M6 Survival Rifle

Roverguy said:

The point, made.

It was a survival rifle, not a combat weapon. The warning on the Hornet ammo above offers complete clarity. It was conceived for use by air crew downed in remote areas to survive while waiting for rescue. It did not have a combat role.

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Right, get you some monkey-meat.

I had one of the sporting models a while ago. It was useless for pretty much everything. Unless you crashed in somewhere extremely remote where the animals don't fear humans, there is no way you are going to get within the guns effective range to harvest anything.

I remember the .22 hornet barrel being 6-8" at 50 yards, the thought of harvesting small game with it is laughable.
the .410 barrel being so underpowered as to be useless past 10 yards,
I think a great deal of its underwhelming impression was the "trigger". The trigger on those is literally a flat bar about 3" long that needs to be squeezed in an iron grip to finally break. Honestly, I'd question whether it can even be called a trigger. It is more of a mechanical activator for the firing mechanism.

The only thing I regret about selling it was not thinking it could possibly be worth as much as it actually was, so while I didn't lose money on it, I didn't sell it for nearly as much as it was touted as being worth.

Carl N. Brown said:

Aircrew Survival Weapons, US Army Airforce, WWII, packed in survival kits, included Savage 24 .22 LR/.410 combination gun with Tennite plastic stock or an M1 Carbine.

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A coworker who had done his WWII service in support of planes "flying the Hump" had pilfered one of those Savages. He said the .410 ammo was taken off the planes because it was feared that the Japanese would be even more abusive to any prisoner found with lead shotgun pellets. This left them with only the special production "Hague approved" jacketed .22 LR.

The Germans took it more seriously. Planes flying over wilderness areas carried J.P. Sauer drillings, 9.3x74-12 ga-12 ga.

^^ The Remington M24 cartridge made for issue with the Aircrew Survival Weapon .22LR/.410 was 40.5 gr FMJ with 2.5 gr smokeless powder.
Army Tech Manual TM9-1305-200 / Air Force Tech Order TO 11A13-1-101 June 1961
lists three types .22 LR in mitary service
.22 LR 40 gr lead, 1.7 gr smokeless, training, target round.
.22 LR 40 gr, commercial, 2.1 gr smokeless, training
.22 LR 40.5 gr gilding metal jacket, M24, 2.5 gr smokeless, air crew survival cartridge for issue in war zones, developed from the T42 round.

I suspect .22 Commercial is just the cheapest HVRN available. I remember seeing surplused cartons of .22 Remington Thunderbolt (lead roundnose high velocity) with National Guard labels as training ammo.

(Personally I suspect Eugene Stoner developed the AR-7 using the military issue M24 .22 LR loaded hotter than the usual .22LR high velocity.)

Speedo66 said:

They would have to modify them heavily just to get them to run, unless the Armalite's were much better than the ones made by Charter Arms.

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The Armalites are much more reliable than the Charters ! I have had four Armalites and two Charters, I still have a cherry Armalite that always works even with extended magazines ! I had, until a son grabbed it, an Israeli version which has a tube butt stock and a threaded barrel. It was imported with the short barrel pinned with a long compensator to make the legal 16" .

I had an M6 Scout (a CZ built 22lr/410 stainless), bought low and sold high. Neat piece of history that should remain in history as far as its function in today's world. There are much better options out there for a survival setup.

I had two CZ built for Springfield M6 Scouts bothe .22 Hornet/.410 , my son got the stainless one which he recently sold last year to pay for $1000 in tax stamps
I kept my scoped one:

Wish someone would put out an AR-5 copy in either .22LR, .22 Mag, or to be forward looking, 5.7x28, which I think would be a screaming good survival round in a platform like that.

An intriguing survival gun is the TP-82.

Russian Cosmonaut Alexi Leonov's Soyuz space capsule blew off course on landing and he spent at least a night in the Siberian wilderness with just a 9mm Makarov pistol for comfort. He felt inadequately armed against Siberian wolf or bear. Igor Skrylev designed the TP-82 Cosmonaut Survival Pistol - double barrel 12.5mm (40ga) shotgun over single 5.45x39 rifle barrel. Special ammunition also included 12.5mm flares for the shotgun barrels. The Cosmonaut Survival Machete (in its sheath) served as a detachable shoulder stock. TP-82 was included in the Soyuz Portable Emergency Survival Kit from 1986. By 2007 the 12.5mm flares reached their expiration date. The TP-82 was replaced with a 9mm pistol and separate handheld flare launcher.