Averageman
Member
The idea of grabbing one rifle to do it all is flawed. I wish it wasn't, but it really is.
From my experiance, you can only carry so much "stuff" before it becomes an issue of "what do I truely need?"
I have spent the majority of my life in the military and the rest of it in the defence industry. Weight has a diminishing point of return, that weight is just weight regardless of if it is in a weapon, water or body armor.
Weight is an issue that you can't dismiss and you can only oversome or compromise with.
We left the M14 in .308 (7.62) to go to the M16 in .223 (5.56) and the teething pains killed a lot of soldiers in junglr warfare. In return once the issues were worked out, the
M16 won the day and we carried more ammo per Soldier than our enemies could in 7.62X39.
Our Enemies liked that so much they even came up with their own 5.56 round.
Oh, by the way, when we left the jungle and went to the desert,...well that 7.62 was dusted off to fight again.
But, here is the difference; you will have NO logistical supply line to feed you ammo, no helicopter to kick cases of 5.56 out the door as they do mini gun passes and no armorer to fix your broken gun.
Irregardless of how much you can carry; no ammo bearer is going to come up and hand you a full magazine regardless of if it is a "Red Dawn" or White Tail hunt. Buddy you are on your own.
So what you have to do is tailor your gun to your terrain.
Where do you hunt? How do you hunt? How well do you hunt?
Would your rifle penetrait body armor? Would it over penetrait the walls of your home?
Can you find ammo easily? Can you reload it in the field from "finds"?
So the answer would be..........
There aint one easy answer.
If you live in New York it is one caliber, if you live in New Mexico another.
In actual fact and as far as I can tell, you will need several rifles, in different calibers to do the job you describe.
My compromise, and belive me it is a compromise is a .308 rifle in semi auto.
And my reasoning is,
It takes 99% of all North American Game Animals. It also defeats most body armor.
It is a common NATO round and can with some work be reloaded from crew served weapons discarded brass. It can now be found as Surplus and also on the shelves of Big Box Stores in bullet weights for both bolt and semi auto rifles.
Recoil is manageable for most Men and the ballistics are easily more easily managable with a good scope.
If I can get you to agree to the above thoughts, then you can see that what you need is a rifle in .308 / 7.62
That being said.
Now do I need an auto loader or would bolt action suffice?
If we are saying that in the worst case, I may be up to my limit with how fast I can work my bolt, aquire a target and accurately fire in a very stressful situation, then a bolt action may be too much work for all but the best of riflemen.
That premise being what it is then, my choices are more limited to semi auto mil spec rifles.
Semi Auto and Mil Spec. Rifles really reduces my choices now doesn't it?
From my experiance, you can only carry so much "stuff" before it becomes an issue of "what do I truely need?"
I have spent the majority of my life in the military and the rest of it in the defence industry. Weight has a diminishing point of return, that weight is just weight regardless of if it is in a weapon, water or body armor.
Weight is an issue that you can't dismiss and you can only oversome or compromise with.
We left the M14 in .308 (7.62) to go to the M16 in .223 (5.56) and the teething pains killed a lot of soldiers in junglr warfare. In return once the issues were worked out, the
M16 won the day and we carried more ammo per Soldier than our enemies could in 7.62X39.
Our Enemies liked that so much they even came up with their own 5.56 round.
Oh, by the way, when we left the jungle and went to the desert,...well that 7.62 was dusted off to fight again.
But, here is the difference; you will have NO logistical supply line to feed you ammo, no helicopter to kick cases of 5.56 out the door as they do mini gun passes and no armorer to fix your broken gun.
Irregardless of how much you can carry; no ammo bearer is going to come up and hand you a full magazine regardless of if it is a "Red Dawn" or White Tail hunt. Buddy you are on your own.
So what you have to do is tailor your gun to your terrain.
Where do you hunt? How do you hunt? How well do you hunt?
Would your rifle penetrait body armor? Would it over penetrait the walls of your home?
Can you find ammo easily? Can you reload it in the field from "finds"?
So the answer would be..........
There aint one easy answer.
If you live in New York it is one caliber, if you live in New Mexico another.
In actual fact and as far as I can tell, you will need several rifles, in different calibers to do the job you describe.
My compromise, and belive me it is a compromise is a .308 rifle in semi auto.
And my reasoning is,
It takes 99% of all North American Game Animals. It also defeats most body armor.
It is a common NATO round and can with some work be reloaded from crew served weapons discarded brass. It can now be found as Surplus and also on the shelves of Big Box Stores in bullet weights for both bolt and semi auto rifles.
Recoil is manageable for most Men and the ballistics are easily more easily managable with a good scope.
If I can get you to agree to the above thoughts, then you can see that what you need is a rifle in .308 / 7.62
That being said.
Now do I need an auto loader or would bolt action suffice?
If we are saying that in the worst case, I may be up to my limit with how fast I can work my bolt, aquire a target and accurately fire in a very stressful situation, then a bolt action may be too much work for all but the best of riflemen.
That premise being what it is then, my choices are more limited to semi auto mil spec rifles.
Semi Auto and Mil Spec. Rifles really reduces my choices now doesn't it?
