Yeah, get a Mosin:
Posted on 06/27/2020 2:05:33 PM PDT by VeniVidiVici
I'm sure (I hope) to get a range of responses to this thread.
I've owned hand guns and long guns of all types. Handling them is not an issue.
Unfortunately the ones I've had were lost in a boating accident.
I'm looking to replace the ones I had with three or four that compliment each other.
Love to learn to reload. What are good ones going for nowadays?
Good point but that idiot was like 6-10ft away? I want to reach out and touch someone if need be.
Yeah, but to lay down a large amount of rounds in a small space in a short amount of time, hard to beat an AK or AR pistol. Not looking for accuracy in that situation :)
Not to say better than a shotgun but it has additional rounds you can keep flowing down range.
I agree with your observation of the efficacy of 20 Gauge for the scenario that you described. I would like a bit more punch at range with high velocity #8 shot out to 50 yds, and High velocity 1600 fps slugs at 100 yds. As you know, velocity, effectiveness, and accuracy with shot and slugs degrades rapidly beyond 25 yards. This is mitigated a great deal by high velocity 12 gauge shot.
My experience with shotguns is quite extensive with Remington 870 and Mossberg 590 pump guns as a police officer, and Benelli M4’s in the armed forces. I am used to handling their recoil.
I agree that one should extensively practice with a 12 gauge before relying upon it for serious social work. PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE is all!!!!
Thanks for the tip. I had forgotten about them.
A pump 12 gage like the mossy or the Mexican assembled cheaper version. Buy the 18 inch barrel version to reduce 'out front' weight. Five in the tube is suffieicent if you load when not shooting.
An AK74, if you can find it, with eight to twelve extra magazines. Best human shredding bullet around for closer work up to in house emergencies.
I carried a 22lr pistol for years but recently up graded to a 32 acp Beretta 81 (yes they are available now). Centerfire ammo is more reliable and the 32 acp will kill immediately with proper round placement. The rounds feel like a 22lr but heavier bullet and more reliable ammo. Second third and fourth shots are easy to keep on target. For close in defense, shoot the perp in the pelvis and when they are squirming on the ground take your time and put the vermin down with a head shot.
A .22 will easily go a mile, the trick is it’s stopping point.
Your first test is to see how much 1000 rounds of ammo weighs and how much work it takes to move it. Buy the ammo you can move most efficiently.
Yeah, get a Mosin:
LOL!! I loved the blast out of my Mosins.
“That said, I think every good American should have a suppressed .22; I have several.”
Oh, and as an aside (and for informational purposes ONLY) some people have mentioned that when using a subsonic round (especially a .22 LR), the oil filter can act as a very effective suppressor - which would OF COURSE be quite illegal unless it was previously registered properly with the BATFE. I’m sure that no one reading this would do such a thing - I know that i wouldn’t, and I certainly wouldn’t advise or recommend to anyone that they do such a thing; nope, just use it as it is intended, as a solvent trap.
Like this one?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfGBiib9qBg
Above is video of a shooting (at the university where my son was at the time). The gunman shot several people - thankfully with only bird shot, although one boy died.
The video (at :36 seconds) shows a girl getting shot in the upper chest from about 12 feet away. She is stunned, turns and walks away. She left the building and sought help. She survived with no long-term injuries.
The first boy that was shot died because the gunman sneaked up behind him and put the barrel of the gun against the base of his skull.
Another boy who was shot had a circular “rash” from the pellets perhaps 14” in diameter on his upper chest - his shirt is off and he is walking/running away with the paramedics. I would guess that is maybe a shot from 20+ feet away???
In the video, after the girl is shot, the hero, student Jon Meis hears the shot and jumps into action. Sprays the killer with pepper spray, takes the gun, then comes back and takes a knife and wrestles him to the ground as another student comes to help.
“Mosins are NOT sniper rifles. 7.62x54R cartridges are generally surplus and not very accurate.”
As to the rifles themselves, the Finn M39 was the last in a roughly 20-year long line of improvements that Finland made to the huge number of Mosin Nagants that they captured during their war for independence from Russian/the USSR in the immediate aftermath of WW1. The Finns are, like the Swiss, a nation of shooters, and they decided that since they didn’t have the industrial base or money to make their own rifles from scratch, that they’d modify what they had captured to be much more accurate. They took the basic MN receiver, which is pretty rock solid and (for the era) high quality, added their own barrels, triggers, sights and stocks - and came up with a series of very accurate rifles that are prized as collectors items today. Here are some articles for you on the subject:
https://www.guns.com/news/review/the-most-deadly-mosin-in-the-world-the-m39
http://www.mosinnagant.net/finland/finnish_mosin_nagantm39.asp
Also, as proof that the MN can be used as a sniper rifle, consider the case of one Finnish soldier of some renown, Simo Hayha: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_H%C3%A4yh%C3%A4 He used a modified MN, the M28/30, to kill about 500 Russians (505 is the number cited most often) in less than 100 days in the Winter War in 1939 and 1940 (fought when there were very few daylight hours, which only makes his feat more legendary). No sniper before or since has matched that total, let alone in such a short period of time - and this was done without a scope, just iron sights. https://www.wearethemighty.com/articles/the-5-most-legendary-snipers-of-all-time
So please don’t say that the MN cannot be used as a sniper rifle - it most definitely can, and has been.
I’ll just weigh in on the pistol. I would go with .40 s&w. There are a lot of police trade-ins available. During the Obama ammo desolation, .40 tended to stay on the shelves.
“Cut 12gauge shells. Wax and #4 buck. Works great.. reloading press gets a workout too.”
I’m going to chime in, but probably this will only add incrementally to what others have said.
First, you need to decide on a variety of different missions/scenarios. One scenario that every person needs to think about is the home invasion in the middle of the night - and for that you need a good, reliable, and easy-to-use handgun if there’s one guy. I have both a 9mm and a Gov’t Model .45. The 9 is definitely cheaper to shoot, and it has higher capacity magazines, so if you’re in a prolonged fight you are more likely to survive (esp. with an extra mag or 2). The downside to the 9 is stopping power vs. the .45. The Gov’t Model .45 is heavier and has a lower mag capacity, but the round it shoots hits like a ton of bricks. Note 2 other things: 1) the Gov’t Model was designed to be a shooter, by a shooter, and it fits the hand of the average man quite well and is a good gun to naturally point well (this is because in the 109 years since the gun came out, the Mark 1 human hand hasn’t changed much). 2) If you want a higher-capacity .45, there are several on the market by very reputable manufacturers (S&W, Glock and Springfield Armory, to name just 3) with significantly higher capacity. The Springfield XD series has as much as 13-round mags, as does the Glock 21, meaning that if you have a fully-loaded pistol and 2 spare mags, you have 40 rounds of .45. If you can’t fight your way out of a problem with that, it just isn’t your day.
Second, a good back-up to the handgun is a shotgun. Many recommend a 12-gauge, and it is certainly a man-stopper. Pump action is easy to use and reliable, semi-auto is a bit quicker (and a lot more expensive, and more prone to being less reliable). The standard 2 3/4” round of 00 buck will send 9 .33 caliber balls downrange, each of which is fully capable of taking down an assailant at close ranges. The sound of a pump-action shottie being racked is the universal signal to all thieves and assailants to run away as fast as possible, and ASAP. #4 buck is perhaps more, and certainly at least as effective as 00 - it has lower diameter and lighter shot, but many more of them. Here’s a great site with lots of stats regarding shotshells: http://shotshell.drundel.com/pelletcount.htm Note that a 20 gauge shottie can much more easier be handled by a woman, and if you’re going to use the handgun to handle a situation, having your wife (or a teen) backing you up with a 20 gauge shottie isn’t the worst thing in the world. Besides, no intruder is going to say, “Hey, time-out! I need to see if that’s a 12- or a 20-gauge before I decide whether to assault you or leave.” They will automatically assume that it’s a 12-gauge and, if they’re even modestly smart, leave quickly.
Third, having a .22 LR rifle is very smart for a few reasons. First, it is cheap, and cheap to shoot even with high-quality ammo. So you can get good with it for not much money, and lots of that built-up skill is applicable to your other firearms. Second, 40 grains coming at you at 1000-1,200 FPS is just plain not good for your health - and a decent (not even nearly great) .22 rifle can do that quite accurately up to 50 yards away, and better ones can do quite well up to 100 yards away. I would buy a semi-auto, because you want the ability to have a quick follow-up shot and plenty of mag capacity. The best known is the Ruger 10/22, followed by the Marlin 60. I would (and have) choose the 10/22 for one reason: parts availability. There are multiple millions of them out there, and an entire sub-industry exists to service and improve them. I would invest in a premium barrel and trigger, they will improve accuracy quite a lot - and getting good glass on top is great for not much money.
Fourth and fifth - rifles. OK, you need 2 of them. Conventional wisdom (here on this thread and elsewhere) says to get one semi-auto battle rifle and one accurate boltie. I won’t dispute that, but again the actual choice you make comes down to your needs and the most likely scenarios that you envision. WRT the semi-auto part of that (and IMHO, you DO need one of those) the Ford vs. Chevy argument of the gun world is the AR vs. the AK. The AR is more accurate, lighter (easier to handle, esp. for women), shoots lighter ammo (you can carry more), and its parts are probably at least as ubiquitously available as those of the Ruger 10/22. Compare and contrast with the AK - generally, it is cheaper to obtain, and surplus ammo is available at far lower cost. It isn’t as accurate, but if you’re not using it at more than 200-300 yards, this doesn’t really mean that much - a rifle/ammo combo that dependably shoots 4 MOA will hit within a 12-inch circle at 300 yards, plenty good enough for most situations that one could imagine. Oh, and instead of the .22 diameter bullet of 55-62 grains that is typically shot by ARs, the AK shoots a .30 bullet of 122-125 grains, so it hits a lot harder. The rifles are incredibly reliable, as they were designed from the start to be handled by ill-educated Russian peasants who were not particularly well-known for their attention to keeping a firearm cleaned and lubed properly. Parts and ammo are pretty freely available at this point (present shortages for ALL guns, parts and ammo will change this, of course), so that’s no longer (as it was in the ‘80s) a winning argument for the AR.
Now the tough part - what is the likelihood of you needing a true sniper rifle, something in the 6mm - 7.62mm range, bolt action, capable of reliably (like 95% of the time) felling large game (including the 2-legged variety) at 600+ yards? If you don’t have much need for that (and it isn’t legally defensible to do that unless the other guy started by shooting at you with a similar rifle), then you don’t need that boltie - instead use an AR that has had its accuracy upgraded with a better (and longer) barrel, better trigger and some good optics, and let your 5th gun be a pistol-caliber carbine. The caliber on that carbine should/must match that of your handgun - you WANT that interchangability. There are good examples of these carbines in 9, .40 and .45. The higher velocity of the 9 makes for a longer reach and the best use of the longer carbine barrel, but the .45 can be pretty much a tack-driver in the right carbine at 100 yards (and hit with 230 grains of goodness). If you DO need/want the ability to reach out and touch someone at 600+ yards, then ditch the carbine and get a good boltie like the Remington 700 or the Savage 110/112. Both are great rifles for the average and even above-average shooter, with modern manufacturing facilities churning out rifles capable of 1 MOA, far better than most people can shoot. Good (i.e. expensive) glass is required, as is lots of practice. Ammo is also critical - you will ONLY shoot match-grade ammo in these, except perhaps during 20-50 rounds of breaking in the rifle (and save that brass, you ideally SHOULD reload for your rifle. My own preference is .308, as the round is very available and there are a wide choice of great match ammo available (Federal Gold Medal Match is pretty much the accepted standard, but others make some VERY high quality stuff). Your own ammo WILL be match quality if you are careful and diligent, use great bullets, great powder and match primers, and you’ll be able to roll your own for what standard-grade ammo costs off-the-shelf. Oh, and rolling your own requires some degree of experimentation...but that’s fun to do and only helps to familiarize you with your rifle. When you hit that sweet spot for YOUR rifle, there are few better feelings.
That’s all for now - good luck!
bkmk
Seems a bit much for pigeons.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.