THE FRUGAL SURVIVALIST
DIGEST 6
PROTECTION
The world isn’t so safe of
a place for failing empires anymore. For
the last five hundred years one European country ( and then one country of
European immigrants ) after another passed the torch from one to another. The constant then was that there was a global
increase in surplus energy ( as far as the beneficiary country was concerned,
anyway ) and now there isn’t. Before, a
country was allowed to retire from the empire game relatively peacefully, left
alone to contract to Third World status.
That country was no longer low hanging fruit and to exploit it was
counter-productive ( the prize was always the highest yielding energy source
). Now, as the global energy yield
contracts there won’t be any more global empires and there won’t be any
peaceful place left to view the collapse from.
Great Britain was allowed to contract for nearly a century with
relatively little pain, having the luxury of gun control to attain a mirage of
peace, until the recent Muslim invasion.
We aren’t England and we won’t get any peace during the collapse. You had better be able to protect yourself.
*
FIREARMS
You have a choice in
firearms, new or surplus, and each has good and bad points. Surplus was made for heavy abuse in nasty
conditions and designed to shoot a very long time. Alas, they are no longer cheap like they
were for the last hundred years. You
could adjust for inflation and claim that the price is the same it always was,
but I disagree. In relation to new
firearms they are no longer affordable.
After fifty years of survivalist scares the supply has finally run out
and nobody is left begging you to get rid of them ( the Mosin-Nagant might have
been the exception until the First Kenyan Clown pissed off Putin and Russia
halted exports ). And new firearms
although more affordable than in the past, also can have quality issues. Let’s compare.
*
SURPLUS
There are three types of
surplus rifles you can find the cheapest and have a hope of finding the
ammunition for. The forth one would be
the Swiss bolt action from WWII. If you
can find one reasonably priced and can reload all your own after finding a
supply of brass, they get rave reviews for accuracy and craftsmanship, but I
wouldn’t recommend them to the average survivalist ( in other words, unless you
know what you are doing ). The regular
three are the Lee-Enfield British, the Mauser designed by Germans and licensed
for production everywhere and last the Russian Mosin-Nagant. The Enfield is great in the mud and muck and
reliable, although less of a marksman’s gun that a volley weapon ( what the
Brits had been doing militarily since the longbow ). The Mauser is a much better precision shooter
but very temperamental about being dirty.
The Enfield shoots under any condition with less accuracy, like an AK-47
and the Mauser hits its target much better but jams easily, like the M-16.
*
The Mosin-Nagant is a vile
piece of crap and the only thing it had going for it was its extremely low
price of $75 when everything else was going for $150-$200. And the ammo was embarrassingly cheap. But here is the thing. Until the 1930’s, ammunition components were
not real safe. The guns designed in the
1890’s had to worry about ruptured cases from less stable gunpowder and primer
malfunctions. The Enfield and the Mauser
had a gas bleed safety to safeguard the user from those occurrences. The Mosin-Nagant did NOT. As Russian manufactured items were not only
not always high quality I wouldn’t trust their ammunition in this gun, and in
the future when you are reduced to home improvised manufacture, again the lack
of a safety for substandard ammo will become an issue. Now that these guns are in the $300 range, and
mostly the surplus ammo is gone, there is ZERO reason to buy a Russian surplus
bolt gun.
*
I am partial to the
Enfield. When I bought them, ‘95-’05,
they were $100 to $150. I love the
ergonomics and won’t trade them for the more accurate Mausers ( and that is
after my continual stress over ammunition logistics ). To me, field reliability is worth sacrificing
some accuracy, although to be honest I’ll never be more than a middlin shooter
anyway. But that is just me. Each is a great tool for what it was designed
for. Now, the price is up to around
$300. If you do buy one, make sure it is
the no.4 model, NOT the no.1 ( WWII rather than the WWI one )( the difference
is in better design but more importantly to the user, the no.4 has peep sites
rather than leaf and post ). Also avoid
the no.5’s, the jungle carbines. A
terrible design. I’d also avoid the
Indian .308 conversions as they use the no.1’s and there isn’t much difference
in .308 or .303 ammo price wise. You can
buy the Enfield ammo all day long, just not war surplus anymore ( but the same
is true in .308 ). Mausers I have no
experience with, but the Net is full of info for you.
*
NEW
The new manufactured
weapons have the advantage of NOT being beaten to crap, not having their bores
shot to hell and being more accurate.
Alas, a lot of them are flimsy and not designed for sustained use or
much abuse in the field ( the hunting rifles are designed to be affordable and
be shot a few times a year-and to look pretty.
NOT to last a lifetime or in a lot of cases to have much quality at
all. At least for the budget items,
which is were we are here. Let’s discuss
the three classes in your price range.
It used to be $100-$200 but now it is $200-$300.
*
More Guns Tomorrow. Yes, there will be a Saturday post.
END
Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at
the top of the page. IF YOU DON’T SEE
THE AD, DISABLE AD BLOCK ( go to the Ad Blocker while on my page and scroll
down the menu to “disable this site” ). You can purchase anything, not just the
linked item. Enter Amazon through my item link and then go to whatever other
item you desire. As long as you don’t leave Amazon until after the order is
placed, I get credit for your purchase. For those that can’t get the
ads because they are blocked by your software, just PayPal me occasionally or
buy me something from my Amazon Wish List once a year. Pay your author-no one works for free. I’m nice enough to publish for mere Book
Money, so do your part.***
*Contact Information* Links To Other Blogs * Land In Elko* Lord Bison* my bio & biblio* my web site is www.bisonprepper.com *wal-mart wheat
*Link To All My Published Books
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there
*Contact Information* Links To Other Blogs * Land In Elko* Lord Bison* my bio & biblio* my web site is www.bisonprepper.com *wal-mart wheat
*Link To All My Published Books
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there
Very few people need a battle rifle for home defense, in fact it's impractical as all hell. Harder then heck to swing around in a home, slow follow-up shot.
ReplyDeleteRifles do have a lot of power, but they are made for long-range shooting. You can't just shoot people at 250+yards and call it self defense. It's murder and the government (and only a real fool thinks government is going to evaporate and never come back. Yes it may be busy with other things for a bit during the first stages of an event, but it will get around to dealing with people that were murdered.) will put you in jail. How's that going to fit into your survival plans? My guess, not so well.
As far as home defense a pistol or shotgun is a much better choice.
I traded a High Point 9-MM pistol for $80.00 worth of work a few years ago. I don't need it as I have lots of other guns. But a paper-less gun is always nice to have. And while it's a piece of junk, I can't seem to get the High Point to jam. It goes BOOM every time and is a MUCH better choice for things that go bump in the night at 3AM.
I see High Points for $125 every so often at gun shows so don’t come back with it was a one-time deal.
I see handguns all the time less then $200.00, There are many 38 Spl. revolvers in that range.
If you can't find these deals, all you need to do is hang out with other gun people, we are always swapping around guns at good prices.
Heck I had a guy (96-years old) sell me 3 handguns for $50.00 each because he knew he was going to die soon (He died 8-months after we made this deal, his daughter never figured out where the guns went.) and that his daughter hated guns and said she was going to have the police destroy them. I got a Colt 25-auto, a High Standard Sentinel (9-shot 22) and a Colt 38 Spl. All from the mid-1950’s. the High Standard Sentinel is a handy gun to have and play with, mostly play with. But then it’s a useless 22 isn’t it???
Then again not even John Rambo would laugh off 9 shots from it, so just maby it’s not as useless as you think it is.
Not a normal deal, but there are deals on the used market for those of us that look for them.
And shotguns are easy to find for $200.00 or less.
Chuck Findlay
I was thinking on Hi-Point to get the carbine with it, and then I was thinking on a 9mm as a concealed carry/pre-Apoc defense gun, but all that is way down the road as I am still constrained budget wise. I'll probably always will be. My 357 is hammerless and a snub so it will work just fine if needed.
DeleteThe quality of firearms has been declining for some time now James. Even my beloved Stevens model 9478 single shot shotgun purchased as a boy in 1978, had been cheapened a little. It came with a plastic trigger guard and action release, though it appears to be the high impact super plastic, and to be fair, it has held up for all these years. The hammer was cast though, and it snapped on me one day. Luckily I was able to find a replacement.
ReplyDeleteFor new purchases, the single shot break actions are probably pretty strong.
I actually purchased an inline muzzleloader some years back on the advice of the mainstream survivalist dude way back before someone trash talked you and I ended up here. It wasn't advice really, but he mentioned something once to the effect that they're good strong guns for the price. It seemed like sound logic so I got one. Not super quick to load, but quick enough as long as you have some distance between you and your target. I'm not suggesting that anyone get one, I just thought that I would throw it out there.
With black powder, I just feel like if you are going to go that primitive you might as well go all the way and go with a flintlock. Why have primitive powder that needs a modern primer? I am thinking correctly, they use I thought a shotgun primer? I thought about getting one myself-they do have a few things to recommend them.
DeleteI probably should have just left out that last paragraph on the inline muzzleloader James. I just decided to throw that in, but I wasn't exactly recommending that anyone get one. And I agree on the flintlock musket as I'm the minion that always says that they're the last gun to still be firing when all is said and done.
DeleteNo, no reason to have left it out. As I said, it has enough attributes I was considering one over a flintlock myself. We've all bought ahead of our learning curve. How can you avoid it? And once you've stocked the extra primers it no longer becomes an issue. I bought $100 worth of rimfire ammo recently and hated myself for it-ten years ago that bought 5 times the ammo. I was stuck supporting a legacy purchase. Same with your inline. If I was starting now I'd go all 9mm for my Forever Modern Gun.
DeleteOne thing that I could add with regards to the inlines James, is that they are the most effective muzzleloaders to be had. A modern inline can fire the pre-made gunpowder pellets. You can carry these pellets instead of the powder measure and flask for convenience, and for much quicker loading. For bullets, the sabots have a plastic jacket and are easier to ram down the barrel. Basically I guess what I'm getting at here is that they are fairly quick to load, and also quite effective. Most fire 150 grains in pellet form (That's 3 pellets).
DeleteStill not recommending that anyone get one as a primary post apocalypse rifle though.
As far as non-prepper, mainstream firearm for sale, really a problem in search for a solution :)
DeleteI guess the take away here James is that I post about the muzzleloaders because some people can't legally purchase or possess firearms (which muzzleloaders are not considered to be). Not saying that such folks should feel brazen in brandishing them about, particularly around LEO's, but they are an option.
DeleteIt doesn't take much to compromise one's rights. A misdemeanor domestic charge is a lifetime ban, and all that takes is one convincing, spiteful ex.
I don't fall into the above category, but I know of plenty of people that do.
I'd agree, a very good choice, along with a revolver reproduction, for folks unable to be armed legally. I hadn't thought of that. That is why we have a comments section. Thank goodness, right? :)
DeleteI'm surprised that you don't ever mention America's first true assault rifle. The later action carbine. Considering that the 30/30 is the most widely sold rifle other than the POS AR....
ReplyDeleteIt is just a personal dislike. Over-priced, weighs too much, crap sites. Good for pairing with a revolver caliber but not much else to like. For me.
DeleteI would say they are good guns, Marlin 30/30's are responsible for millions of deer being killed.
DeleteI have the 1894 version of it, it's in 357 Mag and I put a William's peep site on it,, made it much nicer to shoot
10-shots of 357 Mag makes for a good response to someone bent on doing you bad. It and the Smith revolver males for a good combo.
Chuck Findlay
You have to recalibrate every decade or so. 30-30 lever guns used to be not much money new, now they are a bit pricy. Same thing for revolvers, except for maybe some of the Phillipine made ones, which have some limitations. Glad I bought when I did. Except for semiauto handguns and AR15s, most else has gotten more expensive or lower in quality.
DeleteI assume the Taurus brand is still reasonable? I only check general prices through Shotgun News ( I hate calling it by its new name ). Is there a better way to check up on prices?
DeleteI agree with Chuck on this one. I have two Marlins, one in 30/30 and one in 45 Colt, both with the Williams peep site. So far as price, even with the after market sight they come in well under an AR. With much more stopping power too !
DeleteOf course, to be fair, what doesn't have more stopping power than an AR?
DeleteThe stopping power debate is really a moot point. AR's have more then enough of it. I have a TC Contender 223 barrel (a single shot handgun) and the 223 (and even the 17 Remington barrel) is very deadly. I use the 17 Rem and 223 to kill woodchucks and the 223 will explode a woodchuck with the right bullet. I use a 50-grain Nosler Expander (it really does a job on them, can you say red-fog?) in it.
DeleteA 223 or, 9-MM, 357 Mag, 30/30 all will kill you quite well. Give me any of them and I can stop anyone that is bent on hurting me. Heck a Ruger 10/22 with a factory 10-round mag can stop a person just about as well. Put a Butler Creek 25-round mag (I have like 9 of these) makes it even more deadly.
I have a few bolt action 22's and post-SHTF I think these may be more useful then a Ruger 10/22, but any one of them is more then up to the task of making bad people go away forever. And a bolt action by design is a much better gun as far as ammo use. This is always important to a prepper that is on a budget. I have a LOT of 22 ammo, but that doesn't mean I just burn it up to hear the gun go boom.
Bottom line learn to place your bullets on target and you will not have a problem with any gun or caliber doing it's job of killing.
No one likes the thought of getting shot even with a 22 long rifle. Add to that the fact of a real chance of limited to no medical care post-SHTF and people will even more so try very hard to not do things that may get them shot.
Yes there will be a few people that don't get that a 22 can kill you as well as a 9-MM, but Darwin will weed these fools out fairly quickly.
PS: James, just wondering, do you have an air rifle? It makes a good small game gun (I notice there is a shortage of stray cats in my neighborhood for some reason, can't understand it???) I have a Gamo rifle and a Webley Alecto pistol, both in .177. The Gamo is a 1,000 + fps gun and good to kill something at 40-yards.
But even a Crosman-760 is more then good enough to harvest small game, I did a lot of it as a kid. And pellets are inexpensive, a lot more then they use to be, but still not too bad. And an air rifle / pistol is fairly quiet.
Chuck Findlay
No, no air rifle yet. It is just too far down the list. I'm still doubling down on basics. If I ever do go with one it will be the Chinese one we've talked about here.
DeleteMosin-Nagant surplus ammo came in two flavors, full power 180 grain (I think), as in slightly stronger than .30-06, and a less powerful 147 grain (I think). If you're buying surplus, see if you can get the lower power level one. It should reduce the hazard from not having a gas bleed hole in the action. Also, once your manly pecs shrivel away from nutritional and caloric deficiencies, the steel buttplate won't hurt your shoulder as much and you should be more accurate due to being less likely to flinch.
ReplyDeletePeace out
So, you are okay with REDUCING the hazard rather than ELIMINATING it?
DeleteJim,
ReplyDeleteRegarding your love for the Enfield yet disdain for the ishapore - from weaponeer.net:
"The Ishapore 2A and 2A1 rifles are often incorrectly described as ".308 conversions". In fact, the 2A/2A1 rifles are not conversions of .303 calibre SMLE Mk III* rifles: they were designed and built right from the outset to fire 7.62mm NATO ammunition. Although the 7.62mm NATO and commercial .308 Winchester ammunition are physically interchangeable, these weapons were not designed for use with commercial .308 Winchester ammunition."
I have a couple of Ishapores and can say from personal experience, they are great all-around rifles. Tough as hell, reliable functioning and adequately accurate. I suggest you consider one.
:-)
The conversion isn't the issue, but the sites. I prefer peep to leaf & post. Plus, have you even seen a no.1 bayonet anywhere? If the ammo price and availability is the same for both, why accept inferior sites and no bayonet? [ not saying the bayonet isn't out there, but I'd imagine the price is insane, if available ]
DeleteThe availability of .303 doesn't even begin to compare to 7.62X51 - not even close. And the NATO round is considerably cheaper anyway. Enfield ammo is very pricey whenever it can be found.
DeleteAs to the bayonet, dunno.
I don't like spending .75 a round ( sportsmans guide, the good E. European stuff, no shipping most times over $50 with membership ) but I don't see 308 all that cheaper for reloadable brass. 60 cents or so? I'm talking buying four boxes at a time, not by the case.
DeleteKinda off topic, or at least a few post back is that grains and long-term consumption will cause food fatigue.
ReplyDeleteJames you posted you always look for new subjects, an article about spices and other ways to make food more pleasant to eat would be a good subject for you to post about.
Chuck Findlay