How To Build a Battery of Guns
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Everything's getting more expensive. Food. Gasoline. Guns and ammunition. Not everyone who appreciates the rural lifestyle was "born with a gun in their hand" the way some of us feel as if we've been. Many are urban-dwellers who've figured out for themselves that living closer to nature is a better way, and nothing from their previous metropolitan lifestyle has prepared them for their sudden realization that firearms are important, routinely-used tools for those who live "in the country."
Reading is
good, but training is better. My advice to the people new to guns
would be to take a firearms safety course before buying their first
firearm. It'll give them a better idea of what they want, what they
need, and what will suit them in terms of the size, the power, and
the mechanics of the many, many firearms they have the option of
buying. Your local office of the state Fish and Wildlife Department
will be able to steer you toward hunter safety and firearms safety
courses. As adult education goes, these courses are extremely affordable.
If self-defense is your primary concern, your local gun shop or
police department can direct you to armed citizen training programs.
Most of these are geared toward folks about to apply for concealed
carry permits, but the advice encompassed in their curricula are
essential even for those only concerned with defending the home
against violent intrusion.
Building a battery
A "battery" of firearms is a selection of guns that will cover multiple needs. The collector has "a collection," but the person who uses guns as tools has a working "battery," like a carpenter having multiple saws for different cutting purposes, and different screwdrivers for dealing with different sizes of screws.
At an absolute minimum, I would suggest four guns for the backwoods home. These would be a .22, a shotgun, a defensive-type handgun, and a high-powered rifle.
Just for the
sake of argument, let's assume some frugality at work. I know trapshooters
whose custom shotguns cost more than my SUV did new off the showroom
floor, and gun collectors who might buy a single rare firearm that's
worth more than my home and the real estate it sits on. Common sense
economy is one of the values this publication celebrates, after
all.
The .22
The .22 Long Rifle cartridge is the most popular in the United States. It has mild blast and mild recoil. Above all, it is cheap. With careful shopping, at this writing you can buy 500 cartridges for $12 to $15. Because it is a low-pressure cartridge, the manufacturers don't have to wrap a lot of super-strong metallurgy around it, and .22s tend to be cheaper than more powerful guns of similar quality.
Let me say it here and now: because it is so mild and inexpensive to shoot, the .22's single biggest advantage for the new shooter is that it lets them shoot enough to grow accustomed to shooting, and to become good at it!
As to shooting needs on a rural property, the .22 Long Rifle is a small game cartridge. It's suitable for rabbits, squirrels, raccoons, groundhogs, and the like. It's good for crows. It's a good choice for feral cats. It can certainly kill feral dogs, or foxes and coyotes, but frankly it's a little on the light side for animals that size. Remember, even if the animal must die so your livestock may live, you owe it a quick and humane death.
The .22 is a traditional gun for slaughtering livestock. In that situation, however, the animal must be penned under control, and the person performing the slaughter must take their time to put the bullet exactly through the skull in the right spot to reach the brain for an instant, painless death. That won't be possible when shooting a wild animal. When a steer goes wild and tries to trample you, or Ol' Yeller turns rabid and is coming at you, trust me: you'll want something a lot more powerful than a .22.
In most cases, the .22 is a rifle. Whether it has traditional "iron sights" or a telescopic sight, the two-hand grasp and the brace of the butt against your shoulder maximizes accuracy. If you get really good with it, a target grade handgun will get the job done at a typical "house to barn distance" of, say, 25 to 50 yards.
The .22 is available in many formats. There is the single-shot, the traditional "young hunter's starter gun" of yesteryear. Today, the scaled down Chipmunk or Henry bolt action single shot is the right size for grade-school age kids, and a great choice for getting the young ‘uns off to a good start in firearms safety. There are Western style lever actions, and pump-action .22s like the ones we geezers can remember from the live-fire shooting arcades on the boardwalks of our youth. The bolt-action repeating rifle makes a lot of sense for the user who won't be able to keep the working gun as clean and pristine as they'd like. In the humid, rust-inducing atmosphere of the slaughterhouse, the "killing gun" I'm most likely to see is a bolt-action .22. Its mechanism operates like a turnbolt lock, and allows main physical force to operate it should it stick due to rust or crud in its neglected mechanism.
The semiautomatic .22 rifle would be my personal choice. If the fisher cat is about to devour your prize pet Persian, or the rabid skunk is about to lunge at your beloved family dog, one shot may not be enough. You'll want a follow-up shot, and maybe another and another and another. The semiautomatic will fire as fast as you can hold on target and you don't have to think about anything but holding your aim and pressing the trigger. You will, however, have to keep it cleaned and lubricated.
Cost-effective choices: Mossberg now imports a little semiautomatic .22 rifle from Brazil that they market as The Plinkster. It's great for "plinking" tin cans off the back fence, as its name implies, but Master competitive shooter Steve Sager tells me his will put five shots in one hole at 25 paces...and never seems to jam. The price? Steve just bought his for $107 plus tax, brand new, from a big box store. The Ruger 10/22 and the Marlin Model 60 will cost somewhat more, but are longer-established, time-proven choices as splendidly reliable and surprisingly accurate semiautomatic .22 "utility rifles." In an accurate .22 pistol, I've seen the polymer-framed Ruger 22/45 and the Smith & Wesson Model 22A both selling new for $250, and the Browning Buckmark is another cost-effective choice. The shooter more comfortable with the simple mechanism of a revolver can get a Taurus .22 for an MSRP (manufacturers' suggested retail price) of $389 new.
The shotgun
Designed primarily to put a large spray of multiple pellets called "shot" in the air with each pull of the trigger, the shotgun is the logical choice for flying birds and is a top choice of small game hunters for shooting running rabbits and squirrels for the same reason. Loaded with the small pellets of birdshot for the feathered stuff and the small furred stuff, and with buckshot for close-range deer, bad dogs, and worse humans, the shotgun can also fire a single slug. Slug loads are fine for deer out to plus/minus 100 yards (assuming good rifle-type sights and a steady hand on the trigger), and many Alaskan guides think a short, fast-handling shotgun loaded with slugs is just the ticket for huge, angry wounded bears in the thickets. Because its "shells" can carry so many different types of projectiles, the shotgun is the most versatile of backwoods home utility firearms.
The giant 10-gauge shotgun is a long-range duck and turkey hunter's weapon, and the tiny .410 shotgun is strictly for close range on small targets. Your all-around shotgun should be somewhere between 12- and 20-gauge. The less powerful 20 tends to have lighter recoil but, at close range, will probably do all you need done. The 12 is more versatile because it can carry more of its leaden payload, but you pay the price in notoriously hard recoil, or "kick."
June 24, 2009
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