“Where I live you can pick up a surplus Chinese SKS for as little as $70. The ammo is cheap and you can easily kill a deer with one.”
I’m a fan of the 6.5 Grendel AR round, which is plenty sufficient to kill anything in the lower 48 (grizzlies would likely require several shots, but with 10 to 26 round mags available that’s no problem;). Not cheap, but it’s also an excellent long range round, better ballistically than a .308 Win. Most of the rifles that shoot it are quite accurate. It was also featured on Future Weapons shooting through a car side-to-side (both front doors) and into a dummy’s head.
One neat thing about the AR platform is the upper part is modular, so you can have several different calibers without paying for complete rifles.
“I think accurate 22-caliber rifles would also be useful in a post-meltdown world for hunting small game.”
Yep, also don’t forget the classic 12-gauge. It’ll put meat on the table better than just about anything, and is also useful for defense purposes. I like the Rem 870 for that, it’s simple, time-tested and the barrels interchange easily. You can pick up 18 inch police buckshot barrels readily as well.
[I’m a fan of the 6.5 Grendel AR round. . .]
I was not familiar with this development. One problem with the military-issue 5.56 is that the round has a tendency to boat-tail in flight. This was first noted in Vietnam but was generally considered a plus because the instability was said to result in a nastier wound. I can remember people cutting small nicks in the jackets of M-16 rounds trying to exaggerate this effect. When I arrived in RVN the Marine Corps was in the process of exchanging the M-14 for the M-16. The accuracy of the M-16—out to 300 meters—surprised everybody because it had not been one of Colt's big selling points.
These Grendel's seem to extend that accuracy out much further.