It’s been a month or so since I pub­lished the post Thoughts on Bud­get Guns for Sur­vival, Part One, and hon­est­ly I haven’t giv­en this much thought since then.  How­ev­er, I think with the new year, and with many new res­o­lu­tions out there, I want to get this post com­plet­ed as the final post in the short series.

I caveat this series with the fact that I am NO expert, am not a gun­smith, nor am I in the busi­ness of guns.  I am sim­ply coor­di­nat­ing some old notes and putting them in order so that I can make sense of them.  The bonus is, I get to share them with you.  So, down to busi­ness…

How many?  How many what, Jack?  How many guns and what kind of guns are right for a prep­per for sur­vival?  How many times have you asked your­self this ques­tion?  When I start­ed buy­ing guns, I was in pre-prep­per lifestyle.  So my gun pur­chas­es were strict­ly for recre­ation­al shoot­ing.  I had, and con­tin­ue to own guns in many cal­ibers, because recre­ation­al shoot­ing is one of my favorite pas­times.  Even if I do not get out to do it as fre­quent­ly as I used to.  That said, let’s exam­ine a list types of guns “I” think are good for the prep­per. Cam Green of GAPPNJ, post­ed a two part arti­cle some time ago on car­bines for the new prep­per:

The cal­ibers I think that are impor­tant to the perp­per are as fol­lows:

  • Cen­ter­fire
  • Rim­fire
  • Hand­gun
  • Shot­gun

Admit­ted­ly, I do not have a shot­gun.  I know what you are going to say… Home defense and all that.  Yes, I know.  I am with you there.  It just hap­pens to be the one type of gun I have not pur­chased yet.

Now, let’s exam­ine each one.  I may play favorites here, and I think every prep­per is dif­fer­ent in their bud­get, and what kind of rifle they like.  So bear with me.

  • Rim­fire:  .22 cal­iber.  I am not sure you want any­thing else.  I have one, I may buy anoth­er.  It does­n’t mat­ter if it is bolt action or semi auto, in my opin­ion.  I hap­pen to have a Ruger 10/22 and a Hen­ry AR‑7.  If I showed you pic­tures of my Ruger, it looks noth­ing like the day I bought it, thanks to the acces­so­ry man­u­fac­tur­ers.  You can pick up a .22 many times used for under $100.00.  My Ruger was $200.00 new.  I don’t have to tell you the ammo is cheap either, and you can shoot it all day for a $30.00 brick.  In addi­tion, they have a good range, there are gen­er­al­ly a pletho­ra of acces­sories and add-ons for them.  Larg­er game capa­ble, I would not want to use it for this.  Home defense, depends on the sit­u­a­tion at hand.  For plink­ing and train­ing inex­pen­sive­ly, absolute­ly.  For small game, most prob­a­bly.  If you have noth­ing else, def­i­nite­ly.
  • Cen­ter­fire: Not gun­na get into specifics here.  Long range, large game, self defense, etc.  You got­ta have one.  I pre­fer a .308 round.  Oth­ers pre­fer oth­er rounds.  I like the range, can take larg­er game, and be used in a car­bine as well as a rifle made for oth­er pur­pos­es.
  • Shot­gun:  With more pow­er than a hand­gun and the spread of the BB’s these are pre­ferred by many for their default home defense gun.  Their effec­tive range is “about” 25 — 30 yards, unless you are shoot­ing a hunt­ing slug.  I rec­om­mend a 12 gauge, per­son­al­ly.  But based on your size, frame, etc. you may want some­thing like a 20 gauge.  When I buy one, I will buy one with inter­change­able bar­rels for hunt­ing slugs and oth­er pur­pos­es.  Not very bud­get friend­ly, I know, but I think a util­i­ty like a shot­gun requires a cou­ple of options.
  • Hand­guns: We dis­cussed kn the pre­vi­ous post Thoughts on Bud­get Guns for Sur­vival, Part One

So, where can you pro­cure these items or items like them on a bud­get.  Well, let’s exam­ine wehre you are not going to find them.  Ebay, Craigslist, Back­page, or oth­er main­stream online ser­vices.  Your local gun shop, is always a good place to start, but I can tell you with “some” expe­ri­ence, that guns are either priced to sell or they are not.  And, if they are priced to sell, you should know what you are look­ing for pri­or to get­ting there, and have a good idea what they go for, and what you are will­ing to pay for the con­di­tion it is in.

That said, if you already have a shot­gun, con­sid­er a hand­gun for your next pur­chase if you do not have one, or a rim­fire, etc.

Places I would start to look for bud­get guns:

  • Friends who are in need of some cash.  Yes, your bud­dy who bought that 1,200.00 AR-15 when times were bet­ter for him may actu­al­ly be will­ing to part with it for half what he paid if he needs the mon­ey.  And, I am sure he would be hap­pi­er see­ing it go to a friend than some­one he does not know.  That’s been my expe­ri­ence, any­way.
  • What does your fam­i­ly have?  What has been hand­ed down or is going to be hand­ed down in the future.  See if you can buy it from it’s right­ful own­er pri­or to that.  Fam­i­ly gen­er­al­ly cuts fam­i­ly a deal on guns.  Again… In my expe­ri­ence.  I bought my Spring­field XDm from my sis­ter (she was a police offi­cer) for $400.00 cash.  Came with three mag­a­zines.  That was a deal, and still is a deal.
  • Pri­vate Sale:
  • Google “Gun Shows [insert your state and/or city here]” and see what comes up.  You can go to a gun show and com­pare prices from table to table, speak to the gun and gun shop own­ers, and feel more com­fort­able about spend­ing the mon­ey on what you are look­ing for.
  • Garage Sales.  Prob­a­bly less fre­quent today, and based on your geog­ra­phy and the laws, some­one’s grand­pa’s rifle some­times makes it to the garage sale table table.  In states like Penn­syl­va­nia, a long arm does not need to be re-reg­is­tered and a pri­vate sale is allowed.
  • The Inter­net.  Yup, if you are not famil­iar, there are sites like:

I have per­son­al­ly used a cou­ple of these web­sites to either con­tact the gun own­ers and dis­cuss the gun with them pri­or to mak­ing a deci­sion, and pur­chas­ing a gun that had to be shipped to an FFL deal­er, and reg­is­tered.  I had no issues, and if you think some­thing sounds or looks hokey, ask some­one that might know the answer.  In my expe­ri­ence, 99.9% of the sell­ers are on the up & up.

I guess two posts was a long wind­ed way to give you a few areas to look for bud­get arms.

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