What Is The Best Survival Firearm?

[Rick]

Handgun, rifle, or shotgun?

 

Which type, caliber and brand if you have a preference? 

 

I choose an AR15. It's light, can carry a bunch or rounds, the 5.56x45mm rounds of ammo are readily available and can do what is needed in a variety of situations from self defense to hunting for food.

 

What do you think is the best choice? 

[Big Dave2]

Survival from what?

[leech~~]

53 minutes ago, Big Dave2 said:

Survival from what?

 

Bad concert music, it looks like? 

[Mike89]

2 legged cougars

[Big Dave2]

I was actually serious about my question above. I read things from time to time about preppers and find myself wanting to be prepared in the case of an emergency and less reliant on services. What I struggle with is is determining exactly what scenario I am prepping for. Each emergency situation can be different, with different needs. That's why I asked the question. The term "survival" can mean so many different things. 

[PurpleFloyd]

The one in your hands at the time 

[leech~~]

1 hour ago, Big Dave2 said:

I was actually serious about my question above. I read things from time to time about preppers and find myself wanting to be prepared in the case of an emergency and less reliant on services. What I struggle with is is determining exactly what scenario I am prepping for. Each emergency situation can be different, with different needs. That's why I asked the question. The term "survival" can mean so many different things. 

 

Only one to prep for Dave.  The Second coming!  

[Big Dave2]

2 hours ago, leech~~ said:

 

Only one to prep for Dave.  The Second coming!  

I'll need a gun for that?

[bobbymalone]

Probably an 870.  You can kill most anything with it for food without totally blowing it apart.  You can defend yourself if need be.  It will function all the time, every time, with little maintenance.

 

Or a Ruger 10/22.  Ammo is easy to find, you can carry a ton of it, and you can kill food with it.

 

 

[Rick]

On 8/26/2019 at 9:55 PM, bobbymalone said:

Probably an 870.  You can kill most anything with it for food without totally blowing it apart.  You can defend yourself if need be.  It will function all the time, every time, with little maintenance.

 

Or a Ruger 10/22.  Ammo is easy to find, you can carry a ton of it, and you can kill food with it.

 

 

I saw the Ruger AR 556 pistol. I may need to change my choice to that.

 

Dave, what is your choice based on your own assessment of a combination of YOUR most likely survival scenarios.

[Juneau4]

I'd select a 22 single shot rifle--Win model 67 --easy to clean and no fix to it. It can kill anything up to and including a deer.

It's light and so is the ammo.

A combat situation for survival is another story, but the question was what weapon for survival?

Duck and hide, don't confront, be out of sight and use snares.

[Big Dave2]

23 hours ago, Rick said:

 

 

Dave, what is your choice based on your own assessment of a combination of YOUR most likely survival scenarios.

 

I can't come up with a realistic survival scenario where I live where 1 firearm would make a difference other than a home invasion or some sort of a break in so I will stick with my .45 or some sort of hand gun. 

 

Realistically, if I am in a situation where I need to defend myself with a firearm and use it to gather food, things have really gone awry and I will probably not be around long and that may be alright.

[nofishfisherman]

If the entire world has gone to $#!% and we're talking long term survival and not just trying to survive until rescue comes then I might take a different approach.  The 2 main concerns would be food and protection.  For food I'd skip a firearm altogether and instead bring my bow.  1 arrow can be shot hundreds if not thousands of times so it really reduces the fear or risk of running out of ammo.  No matter the firearm sooner or later you'll fire your last shot and sourcing more ammo may be impossible.  A stock pile of arrows will last a VERY VERY long time.  With food being taken care of without use of a firearm I could select a firearm with its primary purpose being protection.  In that case I'd probably go with some type of handgun for a couple reasons.  Its light and easy to have on you all of the time which is a big advantage.  A gun that is sitting 10 feet away doesn't do you much good when really needed so I'd rather ensure my firearm is on my body 100% of the time.  Its also the best option for close in protection.  I don't see myself needing the ability to protect myself from a person 100 yards away as I can avoid a danger from that distance easy enough without wasting ammo, the best way to survive is to not put yourself at risk in the first place.  I'd want the best option for the close quarter situations where I can no longer avoid the danger and must confront it with force.  As for exactly what handgun I'm not sure.  I'd probably put availability of large amounts of ammo as top factor followed by how effective is the firearm and stopping a threat quickly.  

 

 

[Big Dave2]

The fact that no one knows what it is we are trying to survive from is the reason to own and shoot several types of firearms.

 

If I were bugging out for some reason I would certainly want a hand gun. I own a .45 but I would probably ideally have something that holds more and lighter ammo, like a 9mm. Depending on the circumstances it might also be handy to have an AR-15 or even a shotgun with you as well.  

 

If I were attempting to stay in my home but needed to protect it from invaders for some reason then an AR-15 would be invaluable but having a number of weapons scattered throughout the home along with plenty of ammo would be the key.

 

For the purpose of only occasional protection but mostly food providing, I would choose a 20 gauge shotgun but I would also want a .22 rifle available to shoot small animals at long distances and because ammo is small, light and cheap so you could easily stockpile thousands of rounds.

[nofishfisherman]

On 1/27/2020 at 2:20 PM, Big Dave2 said:

The fact that no one knows what it is we are trying to survive from is the reason to own and shoot several types of firearms.

 

If I were bugging out for some reason I would certainly want a hand gun. I own a .45 but I would probably ideally have something that holds more and lighter ammo, like a 9mm. Depending on the circumstances it might also be handy to have an AR-15 or even a shotgun with you as well.  

 

If I were attempting to stay in my home but needed to protect it from invaders for some reason then an AR-15 would be invaluable but having a number of weapons scattered throughout the home along with plenty of ammo would be the key.

 

For the purpose of only occasional protection but mostly food providing, I would choose a 20 gauge shotgun but I would also want a .22 rifle available to shoot small animals at long distances and because ammo is small, light and cheap so you could easily stockpile thousands of rounds.

 

The generalist will certainly have the advantage over the specialist if the world falls apart.  The wider range of knowledge, skills, and tools you have the greater your chances for survival. 

 

Its tough to select a single best firearm for a survival situation when the correct answer is to have multiple firearms each for their own purpose. 

[Rick]

2 hours ago, nofishfisherman said:

 

The generalist will certainly have the advantage over the specialist if the world falls apart.  The wider range of knowledge, skills, and tools you have the greater your chances for survival. 

 

Its tough to select a single best firearm for a survival situation when the correct answer is to have multiple firearms each for their own purpose. 

And those would be?

[nofishfisherman]

I broke down some of my selections in a previous post assuming I could only have 1 firearm.  I think BigDave also broke down some of the benefits of various firearms. 

 

The simplest way to break it down would be to have something from each category below. The exact model/caliber of each probably doesn't matter as much.  The biggest thing is being comfortable using it and having available ammo for it.  If you have something from each you'll probably have your bases covered in terms of self defense (close and long range), hunting (small and large game), and anything else you may need.

 

1. Handgun

2. Rifle

3. Shotgun

4. AR15

5. Bow 

 

The only reason I had a bow on the list is to reduce the reliance on ammo to make the stock pile last longer.  No matter how much ammo you stockpile if the world falls apart and can't get put back together again sooner or later your ammo supply will run out.  You just need to hope you stockpiled more than the other guy.

 

[delcecchi]

If it is long term breakdown of civilization zombie post nuclear apocalypse then you should add sword of some kind and training to use it, maybe armor, spears. along with he bow and hundreds of broadheads.   

[darrell1VM]

Rick, it would be great if there would a possibility to mount a night scope on it. I've recently, few days ago, found this resource ( https://www.agmglоbalvision.com/ ), where I could find all the night scopes for any type of the rifle you can have. And although their prices are a little bit bigger than a usual, their quality is supreme.

Edited February 16, 2020 by darrell1VM