Caliber - which are essential?

[200Apples]

Caliber - which are essential?

Essential to the care and feeding of the Apples Big Hat Ranch armory:


.22 rimfire
.22 Winchester Magnum Rimfire
5.56 X 45
.38 S&W Special, +P
.357 Magnum
.41 Remington Magnum
.44 Special "Heavy"
.44 Remington Magnum
.45 ACP
7.62 X 39
.30-30 Winchester
.308 Winchester
.375 Holland & Holland Magnum
12 gauge shotshells, buck and slug



Essential to new shooters? Just four:

Rimfire
Major caliber handgun
.30 cal rifle
12 ga shotgun

[Spyder]

I recommend .56-.46 Spencer. Mostly because there needs to be enough people who want it that someone will make some, so I can get some more for my Spencer sporting rifle. ��

[sigfan91]

Essential to the care and feeding of the Apples Big Hat Ranch armory:


.22 rimfire
.22 Winchester Magnum Rimfire
5.56 X 45
.38 S&W Special, +P
.357 Magnum
.41 Remington Magnum
.44 Special "Heavy"
.44 Remington Magnum
.45 ACP
7.62 X 39
.30-30 Winchester
.308 Winchester
.375 Holland & Holland Magnum
12 gauge shotshells, buck and slug



Essential to new shooters? Just four:

Rimfire
Major caliber handgun
.30 cal rifle
12 ga shotgun

Wow you don’t have 9mm?

[BrokerB]

Need to add a 7.62 in there.

7.62x39 ( sks/ak)
7.62 nato/.308
7.62 x 54r... buy the ammo by the crate so you have spam cans of 440 rounds. Rilfes are less expensive...reach further out with heavy steel core .. buy a Finn M39 : )

[DrjonesUSA]

For a noob, you are definitely on the right path. :-)
Simplify, standardize.

You might not stumble upon big loot crates filled with guns / ammo in a SHTF situation, but if you have weird, non-standard calibers, you guarantee that if you do stumble upon any caches of the big, standard, most common calibers, that you will NOT be able to use them.

Personally, I'd stick with 9mm, .45 ACP, 5.56 / .223, 7.62x51 / .308.

Welcome to the club & good luck.

[Kokopelli]

I would look at the need from a different perspective; which of my firearms do I shoot well and which serve a useful purpose.

.22LR - My Henry will cut playing cards in half, edgewise. It puts them where they need to go. I learned during the great 22 rimfire ammo shortage of 2012 to hoard all I can. I think I have since built up 10K rounds. 22 CB caps and short HP are very, very quiet.

9mm Luger - My Ruger P95 and Beretta 92 handguns put their shots on a 12? steel plate out to 100 yards. Great for ringing the dinner bell. Ammo is readily available.

12 gage shotgun. My Winchester 1300 puts a load of Remington #4 buck into a nice 6? diameter circle at 25 yards with no gaps. If someone in an Israeli kibbutz had one on October 7, they would have given Hamas terrorists?.. It is a great home defense gun. The 1300 is also a great bird gun for harvesting food. It is slightly slower than an auto loader. Just slightly. It will slam fire, too.

.223 REM - A Savage bolt action with scope puts them where then need to go, with boring accuracy, out to 400 yards. My M4 clone will shoot the same ammo. But, I don?t like it as much as the Savage.

Those would be my top calibers to hoard. After your ammo cans are full to the brim, start hoarding reloading supplies.

[DB>]

Well, keep in mind the 1 in 30 rule - it doesn't apply to private party transfers now, but WILL after (I believe) the first of next year. Going to make it significantly harder to amass the dreaded "arsenal"!

A friend asked pretty much this question, my suggestions were to stick to commonly available ammo, since you're going to want to have a LOT, and if things fall apart, you'll be scavenging whatever everyone else stocked up on.

Wherever possible try to find firearms that share mags between pistol and rifle/carbine. Also try to get firearms with similar operating features - especially true if you will have others using the guns, as differences in operation can get confusing.


AS others have stated -

.22lr rifle (I'd go with the 10/22 takedown, backpacker stock),
.22lr pistol - the LCPII in .22 is a very easily concealable option, SR22 is also good.

9mm mirror the 10/22 with a PCC, backpacker stock, Glock magwell for compatibility with your 9mm handguns. Sub 2000's are dirt cheap right now if budget is an issue.

Shotgun for general versatility - I picked up a KS7 just because of that. Plus Joe says it's all you need, so they might not try to take 'em!

Featureless .223/5.56 - avoiding the "features" nightmare makes sense in CA, everywhere else, build out a sweet AR or a dozen.

Larger caliber hunting gun - I picked up a cheap Stevens .308/7.62 NATO, just because it had a gorgeous presentation grade walnut stock worth far more than the gun was selling for. One of my kiddos spotted it on the rack, so it was added to the collection, bonus was I had some ammo for it already.

And as a "free state" bonus... (you CAN find 'em here, but very rare, and there's the whole mag thing if you dont happen to have freedom week ones)... a PMR30 and CMR30 pair. Again, same theory as the .22 and 9mm pairs, using common rounds, and if possible common mags, this time in .22WMR for more punch than .22lr without much weight gain, albeit significantly more expensive.

[Warbonnet]

Essential should be calibers which have the most ammo availability across many areas and over many years, and many conditions.

38spl/38+P/.357
9mm
.223
12g

others mentioned .22 and I agree, but not for target shooting; for small game to put food on the table in case of SHTF

You can store all kinds of ammo, but can you bug out with all that ammo, and after you bug out, what can you more easily acquire later on by either purchase or trade?

[Snoopy47]

I think every random caliber is important.

Seriously, if one is not a reloader, and times get tough it's the odd ball stuff that is on the shelves last.