How long could you live?

If a full on war, natural disaster, man made disaster,etc within our cities broke out. What caliber would you choose and do you have enough ammo to support it? Food, water , etc.

I think 25% of the population would be gone in 10 days

I have enough to start a war, just not finish one. I like to think of myself as prepared. But in all actuality, I’d probably be dead in first 10 days. It would probably happen en route to where I was gonna hide out for awhile.

Fisher. I agree

40 years.

That's the maximum I'll probably live from this year anyway.

Ok

It has been a rough year

If you saw where I live, and how it is set up, it would make more sense. Many people here have seen it.

Ok, I live way out from anywhere. I have alot of resources, when the city runs out of stuff , were next . We won't be gone in 10 days but it would happen.


If nobody bothered me I could live here until it was my natural time to die . But that's not reality .

Do you live in Alaska?

As long as I didn't get got by someone trying to take what I got, I could survive into old age.

Probably more than possible. Probably likely.

I hope a book is written on how I defended my family. Maybe a short poem at least.

Uncle , im with you . Do you think its better to stay solo or group up with others?


We talk about this all the time at work, pretty entertaining

Gotta have a plan.

AK is most versatile. In my opinion.

Oh, and as to what caliber I would choose...all of them.

Physical condition and cardio will be a far better decider on how long you live after the apocalypse vs how much ammo you have.

Having said that, I won’t make it 3 full days.

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Fireman we get it . Nothing you can't do . Jack of all. Blah blah

That's not it at all.

Ok, I see you're still a dick. Enjoy your thread.

Misfire. What if you get shot before the heart attack?

Fire slayer JG , I say your done within 3 days . You're a hero and know it all, leader of the thf rifle thread

Can’t we all get along.

Seems like JG and Brad have a lot in common.
Shouldn’t y’all be exchanging station chili recipes and not arguing.

Probably one of them likes beans in it.

Sooo..., if I were to stay put (country life), I’m thinking I’d do pretty ok with a full sized .22 rifle in hand for food, a 9mm pistol on my hip, and maybe stash the .223/5.56 modern sporting rifle somewhere while I’m out hunting... assuming the endless supply of eggs and occasional chicken aren’t good enough... and maybe take said sporting rifle out to fetch hogs and deer. I think the biggest problem would be finding a way to pull water up from the well when the power goes out.

If we’re on the move, I’ll take my Davey Crickett .22 on my back with powderless ammo, pistol on the side, and said sporting rifle at the ready... maybe lose the pistol when it got too heavy... but I still think water would be the main issue.

As for enough ammo? I imagine the pistol would hardly get used, and yes to the other two, except I’d have to switch to regular .22 by the end of the first year if I made it that far.

Like no electricity no public water etc.?

I could make the 10 days unless i was overtaken. Past that i can hunt and fish, but the quality of life would take a HUGE hit, we would essentially turn into hunter/gatherers, and if everyone esle was doing the same it would get tuff fast.

As I was told on average each city has about 8 days of food, etc. After that it's a free for all.
People from the city would be moving out looking for food and water. If your well supplied and equipped you'll be able to hold out for awhile, but if 20K people are hungry and thirsty it will get ugly very fast.
The first ones to go are people relaying on medication to stay alive. Within the first 2 weeks there would be a lot of dead folks.
Yes as stated above we'll all become hunters/gathers.

And as birth control runs out I wonder how many become pregnant lol.

Depends on whether or not internet is still available. If internet is down, nobody makes it past 10 days.

How long? I don't know, probably the rest of my life.

We had this talk recently.

My best guess is half the population would be gone in the first month or two

Ummm.. I suppose I die sooner?


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You have to go somewhere where resources are limited, otherwise it will be crowded. If you have stuff providing the capability for you to survive, the dismantling of the rule of law will lead gangs of thugs to come take your stuff. Avoidance of others and coalitions of like minded people will be the only ways in which anyone will be able to survive.

22 LR will be key to securing protein and establishing a small sound footprint.

Looks like I'm the city slicker who's just out of luck! Yall dudes in rural places have it made in this scenario. I have a destination in a more remote place but I'd have to get out of the major Houston/Katy area. Luckily I live on the outer part of the larger area, towards the direction I want to head. But the goal is something more akin to Fireman. Screw all yall, I love the confidence. Especially when one can back it up with skills practiced, including shooting. It aint the only reason, but this prepper idea is one of the many reasons why I like to sharpen some skills AND stay in shape. A huge part is the mental game. yes I entertain myself being weekend warroir, but to me it's more like developing/improving skills in the controlled manner so that when shtf I have something to draw upon. Even a huge book nerd like means recognizes the limitations. I watch a TON of Alaska shows and reaad survival books so I can claim i know a bunch about survival. In one way I do but I'm staying my Texas rear away from that winter until I experience something less cold first, like Denver for a weekend.

I have "stuff" to survive; long term food for 28 days + all the food that current exist in my house, multiple water filtration systems, guns + ammo galore and I even keep my 4wd suv gassed up past half always too. BUT with all that taken care of, I'm relying on my wife (who is quite proficient too in firearms), my other "posse" members to do what they need to, skills maintained and having a plan.

This has always been one of my FAVORITE thought experiments. My wife and I tend to discuss this from time to time to update our plans (kids getting bigger all the time), add/remove people from our posse and we even go through the effort of eyeballing the stuff. We are a typical suburban family living very comfortably. Which means we tends towards becoming soft. I try to keep us hardened and sharpened in the event the need arises. Regular exercise, maintain firearms, keep sufficient ammo loaded, etc.

My answer is roughly the same as FJG, indefinitely or at least until I say I'm done.

Within cities? Communications, power and water will be gone in a week, maybe less. In all honesty the criminal element is going to take over quickly. There will be so much chaos, you won't be able to get any real news and you will have zero idea who to trust or what to do. If you don't make it out of the city in the first few hours you will be in serious trouble. If we're talking all-out war, your 25% estimate may be low.

I have two freezers full of meat and enough salt/spices to dry it all post-haste. 200lbs of meat goes a long way for a couple of people. Squirrels and dove are plentiful, I'd start trapping immediately.

Caliber of choice is .223. I have the most rounds for that on hand, it's suppressed, and has iron sights and two types of available optics. Backup will be 9mm handguns and suppressed .22 pistol for close-range/quiet work.

Prescription drugs will be a large issue as mentioned above. Many people will die quickly from lack of insulin and other important drugs.

I feel comfortable making my own sausage etc. but if you turned the power off now and I had to go home from work and process all of our game into a state that would stay edible and wouldnt need refrigeration i'd be out.

Lets see, house 90 percent on solar, water well, septic tank, flock of chickens, deer in the neighborhood, shop to fabricate in, tractor, Extra fuel, fire power (pretty good shape), garden area. Just not quite far enough away the city when they go crazy because face book goes down.

I’m going to live forever!!!

The rest of my life I guess.
If we could make it west to the ranch then forever. Plenty of meat and cactus to eat.

Read the book One Second After. It’ll scare you, but it will answer your questions about what would happen in a societal breakdown. The book made me uneasy, and I still think about it from time to time.

Was gonna bring that book up 603. Another good book to read is the A American Series "Going home" and its subsequent books in the series.

Reality of it is, most of us would likely falter at some point because NO ONE can be prepared for every possibility. What you can take is a generalized understanding of survival and some serious ingenuity to be creative, adaptable, and shrewd. I have wanted to get some hard print copies of homesteading books to make some of the "lack of internet" more easily subverted.

As much as some of us may wish for something like a doomsday scenario to take place, the sheer number of zombies looking for food, water, and shelter would likely wipe out the vast majority anywhere close to any city. I would imagine you would have to be at least 4 days walk from the nearest big city in order to get outside the zombie zone. So figuring about 20-25 miles/day walking through texas terrain, that puts anyone within 100 miles of the edge of a major metro in reach of the zombie crush....that will be our biggest hurdle. Dealing with the zombies. That and the microscopics....disease would make some serious ground and lots would die from things such as cholera, dysentery, and things that we don't deal with in todays world due to sanitation.

I just happened to take a quick trip to the future and found such a poem that was read at your funeral...


For forty years, he did it folks
He kept his friends and family safe!
Amid the chaos and detriment
Not a single day did he waste

He lived of recycled rainwater
And kept his garden green
He was known to be a good man
Though some forum folks thought him mean

He was honest and hardworking
And perhaps opinionated, too
But did you know he had a secret?
One that I can now confirm is true!

Yes, he used his rifle to supply each meal
- A claim he did attest
But did you know it was Remmy 710,
Topped with a Diamondback Vortex!

I told him I’d keep his secret to his grave
And I guess I can now also mention
He actually preferred factory rifles
And factory ammunition!

That is excellent bravo sir!

lol

I would have to eat a lot of catfish,

MO

These threads always bring out the badazzes who could fight off an army by themselves.

The reality is, none of us know what would happen and how long we would last.

I think someone like Fireman would actually be in trouble because he is talking about how prepared he is and so people would hunt him out to take it lol.

I don't stockpile guns, ammo, food, etc.. so I would be in trouble in that aspect. My advantage would be I live in a less populated area of the state with alot of farmland to hide out on and mule deer to kill for food. There are just enough water sources to be ok and I do have water filtration from camping.

Nothing wrong with that. Catfish are good eaten.

You guys that are within 100 miles of the metroplex are not going to live 3 days. Get real; 6 million people going crazy looking for food and water are taking everything you got. You can defend against 15 or twenty people, but 5000 rushing your little ranch, no chance.

If I could choose, I would stick with Family and close friends whom I know I can trust. It also helps that I have Family and friends in the Medical and EMT field. I can gunsmith, I can reload, I can kill food, prepare and preserve it...but real medical knowledge would probably be more useful in the long run if the SHTF. My group would have a surgeon, a nurse, and a pair of Paramedics. Assuming we could make it to the ranch, we have well water, generators, a garden, and a seemingly endless supply of pork.

Makes perfect sense.

Be on the lookout for Lucille...

While that is all neat to think about, what good is a surgeon without his tools? How are you going to take your reloading and gunsmithing tools with you on the run if you have to flee your residence and the mobs to get to the country etc.

Lord knows many are more prepared than I am by far, but I think even the ones who think they are well prepared are going to have a wake up call when/if the day ever comes.

For me it's not a matter of how long my food, water, shelter, guns, ammo and fishing gear lasts. I can go a long ways on that.
As a Type 1 diabetic it's how long my supply of insulin lasts. After it's gone I'll be useless after about thee days and dead 3 or 4 after that.

Well, Duh. I would have to take it with me. Would the extra 15 minutes taken to throw it all in the bed of the truck kill me? Probably not. And yes. The surgeon could do way more with a pocketknife, needle, thread, and a bottle of whisky than I could. Sure are some killjoys for us Walking dead SHTF hero wannabe's!

Lol I’m with you Mike!! I’ve watched Book of Eli and I Am Legend I know what’s up.

Having knowledge of edible plants would be of great benefit in this scenario. Fire starter, a knife and some cord could keep a guy alive for awhile if he had the know how and could stay hidden. The game changes when you have wife and kids added to the deal, or depend on medication. My thought process is, would I really want to live in a post apocalyptic world? Not to say preparedness isn’t wise and I’d do anything in my power to take care of my family but our faith isn’t in bullets and 100 cases of MRE’s. That said, I have a few hundred pounds of deer corn in the feeders so we’d do ok for awhile.

I can live forever

just need water , fishing equipments and firewood/materials

Same

Hey you have your fun, just saying to take all these things with you that you want your going to need a Conestoga wagon and some horses.

if you want to survive the apocalypse, you're going to have to have NV.


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I love the talk about deer and hog hunting... comes down to it, there'll be a lot of cow, goat and sheep hunting too.

A good read from some years back...


https://personalliberty.com/one-year-in-hell/

Exactly. I think if you could get people to work together rather than the individual mindset, it’d probably work out just fine. Obviously, major lifestyle changes and it probably wouldn’t be without violence but I’d much rather pool resources of a large group and work together than try fending off the masses with a few.

Won't be any interweb, cell phones will be dead, no radio communications and no electricity this will get you thinking and will get worse from there.

No on cartridge in particular. Having lots of guns chambered for different rounds is my plan. Then you would hopefully always have a gun to shoot whatever ammo you came across. It does no good to have 10,000 rounds of ammo for one gun only, when it breaks your sol. I wouldn’t make it long enough to matter though.

Most of the mouth breathers will be dead within 30 days tops if it all goes full fubar...

A decent boat is a good way to bug out. Anchor out. You got water and food available.

The main thing is don't hesitate. Better to be early to your plan than a few minutes too late.


But really......just pray that the nuke lands right on top of your melon

I agree. I don't think tons of folks die in 10 days. But in 30-60 days, all the city folks are gone and that's half of the population.

I live too close to the city to make it really long. If my brother gets his house built with a well on the property and lots of animals around, we could probably make it a pretty long time.

too many seem to believe they can go somewhere where it is relatively easy to secure the natural resources necessary to maintain one's life Plain & simple, that is likely a place others will want to bug out to and will provide competition for resources no one wants to engage. You have to go where others WILL NOT want to bug out to - where it is tough. Otherwise, you will have too many to deal with.

I am thinking some, if not may, believe piggies will help them with their needs for a protein source. Without a grid or dependable electricity, they'll soon find out why Muslims abstain from pork.

30 million population in TX
6 million deer in TX

No refrigeration..........food spoils quickly. You kill it. eat your meal and the rest spoils.

Food wont last long in TX,

Gardens are okay but wont keep you from starving. No calories. etc. The variables are too numerous to list.

The KABOOOOOM is coming but we don't want it..............No other country is coming to feed us.


PS..........you have to sleep sometime.

You can do these simulation Hydrogen bomb explosions in your computer. Russia has a giant one and a direct hit in Dallas levels everything to Decatur. Then the radiation spreads out. May be a non worry; unless your not a Christian.

Bugging out of a city just isn’t going to work for most folks as the roads will be a parking lot almost immediately with violence breaking out as the scramble for resources get serious.
Bugging in and forming a support team is interesting.
I’m going to be the Mayor of Bartertown! I’ll have a flea market, hot dog stand and a pleasure palace. I just need someone to run the pleasure palace that is up to date on the new “I identify as a” types.

Ducksnbass is your huckleberry

Goodbye Democrats!

I would last longer than most, not as long as some others.
300 HAM'R in a Wilson Combat rifle, and yes, I should have enough ammo. If not, I would back it up with .308 Win. and 5.56.

"One Second After" was mentioned, and a decent book. It kept my interest since it was base on my neck of the woods. It added to my enjoyment since I knew every spot mentioned.

Well Bye...I won't miss em..

Good convo guys ( except JG, like usual), I guess if it ever came down to it we would all hope that we have thought about it enough to keep going

I have a piece of property with thick woods, a natural spring and we are building a cedar log cabin in the woods. I have plenty of rifles and ammo, but a long bow or crossbow would be my primary weapons. Best to be silent until you are forced into a corner.

50lb bags of pinto beans and white rice are less than $30 from the right distributor, 300lbs vacuum bagged will fit in a sealable 55gal drum. Bee hives, pigs, goats and a few cows will be supplemental staples.

Brad, if you think JG is a dick (or whatever), why is it YOU are the one that always starts the chit between the two of you?

I have worked hard to develop some ability to be reasonably self-sufficient for a good while. I do know a lot about a lot of things, but I also know that I can't even come close to doing everything it takes for longer-term survival.

My approach has been to build a solid coalition of like-minded people surrounding me. I have found that pooling knowledge is certainly as valuable as pooling resources.

Even the most vigilant of us are still susceptible to getting picked off from a good distance. It simply is not possible to do all that needs to be done daily while watching your own back.

I've got a hand pump water filter system. So my guess is I would last a few months living out of my deer stand, killing game, getting water out of the tank. I would take 4 of my guns. I've got a
9mm glock and a 9mm highpoint carbine, so I would take those as they use the same ammo. Then my bolt action 30/06 and 270. Because I can shoot
both very very well and they are the ones I have the most ammo for.
I started to say, "You would only get with in 300 yards of the deer stand." But would it be right to shoot on sight?

So.. playing the devils advocate... if all the lakes are contaminated, most of the underground aquifers are over 100 ft deep, how are the hand pumps gonna help? Seems to me we are gonna be ok until the deeper water becomes unaccessable due ro no gasoline/diesel for pump power.

Robby

A LOT of people have already converted their well pumps to DC. Solar power is real.

Only as long as the meds hold out. After they are gone, it's down hill.