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I hope I never get hit with one of those underpowered smallbore .30-30's. You know ........the ones available at every single place that sells ammo in America
I almost agree with the .22 and 12 ga. idea. I've killed a lot of animals with those too. Small animals. For SHTF if I'm gonna fire a round hopefully it's at a deer or elk. I get a lot more mileage out of one of those than a rabbit.
...and now I want Mexian food.
Lee hand loader
You can take deer and elk all day long with a .30-30 (I would argue .30-30 is a bit marginal on big elk), problem is, it takes a lot longer for a deer or an elk to get back up to eating weight and breeding age than it does for a rabbit, a squirrel or birds. A chicken is at slaughter weight in weeks, a steer is at slaughter weight in months.
The other problem... food preservation. Out of one of these animals if you get 100lbs of meat.. how many people are you feeding? There's no refrigeration, smoking and salting takes time, a smokehouse and salt. A nice sized dove, a rabbit, a squirrel. Each one of those can make a meal for one or two people, and it's about 15 minutes from shooting to stew.
So when shtf comes about are you taking a bolt or semi if you can only take one what would it be? Bolt,semi,pump,lever,shot shells,centerfire or rim fire? And why do you choose that weapon?
I'm not quite sure what you meant by deer and elk getting back up to breeding weight ? Under SHTF rules ( none) I could care less about big game biology and/or herd health. All I care about is feeding myself.
I think you're probably right about the preservation part though...however, I'd still rather shoot a deer. Or a bunch of them as need be.
I have only one rifle at the moment - so it'd have to be my AR. If my stable were larger, and I had some of the other rifles I want, it would still be a semi auto - only in either .300 blackout (which is a 7.62 caliber round in a .223 case), 7.62x39 or 7.62x51 if I had to choose only one. Bigger bullets put down game better - and the 7.62x39 is ballistically similar to the .30-30 - which is a great killer of deer. The 7.62x51 will kill any large game in the lower 48, plus any 2-legged predator that might need to be shot. My next solution would still be a semi-auto - in the form of a .30-06 M1 Garand.
If the S has HTF then there's a good chance I might have to engage other people in armed combat - and I would rather not handicap myself with a bolt action platform when other options are available. It might not have the same pinpoint precision as a scoped bolt gun - but semi autos give more versatility than bolt guns. And .30 caliber bullets will kill bigger game a lot better than .22 caliber bullets.