So, how many rounds should you have for your battle rifle?

[Bruce]

I think 1,000 rounds per rifle is a good idea. If things get ugly and you have three neighbors you have just tripled your fire power. as far as pistols go, I feel 200 rounds is good to go. Lets face it, if you are down to your pistol bubblegum has hit the fan and good luck to you.

Bruce.

 

[Arkarayne]

Then again, a good eye and a 30 round mag, and a pistol almost amounts to a rifle in the thick of it.

 

[Bruce]

I suppose at 15 yards that is comfortable, but at 50 yards the rifle is king.

Bruce.

 

[TRD1911]

6 mags

 

[Decker]

So a quick question on what type of ammo all ya all are storing up. Money is tight right now so I have been buying Remington/WWB bulks packs just to get my supply up. Is this foolish of me and should I be getting higher quality ammo and go for quality over quantity?

-d

 

[TRD1911]

dk

 

[Blitzkrieg]

Minimum 2,000 rds per your front line rifles

As already posted you can never have too much. personally I think we will eventually be invaded by Chinese and Mexican military, after the Revolution. In that case we are all in it together and if your buddies/teammates are out, and you are out, you are s@rewed

 

[Riot]

So a quick question on what type of ammo all ya all are storing up. Money is tight right now so I have been buying Remington/WWB bulks packs just to get my supply up. Is this foolish of me and should I be getting higher quality ammo and go for quality over quantity?

-d

I guess to answer that I'll answer with a quote i heard when I asked the difference between hollow points...

"They're bullets, they'll all kill you dead."

 

[bnr32gtr]

As many as you can afford, store and carry with you without substantially slowing you or your loved ones down. That being said, I can get about twelve 30 round and three to four 20 rounder AR mags into a .50 cal ammo can. It's a bit heavy but that's a lot of fire power to have handy.

 

[CEF1959]

personally I think we will eventually be invaded by Chinese and Mexican military, after the Revolution. In that case we are all in it together and if your buddies/teammates are out, and you are out, you are s@rewed

Revolution? Invasion by Chinese and Mexicans? Sounds like what happened to the restaurant industry a few decades ago. But this one I'm not worried about because of my aluminum-foil hat.

I'm in the "stash as much as you can" group, just because you don't know what the threat might be, where it will come from, what the situation will be, and what will be needed. It's hard to prepare for "everything" but it's harder to predict what "S" might "H" the "F".

But once you get to about 2000 rounds, you're probably smart to start stashing liquor, feminine hygiene products, food, and other barter-ables. Diversify the portfolio, you know?

 

[Trlsmn]

I stash as much as I can afford. The biggest threat I see is rising prices!

 

[spider]

My bob mav can hold about 300 rnds of 5.56 and about 49 rnds of .45acp, for a small invasion I'm ready at least for a couple fights.

 

[Arkarayne]

Call it a Liquid Asset, like gold or stuff in your garage. Nothing happens, need some cash, going to a different caliber? Fire-sale. bricks of ammo = bricks of cash.
with my new job i'm devoting 20 a check to ammo, until i have all the guns i need (way longer topic, keep going, lol) then most likely i'll move up to 60+ a check on ammo or silver. end of the month i take the money and go bulk shopping

 

[56kninja]

I mean, for your main squeeze, go-to, first one to grab self defense zombie rifle? How many rounds is enough?

I got to thinking. How many battles would I survive until I was killed in an urban/suburban SHTF deal, protecting what I have? How many rounds could I fire in that situation before someone else got me?

So, how many rounds is enough to last "for a lifetime?" What are you comfortable with? Most of us don't have fully auto spray and pray guns. We aim each round and plan to hit the target.

If you had to bug out, how many could you actually take with you?

I'm trying to find a stopping point. I just ordered another 2k XM193 from Jack at Dan-Dee Sales, and I reload too. There has to be some upper limit, even considering that I want to arm a couple of relatives who know how to help but won't have the resources themselves.

How much is too much, or is there such a thing?

5 Rounds per zombie. Assuming you have a higher caliber weapon and a good aim ( I don't.) then you can go 1 round per.

You can pick up more ammo along the way, an if you find the merchant you can upgrade your guns accuracy and power, along with a bigger clip and faster reloading time (12 Shot .45 Magnum ftw)

 

[EZLivin]

I stash as much as I can afford. The biggest threat I see is rising prices!

And that is the one threat we can count on for sure. Increasing demand, increasing taxes, and eroding $ due to inflation will drive ammo prices higher year after year.

 

[crosse]

i think i would stop after 5k rounds for my battle rifle. That would be the point I would pat my hands and say..."that's enough".

 

[zeezee]

" “A pistol is only good for fighting you way to a rifle.”

It’s a common quote, often attributed to Jeff Cooper and other well-known tactical experts.

In today’s increasingly complex battlefield, and in times of economic collapse and the shrinking legitimacy of the state, we often find that rules of thumb once taken for granted have been turned upside down. Perhaps it’s time we reconsider the tactical utility of pistols.

Perhaps the biggest fallacy held among modern patriots, militia groups and survivalists is the idea of SHTF. This isn’t to say there won’t ever be SHTF type situations, but the idea that one day everything is going to be perfectly normal and the next day life is utter chaos…it’s just not going to happen.

Those in government are usually too smart for that. Even when the whole rotten system is collapsing around them, they are pretty good at finding ways to keep things seeming ‘normal’ for just a little longer to stay in power.

A survivor of the Argentine economic collapse, Fernando “FerFAL” Aguirre, wrote all about his experiences on various internet forums and blogs. He eventually published a book and has his own blog. He describes what it’s like to live in an economic collapse, and how in some ways life goes on while in other ways it doesn’t.

Much of what survivalists in the states believe is turned on it’s head by his experiences.
Some of what he shared sheds a lot of light on the pistol vs. rifle argument:

The primary defensive weapon for the survivalist is his HANDGUN. It’s the weapon that stays with him when he is doing his business around town or working on the field. The survivalist IS NOT a soldier, even though you are a soldier or you once were the meanest mother on the battlefield, your home town is not a battlefield and it wont be, even if the SHTF. A LOT of water has to go under the bridge until the situation gets to a point where you can calmly walk down the street with a rifle on your shoulder.
People, if you are interested in real world SHTF situation and you want to prepare for the real deal, then understand that this isn’t black or white. You wake up one day and listen on the radio that the economy collapsed and that the stock market closed indefinitely. What do you do? You still have to go to the office/work/whatever .Kiss the wife good bye and walk to the office with your AR across your back, or across your chest, Israeli style, and ready to shoot? You won’t get far. Someone will shoot you or throw you in jail, or in a mental institution.

What I’m trying to explain, is that it’s ok to prepare for China invading you country, Germans and UN or Martians. That is the extreme, less likely worst case scenario. There is an infinity spectrum of gray between the black and white. White being your average normal day and black being total TEOTWAWKI, lizard men invading the planet.

Rifles do have a place in the survivalist’s arsenal, and a very important one. But you have to understand that 90% of the time, the handgun will be the weapon you have available when you need one. You can’t compare to a trooper in Iraq that has his weapon with him at all times. I ask you how many soldiers do you know that keep wearing camo and trotting their M4s around town when they return home?

While Aguirre was writing strictly from a survivalist point of view, the lessons learned can be applied to people engaging in warfare who aren’t part of a state army.
As much as we wish it were different, mass media has shaped peoples’ perception of firearms over the years into something bad. Even when things are really bad, the gun taboos aren’t going away. It’s a situation that’s less than ideal, but it’s the reality in which we live and we can only refuse to deal with it at our own peril.


And if you go running around in camo, sporting ‘assault’ rifles and other tactical gear, you’re going to be the first one they pick up.
Or let’s put this another way:
The Grey Man is always invisible in plain sight.
The Grey Man is totally aware of his environs, his own capabilities or lack thereof, his weaponry and his levels of competence with that weaponry. He constantly strives to improve upon both his capabilities and competence. In public, he is always respectful, even to the point of obsequiousness if the situation calls for it. He always appears to be just a little confused by what is happening around him, while in reality he is alertly doing a tactical assessment.
The Grey Man NEVER draws attention to himself by word, dress, action, or mannerism. The Young Grey Man is dismissed as a wimp, the Older as a doddering old fool. The Grey Man derives great inner satisfaction from having this portrayal of himself accepted by all he meets, for it means he is succeeding in his disguise of his actual persona…
It helps the Survivor to build up this persona of The Grey Man gradually and over time. The anti-gun sheeple neighbors will quickly rat out the ‘Patriot’ who is always loudly declaiming about his ‘Rights’ and ‘what will happen if they try to take my guns’. The Grey Man goes far out of his way never to offend anyone, imitating the duck which appears calm on the surface of his pond whilst paddling like **** under the surface.
(From The Grey Man over at WRSA)
A smart resistance fighter doesn’t do anything to draw attention to him/herself. In fact, quite the opposite, doing everything possible to appear normal, to blend in. And this is where the pistol truly shines.

As odd and illogical as it is, many are truly stupid enough to fear guns in the hands of their fellow citizens even in times of trouble. They’d rather everybody stoop to the lowest common denominator of complete disarmament. But what they can’t see, they can’t complain about or report to the ‘authorities’.

Places a rifle can’t get within firing range of, the pistol can easily penetrate. As quickly as it is deployed, it disappears. As the crowds run away from an incident, those wielding pistols can blend right into the crowd and escape. Those with rifles are easily spotted and dealt with.
Or as was said millenia ago, “All war is deception.”
As for logistics, it’s much easier to manufacture your own ammunition for a pistol than it is for a rifle. As slow as most pistol rounds are, it’s perfectly acceptable to scavenge lead from a variety of sources, including used tire weights and old shower pans, to make bullets. Try it in a rifle and you’ll ruin your barrel. And with rounds like .45 ACP, the bullet actually travels at less than the speed of sound, enabling suppressors to function much better than they would on a rifle. It could be many hours before the enemy knows any rounds were fired.

[Update: I stand corrected. Turns out you can make some useful slow rifle rounds and use cast bullets. You learn something new every day ]"

From my friend ELAIU at http://theconservativeactivist.com/

 

[dave]

Im sure some of you have seen this. I copied it from another site. It is unedited, so youve been warned. The numbers are very informative though.

How long a 1000 rounds will last.
On the boards there has been a lot of decision in regards as to how many rounds of ammo is enough.
To add us in answering this dilemma I decided to figure out just how long 1000 round of ammo would last in a firefight. Even if it is 3 deferent firefights on 3 deferent days the 1000 rounds will last the same amount of time as if the same number of rounds was fired in one firefight. There is some over lap so if you want to know what it would be for 5 shooters 1 rounds a minute it is the same as 1 shooter 5 rounds a minute, 1 Shooter 6 rounds a minute is the same as 2 shooters 3 rounds a minute, 2 shooters at 6 rounds a minute is the same as 4 shooters 3 rounds a minute and so on.

1 shooter 3 rounds a minute = 5.55 HR
2 shooters 3 rounds a minute = 2.77 HR
3 shooters 3 rounds a minute = 1.85 HR
4 shooters 3 rounds a minute = 1.39 HR
5 shooters 3 rounds a minute = 1.11 HR

1 shooter 4 rounds a minute = 4.16 HR
2 shooters 4 rounds a minute = 2.01 HR
3 shooters 4 rounds a minute = 1.39 HR
4 shooters 4 rounds a minute = 1.04 HR
5 shooters 4 rounds a minute = 0.83 HR

2 shooters 5 rounds a minute = 1.66 HR
5 shooters 5 rounds a minute = 0.66 HR

3 shooters 6 rounds a minute = 0.95 HR
4 shooters 6 rounds a minute = 0.69 HR
5 shooters 6 rounds a minute = 0.55 HR

1 shooter 7 rounds a minute = 2.38 HR
2 shooters 7 rounds a minute = 1.19 HR
3 shooters 7 rounds a minute = 0.79 HR
4 shooters 7 rounds a minute = 0.59 HR
5 shooters 7 rounds a minute = 0.47 HR

1 shooter 8 rounds a minute = 2.08 HR
4 shooters 8 rounds a minute = 0.52 HR
5 shooters 8 rounds a minute = 0.41 HR

2 shooters 9 rounds a minute = 0.92 HR
3 shooters 9 rounds a minute = 0.61 HR
4 shooters 9 rounds a minute = 0.46 HR
5 shooters 9 rounds a minute = 0.37 HR

4 shooters 10 rounds a minute = 0.41HR
5 shooters 10 rounds a minute = 0.33 HR

 

[Just Jim]

How many threats to your life do you think you will have? Are 40,000 threats comming to your door or neighborhood? If you are shooting alot then you picked the wrong place to be. How many people are on your side? Can you hit what you shoot at while under fire? I just listed a few things to think about and there are alot more.

jj

 

[ob1]

Quote: Blitzkrieg
As already posted you can never have too much. personally I think we will eventually be invaded by Chinese and Mexican military, after the Revolution

.
More likely, we would be facing hordes of half starved Americans under the control and direction of the Chi-coms, after they finally call in our debt.

Quote: CEF1959
But once you get to about 2000 rounds, you're probably smart to start stashing liquor, feminine hygiene products, food, and other barter-ables. Diversify the portfolio, you know?

I cant help but wonder if these items have been listed by their order of importance. As you didn't specify type, I assume you are referring to the all-day Maxi-Magnums, right ?