A Beginner’s Guide to Survival Guns

Written by Douglas P. Bell

When writing about firearms for beginners to use to survive whatever may come their way, it strikes me that it is a bit like telling someone what sort of car to buy without Knowing what their automotive experience is and what they want to do with it. While you can probably get by with a good two wheel drive, if you can get a heavy duty four wheel drive for the same money, or less, than that may be a better way to go. Also, to continue with the car theme, while you can probably get by with driving across America with bald tires, wouldn’t a set of new radial tires be better? Maybe you have never needed a firearm when out in the jungle, both rural and urban, but I often have, and things only look to get worse.

A second problem that arises, after how much does the person know about the subject, is what is available, and at what cost. It does little good to recommend a military N 151 (Encore 151) off road vehicle at $16,000, if they are completely unavailable when you read this, and even if you could find one, you can’t get parts to fix it when something goes wrong even if you could afford it in the first place.

The heavy, or battle, rifle will be your long range and big game rifle, able to reach out to 800 yards and more. Most experts agree that to kill a deer you need about 1000 foot pounds of energy when the bullet strikes, and since a human takes about the same amount of killing, a full power military surplus battle rifle is the way to go here as the militaries of the world have taken the guess work out of the size and power needed for the cartridge. The recommended cartridges listed above, .30-06, .308 Winchester (same as the 7.62x51 NATO), 8mm Mauser, .303 British, are all commercially loaded in this country, suitable for any game in America, and still fairly common on the military surplus ammunition market.

Military firearms are generally very rugged, simple to use, easy to fix, and fairly inexpensive. The following is a general list of military rifles available at this time. The semi-automatic US Ml (Garand) Rifle was used in WW II and Korea. They were flooding the market at one time at a cost of $200, but now are getting very expensive ($600-$900 for a shooter) and hard to find on the surplus market again.

While never a military surplus rifle, the M1-Al is the commercial semi-automatic copy of the full auto M-14 in 7.62 NATO (.308 Win.) and is quite expensive (about $1500 and up at this time), but well worth it if you can afford it. The same can be said of most of the other semi-automatic military style 7.62/.308 rifles out there, like the H&K 91 (current German battle rifle in 7.62, the same gun in 5.56/.223 is called a 93), very expensive, worth every penny. A quick aside here, there is a HK 91 made from imported parts and a new US made receiver for about $540 dealer currently (1-99) which is a bargain.

About the only inexpensive (and by that I mean under the $1000 range) 7.62 military style semi-autos on the market currently are the French MAS 49-56 semi-autos converted from 7.5x54 MAS to 7.62x51 NATO and the various FN-FAL rifles built from used military parts on new semi-automatic receivers. The MAS 49-56 rifles just went below $200 (dealer), while the FN-FAL is in the $500-$600 (dealer) range. The FN was used by more militaries (Belguim, England, Australia, India, South Africa, to name just a few) than any other 7.62 rifle, so it can be found just about anywhere and everywhere.

The L1-A1 (an FN-FAL copy) is an excellent choice for a semi-automatic .308 heavy battle rifle.

The bolt action Mauser 98 was the main battle of Germany (and dozens of other countries, including Mexico and most of South America) in WW I and WW II, and can be found in 7mm Mauser, 8mm Mauser, .30-06, and .308, often for under $100, at least for .308 and 8mm Mauser. Currently there are any nunter of 8mm Mauser rifles on the surplus market at give away prices, and the market is flush with 98 Mauser rifles rebored from 7mm Mauser to 7.62 NATO when the countries changed over, which are in the $100 (dealer) range as well. All of these guns, especially the .308 models, are great bargains.

The Yugo M-48A in 8mm is an excellent bolt action battle rifle.

One note, while Israel used 98 Mausers and changed them over to .308, all reports are the accuracy is terrorable, plus they cost the earth to buy. The Steyr (Austria) made 1912 model for Chile (these were also made for Mexico and other South American countries), built on the standard 98 Mauser action, was rebored to 7.62/.308 in 1901, and is marked Model 1912-01 - NATO. These are all excellent rifles and fine shooters. There are two types, the long rifle with a 29” barrel and a short rifle with a 23 1/2” barrel. Either in good condition would be a fine shooter and are great bargains.

The bolt action SMLE (Short Magazine Lee Enfield) is the British WW I and WW II battle rifle and can be found in either .303 British or 7.62 NATO (.308 Winchester) for under $100 dealer. The Ishapore, India, No. 2-A 7.62 rifles are rifles especially made for the 7.62 NATO out of modern steels, and are not converted from older .303 British rifles, although the Ishapore factory made .303 rifles through WW II and into the 1960’s. The .303 and .7.62 No. 1 rifles look the same, but the 7.62 model has a square magazine and retails for about $150. All SMLE rifles in good condition, for .303 or 7.62, for $150 or less are bargains.

The Ishapore No. 2-A is an Enfield copy manufactured from modern steels specifically for the 7.62 NATO/.308 cartridge and is an excellent bolt action battle rifle.

With out getting too technical, there are two types of SMLE on the market, the No. I and No. 4. The No. 1 has the wood all the way to the end of the barrel and a round receiver, while the No. 4 has several inches of barrel sticking out from the stock and a flat sided receiver. The No. 4 is simpler, stronger, and for military use, is a better rifle, but the No. 1 served the British Empire for well over 40 years, and India and Australia used the No. 1 through both WW I and WW II until being replaced by the FN-FAL semi-automatic, so don’t feel short changed with one.

The SMLE No. 1 (top) and the SMLE No. 4 (bottom) both in .303 British are good choices in a bolt action battle rifle.

The light “assault” rifles are short range (under 300 yard) rifles for self-defense and some hunting, but are basicly to repel attackers at 200 yards or less when you need a light, fast handling gun in a hurry. This would include the .233 and 7.62x39. The .223 is basicly a varmint round and is not a very good deer cartridge. It was designed by the military to wound enemy soldiers rather than kill, because it took up man power and supplies to care for the wounded, while a dead soldier was just buried. The M-16 in 5.56 (.223 Remington) was used in Viet Nam, and as a full auto weapon, was never a surplus item. The commercial copy is the AR-15. The Ruger Mini-14 is half the cost of the AR-15 if cost is a factor. However it is hard to get the needed parts for the Ruger Mini -14 if something breaks.

The 7.62x39 was designed by the Russians after WW II and used in the SKS and AK-47. Both rifles and ammunition have flooded the market at very low prices, but now that the importation of military surplus rifles and ammunition has been banned, the prices are going up, doubling the cost of the rifles in many cases, and as such they are not the bargains they once were. The 7.62x39 is in the same power range as the .30-30, so it makes a fairly good deer round. If you have a 7.62x39 rifle, the ammunition is still readily available at quite reasonable prices as it is still being imported, but not as military surplus cartridges, and both Winchester and Remington load it in this country.

With it's excellent mid-powered cartridge and rugged reliability, the AK-47 and it's varients are superb battle carbines.

The heavy or personal defense handgun is what you have with you at all times, because when you need a gun, you generally need it RIGHT NOW! These handguns should be in the .357 Magnum, 9mm and .45 ACP power range. The reason I list a .357 Magnum rather than a .38 Special is the .38 Special can be fired in a .357 Magnum as the .357 Mag is just a longer .38 Special. This way you can fire either, or both, types of ammunition through the same .357 revolver. Most any good quality double action revolver from Colt, S&W, Ruger, Rossi, Taurus should be fine. There still are, currently, large numbers of police trade in double action revolvers from when the police went to semi-autos on the market to chose from.

The 9mm Luger (Parabellum) is in the same power range as the .38 Spec., but became popular because the pistol magazines (clips) could hold large numbers of cartridges without making the pistol too large to use. Since our masters in Washington, D.C., have decided that the masses can’t be trusted with magazines over ten rounds, the 9mm Luger, while still highly popular and available just about everywhere in the world, has little to recommend it over any other semi-automatic handgun cartridge for use in the USA. Current military surplus bargains would include the Egyptian Maadi Cadet, and Com-bloc CZ-52, and Tokarev pistols in 9mm Luger, all of which cost around $200 retail.

The 45 ACP (ACP stands for Automatic Colt Pistol in case you were wondering) dates from the same era as the 9mm Luger, but is most popular in the USA. The classic pistol in this chambering is the “Colt” 1911 .45 Auto, which currently is made by at least a dozen different companies. There are several other different makes and models of .45 Auto out there as well, such as the S&W, and most any of them from a big name manufacturer should be fine.

Unfortunately there are no military surplus .45 pistols currently available on the surplus market, but the 1911 .45 Auto has several advantages, not the least of which is it can be easily converted from .45 ACP to .41 AE, l0mm Auto, .40 S&W, .38 Super, 9mm Luger, .22 LR and back again, with out tools.

The conversion kits for the .45 Auto consist of either a new barrel or a complete upper half, which is slide, barrel, extractor, firing pin, and usually a different magazine. The .41 AE, .38 Super, and 9mm Luger all use the same slide, so all you need to add are different barrels, and for the .41 a different magazine, while the .38 Super and 9mm Luger can both use .38 Super magazines. The 10mm and .40 S&W use the same slide and 10mm magazines, but the 10mm Auto needs a heavier recoi1 spring. The .22 rimfire conversion uses a new slide, barrel, extractor, firing pin and magazine which drops right on, just like the others. There are other cartridges that can be added, but these are the most common and readily available.

If you want a .45 ACP revolver, S&W makes the Model 25, or you can look for one of the WW I Colt or Smith & Wesson 1917 .45 ACP revolvers. The commercial versions were called the Colt New Service and the S&W 1950 .45 Military. While the S&W 1917 .45 ACP revolvers sold to South America after WW I flooded the surplus market awhile back, they are once again hard to find, so look for them at gunshows and gun stores.

If you get a revolver for your personal defense handgun, then get a .22 revolver of the same general size and type to practice with. By the same token, if you get a semi-auto self-defense handgun, then try to get a semi-auto .22 handgun of the same general size and feel to practice with. Handguns are hard enough to hit with past arms length, don’t compound the problem with no practice. Most revolver makers also offer the same general sytle in both .38 Spec./.357 and .22 LR.

After you have your centerfire handgun, you need to practice with it, so you should join a local pistol club. The speed-action pistol shooting is called IPSC (pronounced ip-sick, and stands for the International Practical Shooting Confederation) and clubs are in all fifty states as well as world wide.

While IPSC really isn’t practial anymore, being over run with specialized handguns good for nothing but shooting games, this is still a good place to learn safe gun handling and shooting. You will also learn to handle your pistol under stress while being timed and scored, instead of guessing and wondering. It is amazing how many so called “professionals”, such as police and security guards, are unable to fire their handguns quickly and accurately. When your life is on the line is not the time to get any on the job training. Many clubs also have three gun matches which are rifle, shotgun, and handgun, so you will be able to use all of your major firearms to train.

Now on to the last firearm you will need, the .22 rimfire rifle. In this country there are two main types of .22 rimfire, the .22 Short, Long, Long Rifle, and the .22 Magnum. The .22 rifle you buy should be marked “.22 S-L-LR” and uses .22 LR ammunition for best results. The .22 Magnum is both slightly larger in diameter than the .22 LR and longer, as well as quite a bit more powerful. However .22 Magnum ammunition is two to four times more expensive, harder to find and much louder when fired. Both cost and attracting attention to yourself is a concideration when stocking up in the first place, as well as resupply.

For ammunition I recommend 300 rounds of assorted slugs, buck, and small shot for the shotgun, and 1,000 rounds for each of the other firearms. 1,000 rounds for the heavy rifle, 1,000 rounds for the light rifle, 1,000 rounds for the personal handgun, 1,000 rounds for the .22 pistol and 1,000 rounds for the .22 rifle. Because the .22 ammunition is so cheap, light weight and compact, as well as useful and in demand, it may not hurt to buy 5,000 or more. If you don’t need all that ammunition, of any sort, well it is always going up in price and it will be a sure bet that someone else will need it or want it, so you are not throwing your money down a rat hole.

In case you were wondering how much all of that ammo will weigh and how much room it will take up, 1,000 rds. of .223 weighs 40 lbs., and will fit in a space 6” x 13 1/2" x 13 1/2”. The 1,000 rds. of .308 will come in at 60 lbs., and will fit into a space 8” x 16 1/2” x 15". If you are going with 1,000 rds. of .30-06, it weighs 62 lbs., and take up 8” x 19” x 15”. A wooden crate of 1440 rds. of 7.62x39 in two metal tins weighs 65 lbs., and takes up 4 3/4” x 13 1/2” x 17 1/2” over the largest parts of the crate. With out the wooden case, the two metal tins would take up 2 3/4” x 11" x 12”.

Before stocking up with all the ammunition you will need, buy a couple boxes of each load and try them out to see what is best in your gun. Normally there will be one slug load that works best, one buck shot load that patterns better, one bullet weight that the gun shoots most accurately. Yes, this is expensive, but how much is your 1ife worth to you? Only you can answer that one.

Along about now someone else will say something like: What about the other surplus firearms on the market? What about the Winchester lever action .30-30? What if I want fewer guns or more guns? So let’s talk about that and see why I recommended the guns I have listed.

First off, there are dozens of very fine military surplus firearms out there like the Russian Mosin-Nagant 91, 91-30, and the Finnish version of the 91, called the M-39, all in 7.62x54 Rimmed Russian. Yes these guns have served the Russians from 1891 until 1945, from artic cold to desert heat, until they were replaced with the SKS and AK-47, and still serve in several Com-Bloc countries, quite often as sniper rifles. So why don’t I recommend them? Simply put, while the guns are very inexpensive right now, and military surplus ammunition is readily available, there are no domestic manufacturers of the ammunition, so once the surplus ammunition dries up, resupply will be both costly and hard to come by.

The same is true of the rifles chambered for the 7.7 Japanese, 7.65 Bel ./Argentine, 7.5x54 MAS, etc., there is no domestic corrrnercial supply of ammunition and once the surplus market dries up, resupply will be costly and hard to come by. The guns I listed are common, rugged, and the ammunition is both plentiful on the surplus market and also loaded here in the US when the surplus market dries up.

So why don’t I recommend other US military weapons, like the .30 Ml Carbine? Good question. While the Ml Carbine was both plentiful and cheap, as was the ammunition, basicly the same thing is also true of the .30 Ml Carbine now, expensive, hard to find and not worth it. The supply of .30 Ml Carbine surplus military ammunition has dried up, and while the guns were flooding the market awhile back at very reasonable prices, they now demand collector’s prices.

Also the .30 Ml Carbine, while light and handy, is basicly chambered for a pistol cartridge, and not an especialy useful one at that. In fact, the .357 Magnum is both more common, and when fired out of a rifle, more powerful. In fact the .30 MI was never designed to be a front line weapon, but was designed to replace the .45 Auto for rear echelon troops who still needed to be armed but were not actually expected to have to shoot anyone. The ammunition is still commercially loaded by all the major ammunition makers, but it is at least as expensive as any other centerfire ammunition, so go with a more powerful cartridge like the .223 or 7.62x39 if you have any choice and want a short, light rifle.

Why not the Winchester 94 or Marlin 330 lever action .30-30 if the 7.62x39 in the SKS and AK-47 is the same power? The first reason is the SKS and AK-47 are semi-automatics, so if you need to put out a volume of fire, say there are several attackers headed your way, you will be able to. The second reason is that the military surplus ammunition and “new” imported ammunition is still very inexpensive, especially when compared to commercial ammunition, so you can afford to stock up and practice.

On the other hand, if you live in an area where it is illegal to own a semi-automatic (the dreaded so-called “assault rifle”), or your neighbors are simply a bunch of anti-gun jerks just waiting to turn you in to the thought police, then a .30-30 lever action "cowboy gun” might make sense. Why you would let the law dictate to you how, or why, you are to be able to defend yourself, and/or place your life in the hands of these ninnies is another matter, and that’s up to you.

Why not fewer guns or more guns? Why just these six? Well of course you can probably get by with one or two guns, just like you can probably drive from NY to CA with bald tires and no spare. For most of this country's history the explorers and cowboys just carried one long gun and generally either no handgun or just one handgun to see them through come what may, but on the other hand, whoever they ran into was generally either carry ing the same thing, or weapons not as good, so they were seldom “outgunned”. That is not the case now.

Now the criminals (the cops, the feds, whoever) will be packing rapid fire weapons with large magazines. Remember Operation Northstar is equiping any police department that asks for it with military issue M-16 rifles with bayonets, tanks, APC’s, NBC suits, etc. Remember Waco, TX where the feds were using tanks to bulldoze the building while using loud speakers to claim “this is not an attack”? How about Ruby Ridge, ID? Or Gordon Kahl? Don’t say it can’t happen here, it has.

If you really, truely, must cut the number of firearms, I would first get rid of the light centerfire (“assault”) rifle, and then the .22 pistol, although it is much harder to learn to shoot well with a centerfire handgun, if only because the ammunition costs are so high. If you are limited to what you can carry, or space is at a critial mass, then the shotgun would be the next to go, due to the high weight and bulk of the ammunition if nothing else. However each gun you remove from the list will limit the amount of things you can do well , and whether this is life threatening or not will depend on where you are and what you are doing. The choice, and your life, is in your hands, you do what you think best.