Ruger 10/22 for SHTF rifle?, page 3

reply to post by WJjeeper

Depends on your vision of what "bugout" entails. Putting meat in the pot, or endless battles and Valhalla at the end of the road?

East of the Mississippi, I've not seen ANYTHING, except one, that I'd be afraid to try to take out with a .22. I've killed everything from squirrel up to whitetail deer with one. A black bear was shot with a .22 pistol at the foot of the hill where my land is, and killed dead. That last one may or may not have been a lucky shot - busted it's heart wide open.

Putting meat in the pot, .22 takes it, hands down. It has the added advantage of not tearing your wallet off your ass buying ammo, and that's key when it comes to the notion of practice. A .22, like a .410 shotgun, is a specialist weapon, and shot placement is nearly everything with one. That means lots of practice with it, to make it as integral a part of yourself as your arm.

I used to use CCI Stingers in mine almost exclusively for hunting, but they're a bit much for squirrels. 32 gr hollow point hyper velocity bullet that just goes all to flinders on impact, dumps all it's energy into the target right then and there. It'll mess a squirrel up, and you need headshots on rabbits even to preserve edible meat. Carry something with a bit less OOMPH for squirrels, like a 40 gr RNL bullet. I know a fellow who can drop a deer at 125 yards with one. He aims for the root of the ear, and it snaps the neck just pretty as you please.

Now, if battle is your game, you need to ask yourself where you expect the most of those battles to take place. If it's brush or woods, an assault rifle will do, anything from a 5.45x39 AK through 5.56x45 AR up to a 7.62x39 AK. Any of those intermediate cartridges would be fine for that. Range, and dropping power at range, aren't an issue, and you can carry a lot more ammo for 'em. If you expect to haunt the wide open spaces, better up size to a .308 or better, in a battle rifle configuration (M1A, Galil .308, HK, FN, any of those hi-cap mag rifles) - unless you at peace with yourself in a sniping situation, when a sniper or other bolt action type would do.

Sniping sounds all cool and sexy, but it ain't for the squeamish, the overly sensitive, or them that's prone to get excitable and jittery. You have to stay calm and collected, even if you KNOW you're about to die. Anything else guarantees that result for you. Can you shoot a man dead square in the head without emotion or remorse? IF not, don't plan on the sniper option, stick with a battle rifle, something that will allow you to shoot shot after shot as you're running away, and without having to fumble around with a bolt with jittery hands while you're doing it.

One of YOU against a bunch of THEM means you'll need lots of ammo, and not be scared to run away. In a bugout situation, your goal is not to get to Valhalla early on, even as a hero, it's to live to fight another day. It's likely other folks may be depending on YOU to deliver aid that you can't quite deliver all dead and corpsified. That's gonna mean some retreating. As they say, "he who fights and runs away lives to fight another day".

That assessment ain't pretty, but if it's candy you want, head for a grocery store.

Me? I've got an AK-74 in 5.45x39 Russian, a Mossberg M590A1 12 gauge, a Browning HP-35 in 9mm, and.... a Ruger 10/22. Out of all those, I expect the 10/22 will see the most use. I'm not gonna go looking for trouble, I'm just gonna erase it if it finds ME - and run like hell if I need to.

Them's the plain, unvarnished facts of the matter.