Next to my bed - locked and loaded
S & W .38 hammerless 5 shot
With a red laser light - right on target
In my opinion best home defense weapon is a shotgun.
If you click on the banglist topic link, you’ll find many threads on this topic.
Not sure about riffles, but a good hunting rifle would be a Remington 700 in .30-06 or .308.
Here is what to buy
for home, pistol is best, imho. pros and cons between pistol and shotgun, but i think pistol is better.
Depending upon your location....Gun Shows can give you multiple choices and advice.....Church goers tend to be Armed at home also...seek and ye shall find.
me too...
bump for later
What type of hunting? For home defense a short overall length shotgun would be handy as would a low powered big bore handgun such as the .45 Colt, something like the old Colt New Service or a Smith & Wesson model 25.
Actually just about any handgun is better than nothing. I like autos but for quick simple use a revolver might be better.
Even a Ruger 10/22 Autoloading rifle would be fine. Keep it loaded with a high quality 30-50 round magazine and you could do a lot worse. It is short and handy and pretty powerful with those soft lead bullets putting out 150 ft. Poudns of energy.
Too bad you’d have to buy a registered gun.
They’re going to eventually come for it, you know.
For hunting... 90% of all actual killing of game animals is inside of 100 yards. The most idea rifle there could be for North American hunting would be that Marlin lever-action chambered for 44 magnum. The pistol cartridge picks up an extra 300 fps or so in the rifle barrel, there is no serious recoil, and it will absolutely drop animals which so-called magnum rifles with three times the ballistics will not. Very little relation between ballistics and lethality; the 44 - 45 caliber rifles are much more lethal than the 30s.
shotgun...12 ga
If you must have a handgun, there’s lots to choose from:
glock
springfield
beretta
Sig and H&K are fairly popular too but I don’t care for them. Well, I like sig alot, just not at the price they want for them.
My first choice for a brand new pistol would be a beretta Px4 storm. Springfield has the new XDm...don’t know much about them though. Ruger makes pretty good pistols too.
Shotgun, no shortage at all of ammo, even if there is a shortage of slugs, 00 buck or 4 with a little hnowhow you can get any of the million game loads and repack with something common like fishing weights.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbT-JLYihtw
For home defense, unless your situation is quite unusual, a decent shotgun is a good start. 12 or 20 gauge depending on who's going to be shooting it. A Mossberg 500 or a Remington 870 can be had for right around $200-250.
For a rifle, same "it depends." If it's to put meat on the table a .308 or .30-06 is a classic hunting rifle. A .270 or a 7x57 is an easy-shooting alternative if the ladies are going to play. For self-protection you can caliber down to a .223 - a Ruger 10-22 is a low-cost option there. You're not going to be popping commies at 500 yds with it but then you aren't anyway, so why fantasize? An SKS is another way to go there.
These would be my suggestions for long arms at a bargain price. For a hand gun you'd find it hard to beat a .357 magnum wheelgun - they also shoot .38 special, a much lighter-recoil round, for practice. Semiautos tend to be a bit more pricey. It is especially important that you try a handgun first, though - it's a very personal taste.
More later - I think you'll find the forum full of good advice...
For the house, a shotgun. Remington or Mossberg. Pump or semi-auto. 12 gage, or 20 [if someone using it is recoil averse].
Hunting: Depends on what you hunt, and where you hunt it [In a lot of New York, you can only hunt deer w/ a shotgun]. Northeast Whitetail, try a bolt action 7mm-08, .270 or .270 WSM, a.308, or .30-06 [Remington, Winchester, Ruger, Browning], or if you like levers, Marlin or Mossberg in 30-30, or Marlin in .308 Marlin or .35 Remington. .338 Federal’s good, too. All the 30s should be OK for blackbear.
For moose, heavier. Ditto for Elk [ I’d start at .30-06]. Ditto for boar and double ditto for Brown Bear [think 300 mag, 300WSM, 338 mag, maybe 45-70, .358 Win.
Small game: .22LR, 22 masg., 22-250, w/ 25-06, .243 Win.
Good luck, .223 works for varmints, too- like coyotes. Good luck.
Pistol on my nightstand, shotgun in the corner and an AR in my closet. Works for me. Oh, and I have a German Shepherd dog that sleeps near my bed. He is my first line of defense. ;>)
But, if all you want is a one gun, I recommend a shotgun, I like a 12ga pump. You won’t need to find your glasses, you won’t need to worry all that much about your aim when waking from a sound sleep, while having to deal with an adrenalin rush. It will stop any man, immediately, but is does make a mess. Retention is easy and if you know how, you can beat the bad guy to death with it. AND, nothing says “I mean it” like the sound of racking that monster. ;>)
Good luck... practice, practice, practice.
I have heard that a pump action shotgun, with the shortest legal barrel, is a good choice. The sound of the pump action chambering a round will generally make it unnecessary to actually shoot someone.
To learn to use it effectively, I suggest trap shooting. Even if you have very little talent for it, you should learn to hit a clay pigeon in flight, from 30 yards away, about half the time. If you can do that, it will be virtually impossible for you to miss a person size target inside your house.
A "security" shotgun is not designed to give you the best scores in trap, but your goal should be to get good with the security gun.
A shotgun has an additional safety feature. The BBs cannot go through walls to kill your neighbor, but bullets can very easily do that.