Guest post by Bruce Buckshot Hemming
I was reading another survival blog when the age-old Semi versus Bolt gun argument came up.”Our character is out wandering around after the Apocalypse ( Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse ) and is attacked by dogs. He gallantly fought them off with his SKS. And made the comment that he would have been dead if he had only carried a bolt-action.”
I wrote the Dog attack 3 articles series back in 1999 first published on Captain Dave Survival site. The basic concept was that today people love their dogs so much they would not put them down and let them go. End result would be huge dog packs attacking and killing people. Since then many writers have put this in books and articles, one guy even used pictures of snares from my web site for his article without giving me credit for it. Since I know for a fact I was the first one to explain using snares as a defense against dog packs. The best defense to protect your garden and livestock or game animals would be snares. I would have 10 dozens coyote grade snares.
My latest Novel Grid Down Reality Bites again has using snares for defense against dog packs. When it takes $1000 to fill up your gas tank with hyper inflated dollars or $500 a loaf bread comes from Hyper-inflation as our currency collapses you will be darn glad you learned trapping and snaring skills ahead of time. But back to the gun talk.
Let’s see we have what I call the “Book of Eli” and “The Road” mentality what I call the fantasy survivalist. They assume they can put on their backpack grabbed their SKS and wandered the land like young Grasshopper Cain from the 70′s Kung Fu TV series. A little reality needs to be brought up. One point is the standard carry load for the SKS/ AR is around 200 rounds. I know you think wow I would carry a thousand rounds right. Sure you would for about 100 yards. Then sweating like a stuff pig huffing and puffing you would realize the fact that 200 rounds plus the rest of the survival gear in your Bug out Back Pack is about all you can carry.
When the Backwoodsman interviewed me for an article on just 1 gun to carry I answer two guns. A .22 pistol and trapper Model 30-30. The trapper model is the short barrel lightweight Winchester Model 94. Having carried a rifle all day in the woods you learn a few things like you know in thick brush that a short 30-30 sure is handy. That after hours of walking that lightweight rifle sure beats that heavy SKS. Common sense dictates that the more you work the more you eat. Think about it. You are an engine that needs fuel to keep going. Our fuel is calorie intake. The more you work the more you eat. The more weight you carry the more fuel you need.
We know the real men in the past, like the brave souls from Lewis and Clark were clearly working for a living. Man was the beast of burden in many cases. How much fuel did they use? I read a journal that said the party would consumer a full-grown 1500 pound buffalo in 2 days each man was eating 5-8 pounds of meat per day. The point being you need a lot of food. The other blog had a great point on bolt versus the semi. You are more likely to run through your ammo quickly with a semi then with a bolt.
A bolt forces you to be more accurate cause deep in your mind you are thinking make this shot count cause it takes so long to get another round in . Same with the 30-30 lever-action. But with semi you think no big deal I have 9 more shots who cares if I miss(or 29 more in AR/AK). Which means that Young Grasshopper you will be out of ammo for a Semi in a short time.
Now to decided how much ammo to carry will 140-200 rounds of 30-30 ammo. 400 rounds of killed them dead now hard-hitting Remington Yellow Jackets and 100 CCI 40 grain copper plated solid points. I once wasted a lot of time trying to educated a paper shooter on the proper ammo to carry. I recommends above ammo and soft point instead of Full Metal jacket.
He was part of the Semi auto the military know best FMJ ammo is the best crowd. This young 28-year-old got real defensive. When I try to explain that I have live off the land and have shot 1000′s of animals in my life he attacked calling me a bragger. Ah the young and the dead. LOL
You see I have shot a lot of animals with 22′s one lesson I learn early on was solid point ripped straight through the animal and did not drop them dead. End result lost animals that escape and died wasting them. Once I switch to yellow jackets end result a huge jump in dead right now animals equal more animals in the cooking pot.
But if you try to shoot a deer in the head with the Yellow jacket the rapid expanding hollowpoint will just flatten on the skull not penetrating and end result will be a deer with a headache. Hence the reason for the solid points. Of course the 30-30 would be used for deer most of the time but as a back up in case the 30-30 broke you could still shoot one.
When your life is on the line why risk it. Wandering the wasteland is a fantasy without re supply. But a small hunting camp with a hand pump Water well or maybe a 500-1000 gallon Cistern buried and fill with rain water off your roof would be a God sent in a true collapse. A wood stove, Axe, Hand saw, and a way to grow a garden would be paradise.
Everyone needs to remember Colonel Tanner from the Movie Red Dawn (1984)
“You think you’re tough for eating beans every day? There’s half a million scarecrows in Denver who’d give anything for one mouthful of what you got. They’ve been under siege for about three months. They live on rats and sawdust bread and sometimes… on each other. At night, the pyres for the dead light up the sky. It’s medieval.”
You could inexpensively use square straw bales and stucco to insulate the heck out of the walls and give some ballistic stopping power. Don’t know how long it would last in a real firefight, or maybe you could use Ram Earth Bricks.
Traps: The 110 conibear is the best small game trap on the market followed by snares. I would go with a solar battery charger and NiNH batteries LED lanterns flashlights and you could have a pretty good life. It comes down to the basic first. Shelter a roof over your head, heat a wood stove, food garden traps snares hunting, water a well or Cistern with a water filter, lights plenty of NiNH batteries solar chargers 3 lanterns 10 flashlights, good knives - I like the Mora of Sweden All Purpose Knife or the Mora of Sweden Camping & Hiking Knife. For less than $20 you could have a darn good life. Add some Yo Yo fishing reels to be your traps in the summer months.
If you really got fancy you could have a propane cook stove. 2 – 100 pound cylinders last about 1 year for the average person or 10 months for a small family. Make sure you buy for the house propane cook stove not the RV ones that use a ton of propane. Flint and Steel for when your matches and lighter runs out.
I just don’t get folks that don’t think this all through. The fantasy wandering the wasteland is a great movie script but is almost impossible in real life. A small 5 acre place like that would be worth it weight in gold or a truck load of Semi autos with no ammo in the wasteland of a true collapse. Take care of the basic first then everything else is gravy for making your life better.
by Bruce Buckshot Hemming – visit his website for survival trapping information and tools.
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{ 14 comments }
I wil be wandering the wasteland alone taking what I need staying out of sight, constantly moving preying off the weak pillaging and burning happily as I go if the Sh*t ever really hits the fan.
Good times!
Mythic1 you are a head case and not a funny one.
re: your comment on propane stoves.
What’s the difference between “in home” and RV kitchen stoves that make the RV stove “use a ton of propane?”
Does the same hold true for water heaters?
id like to know also,because i was activley looking for a wrecked camper that i could salvage a small cooktop from. if they consume more propane id like to know why,so i can refine my search endeavors to a more suitable and economical means of food prep.
Have you revised your thinking on dog defense. That the 22 yellow jacket from a hand gun is adequate on dogs.
What do you think of the 22 mag in the place of a 22 lr.
I haven’t seen one yet but I would like to try the new Kal- tec 33 shot 22 mag when it is available.
Mythic1 has played too many video games. He would be one of the first to go in a real survival scenario. LOL. He must think everyone will be unarmed and unafiliated with a group of some kind. The type individual he seeks to portray would be the very one group security would be looking to find and eliminate. The sooner his kind are eliminated the better.
As for the post by Bruce, quite thought provoking. A dog or coyote attack would be one of the most likely things to happen to you were you alone and in a survival situation, whether that be hunting or running trap lines. I learned my lesson the hard way. I was hunting deer out of a blind when I decided it was time to go home as dark was approaching. Upon exiting my blind, I found myself surrounded by a pack of coyotes. I had a scoped bolt-action hunting rifle with 3 rounds of ammo, and was a half-mile away from my 4-wheeler.
I fired one round from my rifle to scare the coyotes, and moved quickly, but never ran, to my 4-wheeler. I made it, but suffice it to say I’ve never been hunting again without a handgun as a backup. Were I running trap, I could think of nothing better than a 30-30 lever action rifle, either Marlin or Winchester. Truly one of the best calibers ever conceived, and the rifles ain’t bad, either.
+1 to the Kel-Tec PMR-30. 30+1 .22 mag would be a lot of fun. But very tempting being a semi-auto to unload a clip into those wild dogs.
I’m out in the Outlands different months out of the years. I Hunt Mountian lions for the cattle ranchers. I carry a Rem 597, .22 cal. My big gun is a Marlin 1894c .38/.357 mag it carries 9 rounds of my choice and I also carry a S&W 686 38/357. I carry 1000 rds of .22 ans 500 rds of .357 mag. I felt safe with this up in AK and it never failed to drop the black bears up there and the Mt lions in ID, NV, WA. The ballistics of the .357 are compatible to the 30-30 and I have never had to shoot an animal further out then 50 yards. Due to size I can carry more .357 mag rounds which helps since I have the S&W going with it. I like the dependability of the lever action. I have my grandfathers (but dont carry it with me in the out lands ) Winchester 25-20 lever action, which he bought new in 1922. I have rounds loaded for it and it will still drop a coyote at 100 yards. I had it checked out by a gun smith and it has no mechanical problems and hardly any wear. I’d like to see an AR system go that long in service. I am thinking of changing out the 597 for a lever action .22.
I agree with Bruce and DaveNV. Firepower is no substitute for practice and woodsman skills. Good durable guns in common calibers are the way to go. A friend came out about a month ago with his new Bushmaster 223. I wasn’t impressed. I have a 16″ gong set up 136 yards from my bach porch. We took turns saying “shoot” and we would both shoot and see who hit it first. Out of 10 shots I hit it first 8 times with my 94, 30-30
Another nice thing about the .30-30 is that it can be loaded higher than factory loads in Auckley Improved loadings and it can be “down loaded” with the depression era trick of using either a .30 Cal round ball from a Cap N’ Ball pistol or a piece of 00 Buckshot over 5 Grains of any pistol or shotgun powder. The ball weights in at 40 Grains and will leave a 20″ barrel at 1100 FPS. Sound familiar? That’s the bullet weight and velocity of a .22 LR round. So it’s like having two guns in one. It’s quieter than a full charge .30-30 and theirs no meat destruction on Rabbit ,Squirrel or pelt destruction valuable fur bearing animals. A 100 grain Semi-Jacketed round nosed soft point, can also be used with a little more powder.
Another misconception is that the .30-30 is incapable of taking of taking of anything over small deer from 150 to as little as 50 yards. Really?!!! They (gun writers) speak as if the bullet reaches the “magical distance” and it hits a invisible wall and it fall harmlessly to the ground or bounces of the now “evolved” armored mammals that in habit North America. Less than a hundred years after the cartridges debut. In reality I’d like to take any of these gun writers and or gun industry folk that say this and have them stand at say 500 yards down range and let me see how harmless rounds fired from a .30-30 are at that distance!!!
Yet one goes to Leverguns.com and one can see pages and pages and pages of dead Moose, Elk, Black Bear, Wild Boar that have dropped to the “obsolete” .30-30 in modern times. Something the gun writers say can’t be done!!! Though I wouldn’t personally recommend it, the .30-30 has even take the North American Grizzly Bear on more than a few occasions when push came to shove and the man behind the trigger placed the bullet where it needed to go to stop the attack.
The reason gun writers trash the reputation of this 114+ year old cartridge is that there “salesman” for the gun industry. For in the gun industry their is a saying the most dangerous customer is the satisfied one!!! So their under a lot of pressure to say good things about a given product for review. The honest writers can work for a short time before their shut out in the cold by the publishers and the gun and ammo manufactures.
Not that their isn’t any room for anything new or different, but denying what already is known and proven for a 114 years is down right silly.
Another neat advantage of the levergun is the lack of a detachable mag makes it legal in many anti-gun citys. And it can be considered as an advantage in the fact that one can” top off” the magazine as their “breaks” in the action without taking the weapon out of battery to do so.
With the Marlin 336 or Winchester model 1894 being such a long tenured designs their are parts every where for them unlike SOME military pattern Semi-Autos out on the market. You can get them for as little as $175 used at a pawn shop, so you can afford more spare rifles of the same type, spare parts and ammo for what would purchase just one of the semi-autos for.
I could go on and on but I fear I’ll run out of space in this comment section maybe I’ll write up and article on this subject.
WHere to go with this one?
ok first caliber..I have ar-15′s and ALSO have a 7.62X39 Upper, the interchange is pretty close to 30-30, AND I’d bet that the russkie fodder is alot well sourced and easier to find. but I am sideling the main issue a lever action is a great weapon and you’d very well served.
the ARROGANCe of a semi equals spray and pray doctrine is a pisser in my eyes, Marines are ISSUED full auto’s but at first shot, taught to be rifle men first and foremost. now the 22LR ammo choices are still 22LR’s, and a magnum might be a better choice. I’d say that a magnum AIR rifle is 95% of a 22 Long rifle and you CAN feed them real bullets and are easily maintained and a viable alternative.
lastly..if you deal ing ferals and you NEED to stop them…
a peice of bait on a waist high treble hook works evertime they leap to bite and chomp it down, they die…very messily albeit, but they dont shake off a snare, and even IF they get loose..they wont live lone with throat wounds and cannot eat either.
MD…I am very sorry to hear of your companions sad passing..
I’d hope you find the people responsible, and you might want to set it up so your remaining dogs are on a run/guy line and cannot be seen from roadways, but still provide and early warning and ability to be “near you”.
God Speed to Your Dog.. and swift justice for the coward who shot him.
Seeya
Dude
http://www.youtube.com/80spodcastchannel
Rifleman336,
I grew up in W. Texas, and cut my teeth on .270win in a Remington M-700 rifle, but my mother was from the deer woods of S. Arkansas, so whenever I visited her family the most common rifle was the 30-30win. It was a sure deer killer at the ranges common there, which was typically under 100 yards in either deep brush or woods. The 180gr. softnose was a deer stopper extraordinaire, and I’m sure it would be great for just about all No. American game within the range capability of the rifle. I bought one, a Marlin, many years ago, and both me and my two boys have taken several deer with it, and I feel very well armed when I have it.
It is not my first choice when hunting the ranges I commonly encounter in W. Texas, but it is adequate even there. I can’t sing its praises highly enough. It is one of those rifles, due to availability of cartridges and parts in just about any small hardware store anywhere in the US, that no survival battery should be without.
Ladies & Gentlemen,
I knew nothing of survivalists before I came upon this website whilst investigating options for the firearms I need for field shooting, and heavens forbid; home protection.
My home is in rural New Zealand, a beautiful country that’s the most isolated in the world and normally far from the minds of people in North America and Europe; which is just the way we like it.
Rural life in New Zealand, is it seems much like rural life in the US, in that the landscape is populated by practical and capable people acting on their own ingenuity to meet their day to day responsibilities.
However I see a big difference in attitude when it comes to the potential for civil disruption following a natural or man-made disaster.
To illustrate; you may be aware that recently there was a substantial earth quake centered near Christchurch the main center of population on the South Island. This quake was similar in size to that which devastated Haiti a few months before. But no-one in the Christchurch district took to the streets with guns; martial law was not declared; nobody got shot for looting or any other ‘anti-social’ behavior.
The Earthquake and War Damage coffers were full, (18 Billion NZ Dollars) in anticipation for just such an event, and remain so as the estimated cost of rebuilding is approximately 3 Billion NZ Dollars, which meant the country was able to politely decline the kind offers to come and help in the immediate aftermath.
Of course that is not to say that future events will not be different, I’d be a very rich man if I could predict what will happen in the future. However what I see now is that we New Zealanders are fortunate in that the country is rich with domesticated and wild resource that would feed the population in the case of real hardship. Farms that are set-up to provide beef, lamb and dairy products to the world could just as easily over supply the domestic market, run of river and geothermal electricity production capability that can just about provide for the countries consumption, forests full of what we currently regard as an infestation of introduced (non-indigenous) pest animals, Deer, Pigs, Possums, Goats, Rabbits, none are NZ native, all are shot on sight and can look pretty good on a plate, oceans and rivers with amply sufficient fish stocks to provide for the population.
What does this rosy picture of ample resource and capability mean for the 4.2 million New Zealanders? Well I believe that the most likely world changing event that will happen during my lifetime will be a pandemic illness of some sort, (H1N1 bird flu, SARS, Ebola, Anthrax, and many more, including plenty we don’t yet know about). At that time New Zealand’s isolation will be its strength, all incoming flights and ships without exception will be informed that they are not allowed to enter, and the country will attempt to isolate and contain any cases that have already been able to enter. A large percentage of New Zealanders own sporting firearms (modern military firearms are not common), and I’m sure would be mobilized to defend the shores from those that might attempt to sail up to fortress New Zealand and set foot on her.
In conclusion I believe that our attitudes are different because of three things, 1) we are a small population that really and truly prides itself on self reliance, 2) we don’t interfere in the lives of other peoples around the globe 3) in 2009 New Zealand was adjudged the least corrupt country in the world.
Smiling… sorry, this has become a bit of a patriotic ramble, now I know where you yanks get it from. I really only want to ask the forums opinion about the difference between 30-30 and 30-06 cartridges.
With Best Regards.
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