Some musings and some questions - a combo gun?

[Iain]

(Mods feel free to move this, I was not sure where to put it as I am asking questions about both rifles and shotguns)

As I am an Englishman I do not have access to guns very easily, nor have I ever been involved in a 'survival' situation. Since being introduced to the L&P part of this forum (you have MicroBalrog to blame - good luck on Sunday btw) something has started that is possibly unhealthy. I think about guns every now and again.

So this story begins on Tuesday. The girlfriend has gotten very sick with gastroenteritis (she is on the mend now) so I have spent some long nights looking after her. At about 3am I got to thinking about a survival gun. When I say survival I mean not necessarily SHTF but more a 'kill to eat/kill to live' situation. Say a road trip goes wrong and you break down miles from anywhere, basically I don't need to feed the imagination for such things around here it seems.

So I got to thinking, what does this weapon for this situation need? It is for American trips more than British ones so keep that in mind. Light weight, light ammo, enough hitting power for small to medium game (assuming that bears are not an issue), enough for cougars if that becomes an issue (was thinking that even a small bullet and a small slug would cause a cougar to rethink)

Many state they would choose a .22lr. So I looked around on the internet and had some pipedreams and an O/U rifle over shotgun combo seems best for me (at least it is what I would want). Savage do one http://www.beartoothbullets.com/tech_notes/archive_tech_notes.htm/1 There is also this concept http://www.ar-7.com/ Both are interesting, but the design ideas where light weight is concerned are especially interesting with the AR-7, both weighing in at 2 and a half pounds. The savage shows lots of interesting combos. You can have .22LR/.410 or .223 Rem/20 Gauge or even 30-30/12 Gauge

I did some reading up on the .410 briefly. Read about a guy who takes deer with slugs from one at ranges up to 35yds, http://home.freeuk.com/4-10/mwslug.html Through choice this worries me, but when you need to eat hunting ethics are something of a side issue, if you can kill it then you get to eat as opposed to not eat. What about 28 gauge?

So I was thinking a break action job with a polymer stock, possibly not as extreme as http://www.ar-7.com/images/ar20.jpg, but something lightweight. The rifle allows for small game at some range and the shotgun allows for closer work and possibly deer (assuming using a small bore for less weight and using slugs through it)

Pretty ignorant aren't I? Post up some suggestions, existing rifles etc. What about sights/sighting issues with the O/U arrangement? Is a combo more useful than a single shot rifle? I'm not thinking of something pretty, more something that serves a potential purpose when loaded up with your camping gear or slung in a canoe.

 

[Triad]

A vierling with two 12 ga barrels, one .45-70 barrel and one .22LR barrel would offer enough versatility to hunt just about anything on the face of the earth. It would be fairly compact when taken down, but I don't know how much something like that would weigh. I don't know how much it would cost either, but I suspect the price would be very high.

 

[TallPine]

I didn't know that you could get more than a few hundred yards from anywhere in England .....?

Even in the USA, can't see where you would get broke down long enough to need to shoot a deer (not to mention it would be illegal most of the year). Now maybe if your Cessna goes down somewhere in Alaska ....

So a 22 LR would be good for most small game, if you can hit em. Best part is you can carry a lot of ammo.

Personally, I wouldn't want to mess with a shotgun less than 20 gauge.

A 22 LR / 20 gauge combo would be ideal IMO, if such a thing is made.

Otherwise, why not one of those NEF single shot break-open 20 gauge shotguns that sell for about $99. You could carry several different kinds of shot shells, from bird/squirrel shot to slugs.

A 12 gauge would be even better, but - Ouch! - that's a lot of recoil for such a light gun.

 

[Dr.Rob]

Savage still makes inexpensive over/under combo guns. 22/12 ga is very popular.

30/30 12 ga is popular too.. many people still hunt small game with a shotgun, wishing the rifle barrel to have more range and knockdown power.

 

[Iain]

Noticed that the link I posted to the image does not work, if you go to www.ar-7.com and then click rifles and scroll down it is the ar-20 design I was referring to when I said extreme.

My thoughts were a very light gun and it appears it exists http://www.springfield-armory.com/prod-m6-m6rifles.shtml but only comes in .410

 

[greyhound]

I can second that a 20 gauge slug is pretty durn big, plus you could supplement with buck shot and bird shot. Another plus is that it would definitely fit in the "hunting rifle" genre, though I know your premise was US based some states here (ahem) are probably not much better about guns than the UK. (I may be wrong, but isn't a 20 gauge .50 something caliber? Thats pretty big!)

I USED to think my Remington 870 Wingmaster was heavy, till I got my WW II Soviet Mosin Nagant! Now it feels pretty light!

 

[Preacherman]

EAA import the Baikal combo guns from Russia - see here for their three models. In the centerfire version, you can get really useful calibers such as .308 or .30-'06, combined with a 12ga. barrel. Looks like this:

Another, even more compact option would be their 12ga. "coach gun" fitted (in one barrel) with their screw-in rifle-barrel insert, available in five calibers. This would be shorter and easier to carry than the full-length combo gun, and when taken apart, would be only 20" long at most - easy to pack away. For details of the shotgun, see here: for the barrel insert, see here.

The shotgun looks like this (version with external hammers also available):

The barrel insert works like this:

I'm not sure what sighting arrangements you'd have to make on the coach gun: I'm sure a rifle barrel with a bead sight won't be very accurate! Perhaps you could drill & tap the rib for a red dot sight?

 

[sm]

Preacherman...

Actually that SxS is pretty darn accurate. The one I used was 45-70 and 12 ga.

We later added a mid bead, as this was a"primary business social situation piece". So at the longest "expected" range of 75 yds...no problem with the 45-70. I kept volunteering to do testing. Mid bead helped on 45-70, as I'm used to and have mid beads on SGs, and since I have run a few shotshells downrange I had no problem with the shotgun part. I ran skeet to 00 buck, to slugs ( redundant I know) but had to see. [Anything to keep testing ya know].

Nifty combo gun, handy, easy to handle, recoil no biggie. "Lobbing" for paint buckets at long range is a hoot...

It is kept loaded with 45-70 and 00 , in a business setting...receptionist desk no less...

 

[BluesBear]

I was looking at a Savage 24 this past summer. It was .223 over 12 gauge. It even came with a .410 insert.

From the looks of it I'd bet you could fire a .45 Colt from the .410 adapter. Now with no rifling it's wouldn't give you much range but it would add versitility.

I you bought a .22 insert for the rifle barrel you'd have it all.

.22lr
.223
.45Colt
.410
12 gauge

 

[Iain]

That Baikal combo gun looks interesting. They do a centerfire upper with a 12 gauge lower, a rimfire upper with a 20 gauge lower and a rimfire upper with a 410 lower. The 410 models are $350 cheaper at SSSP. Not as adjustable though. Looks like the rimfire/20gauge is a starting idea, but then you'd need to lose weight, probably by losing the wooden stock - any suggestions?

If I was buying a straight forward combo gun without worrying about the 'survival' concept then the Baikal and the Savage look like great solutions.