Some Weapon Advice

I talked last about being ready, this time I am going to go a little deeper into one of the items I suggested, "guns". What guns? How many? How much ammo? Where to start? First to answer the question of how many guns, I believe in at least one for every adult and teen in your group. That should be a minimum. Beyond that you can go as far as you want. However many each person can handle and what you can afford. I know there will be people out there that will only be able to afford one gun per family. If that is the case, get that one gun.

What should that one gun be? Well unless you are a small framed woman or a small teenager, it should be a 12ga shotgun. This is probably the most versatile of all weapons. You can get bird shot for hunting and indoor protection. You can get buckshot for better protection but will cause more damage within a home and you can get rifled slugs for hunting deer sized animals and taking out an enemy at out to 100 yards.

What action should you buy? That can be a very serious question and can have several answers. First, it should be an action that you are comfortable with. One of the best would be a slide action (pump) with the barrel plug taken out so that it will handle five or six shots. A semi-auto is also an excellent choice. I peronally have several and one choice I made many years ago was bolt action shotguns. I have bolt actions in all of my weapons, from my .22 to my hi-powers to my shotguns. I did this many years ago due to the fact that they were cheap and at the time I was raising a family and did not have an excess of money. I am a person who believes that all of your weapons should be the same action. What that does is to allow you to concentrate on the target, not thinking about which action you are now using. With the price changes today and the lack of bolt action shotguns on the market, I would probably opt for semi-autos. Another reason I started with bolt actions is that they are one of the easiest to work on. You may be doing all of your own small fixes and you will want to be familiar with the weapon you are using. This is true for field stripping and cleaning. so buy whatever action you can afford and are comfortable with. If the only thing you can afford at this time is a used single shot, by all means buy one of those. Anything you have is better than nothing.

Now, whatever gun you have, get to know it and shoot it often. There is nothing more important than being totally familiar with your weapon. This is one of the reasons I preach to one action for all weapons. You become so familiar with a particular action that it becomes second nature to you. That is the way I was and still am with bolt actions. I have shot against both slide actions and semi-autos for speed and accuracy and have either beat or virtually tied most of them. That took a lot of practice and concentration. It can be done. Wen I was a kid I shot single shots and got pretty good with them. I once took two ducks out of a flock of nine. That is quick ejection and reloading. That is why I say, get whatever action you can afford that you are comfortable with.

I cannot stress too much the importance of practice. You do not know what you can do with a weapon unless you practice. With a shotgun, knowing where a slug is going to hit is important as is knowing what kind of slug is most accurate in your shotgun. This is one place that I still feel a bolt action is best and that is for the one gun person. You can get a bolt action shotgun with some rifling and with decent sights and even drilled for a scope mount. These are the deer hunting shotguns that are made for areas where high powered rifle are not allowed.

I have much more to say about guns in general and have not even touched on ammo but I am going to leave off here and continue with my next post. I will try to post at least once a week and more if I possibly can. I think the time is getting near and the information will be important for those who are just getting started.