Sure, flame me for asking, just curious as to your opinions, whatever knowledge and comfort level you have here. Everyone is welcome.

Here's the dilemma of a customer, and mine in answering him.

He's becoming more preparedness minded.

Once everyone has a basic rifle/pistol set up for his family and friends, would he be better off stock multiples of the same rife/pistol (Say 223 AR's and .45 1911's). Should he then focus on multiples of the same ones, or back-ups in other calibers like Ak's in 7.62 and Glcoks or Sigs in 9mm?

I guess to summarize, redundancy or flexibility?

What would be your next step in weapons?

Zombie remarks are OK too IF you please provide your opinion and ideas.

Thanks
Vernon

The other day while buying ammo, I shared a similar thought with the sales dude. I said I knew several people narrowing what caliber weapons they want on hand. I said I had shifted the other way once ammo went through it's hard to get period. Meaning it was easier to find various caliber firearms so I did expand. Then when I ran across ammo, there was a good chance it fit something I now had on hand...

I have a practice of getting available ammo anyway, then trading it as needed. Not interested in charging high prices for it. That can wait until we can't find any. So tell the customer to consider the wider range of calibers. Nobody will flame you I think, but it helps keep everyone thinking of their way to prepare. And that's a personal thingie.

When The Reds/Rag Heads come, I'd think being "Flexiable" would be most effective........

I would say variability is key. A house with a few AR's, a few AK's, and several of your pistols of choice should be tactially well prepared. I don't plan on arming the neighborhood, so as long as I have my weapons and a few spare parts, the rest of my collection will be for fun and recreation. I'd focus more on being prepared in other ways, such as vehicles, food, lodging, etc.

I like to have as few calibers as possible, and stock up on ammo and reloading components for them. My main weapons use .223, 7.62X39, 30 carbine, and .40 s&w.

Flexiable.... Nothing last for ever, and you can't carry everything

I follow Helo's thinking......380, 38/357, 9mm, 243, 8mm Mauser, 12 & 20ga

I stock more for a few calibres, than a little for alot of calibres.

I also don't worry about carrying enough of one and not enough of another OR the wrong calibre period.

To much to keep up with, I use the K.I.S.S. Methodology

For prebaredness purposes I would never go with more than one round for each application (antipersonnel, antimaterial, and side arm). I would deffenetly go with wepons chambered in NATO calibers (9mm, 5.56,7.62, and .50 BMG)

Antimaterial wepons would be my next buy if he has his antipersonel and sidearm arsenal covered. Probably a Barret M107 and plenty of API ammo.

A couple of Remington 700P's would be a nice addition too.

I would also get some Larue Bugout Bags as well.

Also, I usually like to have about 1000 rnds of ammo per rifle at all times.

I like to keep things as standardized as I can. I have 5.56 ARs and mostly 9x19 handguns. I'm a Glock guy so my pistol mags are for the most part interchangeable. Of course my AR mags will fit other things such as the Sig 556 and FN SCAR. I Keep enough AR and Glock parts to keep my guns going til the end.

If I had to have only three guns it would be these:

Glock 17
M4 Style Carbine
870 12ga multiple barrels.

flexible..... buy the best reloading equipment and a butt load of components and start looking at shotguns. There are guns at the house that haven't fired a factory round as long as I've owned them and some older than I am that haven't.

Vernon,

I had this same talk the other day with a customer, he asked what should he do next in weapons for prepairdnes.

My thinking goes as fallows(doubt it will ever happen but you never know) If we are ever invaded in some "Red Dawn" style mass invasion, by a country or several small countrys, chances are they will be using the AK-47 weapons platform.

So smart decision would be to have some of those lying around.

As mentioned the Response forces would be using NATO speced guns so you would want to have a good 9MM Sidearm, and plenty of magazines for your AR Platform. I honestly laugh at the people whom have 10K rounds stocked of ammo if there not loaded in magazines they do you no good in a "FireFight" so stock up on magazines would be my next choice.

From there you would want to have spare parts for your weapons, if you have a few family members in your home they need to be trained and or outfitted, when at the range practice together in small unit shooting drills.

That would be my advice, all the GEAR is useles unless you have trained with it and can rely on muscle memory to operate it in all kinds of enviroments.


I would have a list as fallows
Main Weapons
AR-15 style rifle with 20 mags (thats 600 rounds at the ready)
Ak-47 Style Rifle with 20 Mags

Side Arms
1911 with 10 Mags

Either (Any Nato Country will have one of these for Sidearm)
P226 9MM with 10 mags
92FS 9MM

Specialty
Good scoped rifle capable of 500yd shots with 1.5 MOA (100rds)
Good Pump Shotgun with 18" barrel and magazine extension (100rds)
buck shot and slugs

This would be a good start to "End of Days/ [censored] Hits the Fan" prepairedness, Versitility needs to be the key to your arsenal and lots of magazines.

Thanks guys, keep it coming....

I'd like to see a local THF Preparedness topic, or just keep this one going...

Here's another thought for those of us involved...

How much into technology... NVG, Thermal, suppressors, etc.

I meant to type that in my post as well Smurf- When the zombies invade, I want to be shooting the same thing that the zombies are, that way if I run out of ammo, I can simply scavenge theirs. What were the Wolverines shooting at the end of Red Dawn? Every last one of them had an AK, because that's what was lying around...

I see both sides, and in a money friendly world just do both.... just looking for a way to advise a client to prioritize....

Doing a lot of research other places too, online and in print.... some interesting reading out there, this subject and more.... a new found interest... something to do between hunting seasons in all my spare time........

And I would probably throw in a good .308 for Sniper/Long Range duty...

As far as technology, suppressors would be a good choice. Keeps the bad guy from pinpointing your location (both by muzzle blast and flash). I here that Gemtec's mount directly to your standard A2 flash hider. NVGs would be good too but thermal wepon sights are so dang pricy (I wish I could afford them the hogs wouldn't have a chance).

For a country to be able to invade us (putting troops on the ground) I would think that they would have to be pretty technologicaly advanced, so there NVG's and Thermal Imagery would be much better than any civilian here in the US could aquire. It would be a tough fight.

Wepons could be modified as well, but I am not going to get into that nonsense because it is illegal and should never be done.

I think if the SHTF I would try and catch a ride in an M1 Abrams or something like that!! lol

Having friends/connections in High and low places help too.

I would be at the backdoor of the local NG Armory, waiting for my alloted civilian dispersal inventory.......
(Is that a term)

Save your money on High price technology, pick it up scavenging, after SHTF.

I used to be of the mind that the more different clibers, the better. I am seriously rethinking that now. I plan to thin the heard so to say to a few pistol calibers. .45, 9mm, .40, .357. and a few rifle claibers. .308, 7.62, .300win. I have several guns in wildcat calibers that i am going to be thinning out I think. And consentrate on having plenty of ammo and magazines for each gun. One thing I do want to do is get more gun parts. I would like to know how long you can safely store loaded magazines before you start having to worry about the springs?

On magazines, I keep five loaded one empty for my pistol, I picked a day, and on that day each week shoot one magazine up, leave it empty refill the spare. Mine have numbers etched in the bottom for ID (magazine failure, but that doesn't happen often in Sigs).

I also don't skimp on magazines, factory or better than factory replacements in everything. In my experience magazine failures account for most FTF, especially in handguns.

I like the idea of having the usual, AK, AR's, etc. Something else to keep in mind. If....the SHTF, how many of us will be close to our homes, and will you be able to get there?

That's where the majority of our firearms are stored. There's only so much you can carry in your vehicle.

There's times were all away from our residence, but I'm never far away from my pickup. Due to break-in's I don't keep anything valuable in it.

A .22 is not my 1st choice for defense, but whether it's a rifle, revolver or semi-automatic pistol, they can be had for the cheap and so is the ammo.

That way, at least I have access to something...

There was a pretty cool show on this topic on the Outdoor channel not too long ago. I wish I could remember the name. I only watched a couple of episodes but it covered exactly what we are talking about here, but in really good detail.

Oddly enough, during the great ammo shortage of 2009-2010 I noticed that .308 was relatively easy to find compared to .243, 30-06 etc. I think it would be wise to stick to common calibers such as 5.56, 9X19 ,7.62X39, .308 and the like. I passed on building a 7.62X39 AR last year. I kinda wish I had built one now. It would would have made a good hog gun.

Several weapons of similiar calibers. Like a 12ga. I must own 4 or 5 of them in various models and brands. Look at the various kinds of ammo for various applications that you can have.

.223, 12ga, 30-06, .40, 9mm 7.62x39 and 7.62 Nato.

Ah, shotguns.... good point...