I have one of those (a Henry), with a nice (full-size) scope on it. I still haven’t fired it. Just too busy for a range day.
Compressed air and lead, copper, or steel balls.
The 20+ round Girardoni Repeating Air Rifle was created around 1779. Iron, and leather, and wood, Oh My. Plus an air pump.
Oh… The AR-7 seems pretty… un-sturdy to me. (Also, what do you do when you run out of .22 LR?) For a .22, I think a more traditional rifle would be better. My old Sears (Marlin) single-shot can shoot .22 LR, .22 L, and .22 Short; and it doesn’t eat up ammunition. I have a couple of Ruger 10-22s (one stainless with a 22" barrel, one with a Mannlicher stock) that I think would be better than an AR-7, and they’re plentiful enough that replacement parts shouldn’t be too hard to come by.
Part of my other duties as assigned involves federal COOP plans for my agency. COOP is the program to reconstitute government after a human or natural disaster. We gave a presentation recently to fellow staffers about being prepared personally in the event of a natural disaster (earthquake, volcanic eruption, etc.). Everyone should have emergency provisions at home to tide you and your family over at least two weeks, carrying a special “go bag” in your vehicle so you can get home to family, etc.
One special agent told me later he wasn’t worried and had no plans to be personally prepared. He was matter of fact when he said, “I have firearms. I’ll take what I need from anyone who doesn’t.”
So much for his oath …
Perhaps I should begin selling .25 Benjamins to survivalists.
Or
Sam Yang Big Bore 909S - .45 Cal 180-grain roundnose at 780 FPS.
Yeah, that is not good.
I wonder how policemen and National Guardsmen, folks who know how to use weapons and have access to a lot of them, would behave.
Actually, it’s complete piece of shit. The only benefit of it is that it can be broken down and packed into its own stock, a process that takes longer than it seems like it ought it. It is horribly prone to breakage and will jam at the slightest contamination, which is problematic because every time you take it apart the mechanism is exposed to whatever might get into it. If you favor a .22 LR a Ruger 10/22, or better yet a long-barreled Mark III (or any other robust bolt action or semi-auto rifle or long barreled pistol) is a better choice, but honestly, a .22LR isn’t guaranteed to kill anyone from a distance much longer than direct contact, and hunting small game is an energy-wasting exercise for anyone relying on the meat for sustenance. You are better off learning how to set deadfall traps and snares. (I would not recommend practicing by actually using such traps to catch game, as it is both illegal and cruel but in a survival situation those concerns go out the window in favor of your personal survival.)
Modern centerfire cartridge weapons are all well and good, but in any really long term situation you’d be better off returning to the simple but very capable falling block weapons using black powder cartridges. These use a large rifle primer which will be easier to refurbish, can be sealed against water intrusion, and offer low operating pressures which ensure that both the brass and rifle see minimal wear. In a pinch you can make a suitable propellant out of ammonium nitrate and potassium chlorate or powdered sugar, although you’ll find that this is pretty corrosive and not as stable long term as true gunpowder or cordite, both of which can be manufactured with some modest amount of field chemistry and a primitive workbench setup.
Stranger
Sounds like anybody who knows you would be well advised to put one in the back of your head at the first sign of things going wrong, GusNSpot. Maybe before then. I figure folks who want to brag on their predatory tendencies deserve to be taken at their word and dealt with accordingly. 1%'s make it easy.
Just the opposite. The thread is about an apocalypse. It’s the movers, shakers, and doers who are going to survive. The big talkers will learn a useful trade or fall by the wayside. People with the ability to build things, people who can catch a game bird and turn it into lunch, are going to survive.
I figure that in an apocalyptical situation, you would have to talk someone else into putting one in the back of someone’s head. What would you have to trade, in an apocalypse, that could convince someone else to do your bidding?
I don’t plan on talking anybody into doing my bidding. I have already connected with and made arrangements with like-thinking people. I also have an unofficial list of people who arenot to be trusted or aided, blood relation or not. One does poorly to clutch a viper to one’s bosom rather than crush its skull.
Nevertheless. I’d wanted one since I saw a Charter Arms one at Fed Mart when I was a kid. The Henrys are cheap enough, so I thought ‘Why not?’
I’m going to arm myself with midgets because they can bite. Still working the kinks out of the trebuchet. I’m calling my army the biting 69th.
But what if all the gunpowder stops working?
(Before you tell me what a moron I am, GusNSpot, please keep in mind that I am referring to the unlikely scenario presented in a popular novel called Dies the Fire. You wouldn’t like it. No guns.)
I always wonder why people just wouldn’t use a quackenbush; you could buy a few tanks and tens of thousands of pellets.
I think that both of you are on The List.
Sorry, Dude.
Survival of the Most Fit, and All That.
I have read that compound bows are vastly more powerful than the traditional compound bows … the invention was quite recent, historically speaking, and gets a lot more power and speed into the arrow with the same draw as the older compound bows. They’re also more accurate than older bows, because they make it easier to hold the arrow once draw. (Modern crossbows are also well advanced over older crossbows.)
So, given that bows don’t require fancy chemicals to fire, might they not be a good weapon, especially compared to the black-powder weapons that would be available when modern ammo ran out?
Despite what you may have seen in movies, compound bows are not very accurate over long distances. A trained archer using a compound bow can hit a single man-sized target at out to about 150 meters; a trained marksman using a Sharps-type rifle can hit a similar sized target at over 500 meters. Compound or recurve bows do have a firing rate superior to muzzle-loading weapons and comparable to falling block actions, and were superior to muzzleloaders in direct force engagements in terms of overall firepower, but once rifled barrels capable of accurately firing on single targets became available the bow and arrow fell completely out of favor.
As a substitute to firearms, the bow (or crossbow) is desirable only in terms of relative silence and lack of chemical propulsion. However, given that any genuine effort to retain the necessary technology to rebuild society will include manufacture of industrial chemicals including those used for electrochemistry, agriculture, and explosives, making blackpowder and other propellants should not be a showstopper, and in fact the ability to retain such chemical industry should be paramount to any effort to a long term plan for ensuring the continuance of modern civilization.
Stranger
Not that I intend to ever arm myself against humans, but are there any airguns that can be used for defence against people/large animals? Would eliminate the need to produce propellant (Although it’s perfectly possible to produce nitrocellulose with medieval tech )
Yes, that’s what a quackenbush does.