles 2 different types of ammo for his 308 rifle – ball and hunting ammo.

Ball ammo – is your target round and urban defense round. When my buddy goes to the shooting range, he will shoot ball and most of his magazines are loaded with ball ammo. The plus side of ball ammo, its cheap when compared to the more expensive hunting ammo.

Hunting ammo – this is the ammo your going to be using to hunt deer, moose, elk, wild hogs,,,,, whatever goes in your neck of the woods. Currently my buddy stocks some kind of expensive Hornady ammo that cost something like $35 – $40 for a box of 20.

Kevin Felts © 2008 - 2018