Posted on 12/14/2015 1:47:21 PM PST by w1n1
What rifle calibers are you stockpiling?
If you were going to pick a rifle caliber for a long term SHTF situation, what would that caliber be?
For some reason I woke up this morning thinking about my 7mm express / 280 Remington, and how the panic buying back in the first half of 2013 caused a shortage in ammunition supplies.
When I got my Remington model 700 chambered in 280, I wanted something that was around the 270 or 30-06, and that would also work on heavier game such as elk and moose.
In all honesty I put too much thought into picking the 280 Remington. While it's a fine caliber, the price of ammunition has gone up so much that shooting has gotten downright expensive. With a box of 20 rounds costing more than $25, stockpiling is cost prohibitive.
And let's be perfectly honest, there is nothing the 280 Remington / 7mm express can do that either the 270 Winchester or 30-06 Springfield cannot do.
There comes a point when survivalists are stockpiling too many calibers. We need to get out of this "buy a new rifle, stockpile a new caliber, buy a new rifle, stockpile a new caliber" roller coaster.
During the great ammo panic of 2013, what calibers were available? Or maybe the question should be what calibers were not available? I'll tell you what, let's talk about both.
30-30 Winchester After its introduction in 1895, the 30-30 Winchester has won a loyal following for its reliability. There is a reason why the 30-30 is considered to be the gun that won the west. Excluding military calibers and the 22 long rifle, if I had to pick a single cartridge for a long term SHTF / TEOTWAWKI situation, it would probably be the 30-30 Winchester.
Why the 30-30 Winchester? Because it has a proven track record of over a hundred years on deer sized game. Chances are no other modern caliber has killed more deer than the 30-30. Read the rest of the story here. What are you all carrying?
That may be a shortened M1911 .45 auto case, similar to the .45 GAP, marketed in Italy during the 1970s and '80s to Italian civilians who were forbidden by law to own handguns in military calibers larger than 7,65mm or U.S. .30 caliber/.32 Browning. I had a Marine pal stationed in the US Embassy in Rome who brought back all sorts of such odd duck chambered handguns and filled me in on the details about others. His favourite was his Browning GP Hi-Power in 7,65 Luger.
I fired a .45 Magnum a few times. It basically pushed the 230 grain ball to about 1,250 IIRC.
L
Why, YES, that can be done! See, for instance the efforts on the 45 Super, the .45 Atomic or the beginnings of the .45 Winchester Magnum in the NAACO Brigadeer, circa 1959. Oh, that'd be a 230-grain bullet at 1600 FPS/500 MPS....
The 45 Winchester Magnum would be a dandy cartridge for a semi-auto carbine.
The 45 Winchester Magnum would be a dandy cartridge for a semi-auto carbine.
Never considered them maybe breaking the cartridges down for a different use. Can see them pesky Injuns doing that though.
They wanted the 45-70 infantry round to be able to break up a cavalry charge at 600 yards and less in volley fire. I suspect that would have interested my GG Grandfather M.
My GGGranfather Rockpile was in one of the temporary Mexican War Regular Army regiments and his son married a girl whose dad was my GG Grandfather S. He was a corporal in the 15 th Indiana Infantry for three years in the western theater and saw lots of combat and was wounded twice. If those Southern boys had shot a touch better I might not be typing this. :<{
I would really love to know what they were issued during their careers but alas they left no written records.
It was quite a handful out of the Wildey I fired.
L
I’d sure like to try a Wilde once. I did get to try a Freedom Arms .454 once. My life is unfulfilled because I still don’t own one...
To tell the truth I didn’t like it much. It was awkward in the hand, the gas system was overly complicated, and it frequently jammed. Just my opinion of course.
L
It was a Wildey pistol in .45 Win Mag. Quite the handful.
Merry Christmas!
L
Seems your opinion was shared by many, and it never caught on. It was expensive too, as I recall. Also, ammo was a home brew deal.
Merry Christmas!
Oh, the .44 Auto Mag like Dirty Harry used was a home brew. Maybe not the .45 MW you tried.
I remember buying some factory ammo for it at over a dollar a round.
Merry Christmas to you and yours.
L
No wonder it didn't fly off the shelves. {:0)
And Charles Bronson used the Wildey in one of the Death Wish films. Eastwood used the AMT. Mt bad...
6.8 SPC in AR 15
.358 Winchester, .41 magnum, .38 super.
Oh yeah, .45GAP also just in case I need it...
Indeed. The circa-1960 rendition of that idea from North American Arms Company of Toronto was called the Borealis. Using what became the *Winchester* .45 Win Magnum cartridge, it used the 230-grain hardball pistol cartridge to accomplish at 200 yards what Armalite's then-experimental AR-15 did with a very small one at high velocity. Either could have been the kiss of death for the then-prevalent submachineguns of the world, and the assault rifle concept in its several variants has pretty much accomplished just that...thirty years later.
But the Borealis was to be selective fire, with a 20-round magazine and perforated sheet metal handguard over the slide. And about the size of an MP5.
BTW: the .45 Win Mag case can be shortened to 1.163" and loaded with a 200-240 grain jacketed bullet with a .45 ACP-level powder charge, and will work in either a handgun action that's long enough for .45 auto/ACP or .38 Super, or those Colt and S&W M1917 revolvers set up for half-moon clips if the chamber is deepened. The reason is for use in deer hunting in those states where the requirement for a 1.16" cartridge case makes the .45 ACP, Super .38 and .38 Special unlawful for such use, but the .44 Special and .357 Magnum qualify. It's generally called the .45 Whitetail, from its intended target.
Which was why they began with the .50-70 chambering in the earliest Infantry trapdoors, easy to sleeve the barrel down on the old leftover Civil War muskets, followed by new production rifles mostly using the old machinery.
But in a carbine version it was both hard on the shooter and worse on his horse when mounted. Cutting the diameter of the bullet and reducing the powder charge helped considerably, and the stocks of the old .50 caliber Springfield ammo were given away at many frontier military posts to any buffalo hunter wanting to help reduce the Indian's food supply. That worked out pretty well for the Army and the US Western expansion; for the Indians, not so much.
yeah,,,,,that
my dad always neck shot his whitetails. Always.
never had one go more than 100 yards before expiring. mostly, much sooner.
Merry Christmas!
You too, mate. Merry Christmas to all!
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