In the last couple weeks I’ve had several friends ask me for advice about what kind of gun they should get - they’ve never or do not currently own one. I’ve thought about writing this post a few times but I’ve hesitated because I don’t consider myself even close to an expert on guns, I’m just an enthusiast. I got asked again this morning though and realized that even my limited knowledge is more than some of my friends have. So here it goes, first gun suggestions for those who don’t have a gun but feel the need to get one - from a simple enthusiast, not an expert. Incidentally, if you’re an expert (Jayce) please add commentary to this post!

The first thing I ask back at my friends is this:

What do you want a gun for? There are a couple answers and they affect recommendations. Here are the basic categories:

Home Protection:

Concern about home invasion is often one of the primary motivators to arming yourself. The best weapon choice for this (in the authors opinion) is a shotgun in tactical configuration. This means having an 18 inch barrel with a pistol grip. Tactical config isn’t required, but it makes the weapon more maneuverable and useful in a combat situation.

Why a shotgun? First and foremost there is a good chance that when you’re defending your home, especially if it’s against an intruder that is in your house, your going to be doing some dangerous shooting. The walls of your house will prevent shot from passing through and killing someone on the other side whereas a bullet has a good chance of punching right through two layers of sheetrock and hitting your kid who’s sheltering in their room. Secondly, one of the most recognizable and frightening sounds in the world is a shotgun caulking - especially if you don’t know where it’s coming from - psyops at its finest. You can also load a round into the chamber by hand without making a sound if stealth is needed. Third, with the wider pattern that a shotgun provides, you have better odds in a heated fast moving situation of acquiring and hitting your target. With a pistol you have to be much more accurate which can be difficult with adrenaline pumping in your veins and your target dodging you.

The other, often overlooked issue with a shotgun is ammo. With a pistol you’ve got a clip with x rounds in it and you can easily have a few spare mags with you. With a shotgun you basically have a pocket full of shells. If you’re fully loaded you’ll have 3-8 rounds in your weapon depending on choke configuration, you should have a side saddle mounted on your shotgun that will hold another 5- 8 rounds as well. Beyond the 8 - 16 rounds you’re carrying in/on your gun, you either have to fish rounds out of a pocket/bag or use the weapon as a club. I strongly recommend that you purchase a bandoleer or two. You can get them for about $10 bucks and they hold 50 shells each. I personally have two bandoleers that are loaded with shot shells and a 25 shell belt that is loaded with slugs as a critical part of my home defense arsenal.

When it comes to purchasing ammo for a shotgun there are lots of choices out there - most of them are for bird hunters. I don’t bird hunt and I don’t have any idea what size shot you use for what. I buy copious amounts of the cheapest shells I can find. Right now that means a box of 25 at Wal-Mart for $4.67. The other ammo I use for my shotgun is a rifled slug. These babies turn your shotgun into a monster weapon. A slug is a reverse hollow chunk of lead shoved into a shotgun shell. It’s solid on top and hollow in the back, it’s one huge chunk of lead. Slugs run about a buck a piece unless you can find them on sale.

If you’re able to get more than one gun for home defense, a pistol is definitely next in line. A pistol is generally more accessible and regardless of what I said above, reaching for a pistol is better than scrambling to get your shotgun and ammo. If you’re able to arm yourself with both a pistol and a shotgun during a home invasion, the pistol gives you a much cleaner kill shot than the shotgun. Use the shotgun to enable the kill shot.

Personal Defense (out of the home):

I think most people know the answer to this one - it’s a pistol. The real question is what caliber do you get? Unfortunately that is a very personal answer. I personally prefer a 45 with a 380 as backup. The best way to learn what you want to use is to contact your local shooting ranges and find one that rents weapons. Go there and spend the money to be able to try out several different weapons and find the one that you like - then go buy it. If you’re in Utah, come out to one of our shooting events - even if you don’t have a gun yet - and try out several different guns. You can be assured that almost everything will be represented there!

Hunting:

The clear answer here is a rifle. The unclear answer is which caliber to get (again). There are a couple ways of looking at it. If you’re standing on a hill full of good armed folks, what caliber rifle will be most represented? In other words, what is the most commonly available bullet? There are differing opinions on this - some say 30-30 others say 30.06. I think either way you’ll be covered. I’m going to recommend a 30.06, but a 30-30 will do just fine. Both these rifles are capable of taking down pretty much anything. Once you’ve got your basic rifle covered, you may want to branch out into other calibers.

When it comes to ammo, rifle ammo is some of the most expensive. 30.06 ammo runs about $12-$25 for 20 rounds. I suggest stocking up at least 500 rounds for a TEOTWAWKI situation and plan to be very careful with them - if possible, stock up a few thousand rounds - those bullets could represent your ability to eat properly one day.

Militia:

Lots of people are thinking about community protection these days, mostly protection from roving gangs in a TEOTWAWKI situation. So, what weapon is best for militia participation? It depends on several factors. If you’re budget conscious, you’re probably going to want to look at a weapon that uses a 7.62 class of ammo. This includes the AK-47, SKS, and several other rifles. AR-15’s are sexy but they’re expensive and commonly use the more expensive 223 ammo. An SKS will serve you well and can be had for $200 - $500. An AK-47 will also serve you well and can be had for around $450 - $800. An AR-15 will start at around $1,000.00. Then of course you can get into the bigger weapons like AR-30’s and the BMG .50 - all of which will run you a lot more money.

Accessories and other common questions:

With each of these weapons and protection classes, you need to also think about several other things.

How will you carry ammo? For ammo in magazines, how will you carry magazines? One excellent solution to this is to purchase a combat vest. You can get them in dozens of configurations, but look for ones that will hold magazines and for your weapons and has other accouterments that meet your combat preference. A fully prepped combat vest with a holster built into it will provide you with one stop grabbing in a tight situation. A clip on belt prepped with your holster and a magazine holder will work as well.

Magazines - how many should you have? The common answer among enthusiasts is “as many as you can get”. I would strongly recommend having at least 3 for each weapon. This allows, if your in an in-place combat situation, for someone to be reloading your magazines for you - hopefully quicker than you are emptying them.

Ammo - how much to get and how to store it? Most military surplus stores carry ammo cans, these are excellent for storing your ammo in. If you buy ammo in bulk, it will usually come loose in an ammo can already. Ammo cans are easy to grab, hold lots of rounds and will keep your ammo dry.

Safes - What do I do about storing my weapons? The answer to this question has several variables. Are you trying to protect from theft, destruction? How many guns do/will you own? And several others. Safes can run from $100.00 to $10,000.00. For me personally, I have a gun safe merely to keep my kids out of the guns. It is a simple keyed safe that I got from Wal-Mart for $100 bucks. There are drawbacks to this but I would rather spend my money on more guns than on a place to anchor them. Again, that’s just my preference.

Scopes - Do I need a scope for my gun(s)? If you are intending to use your rifle for hunting, you better have a scope on it. Without one you’ll probably just waste all your ammo on not killing anything. You’ll also probably want to scope your militia weapon. We’ll have to do a scope review in a later post.

Cleaning - What do I need to clean my guns? A weapon is an investment. If you don’t/can’t take proper care of it you’ll need the government to bail it out and that probably won’t happen. You’ll need to have bore brushes for each caliber weapon you have and a bore cleaner to go with it. You’ll also need gun oil and rags to clean everything. Wal-Mart has a great wooden box basic cleaning kit for $35.00 that will get you started. From there you’ll need to add to it. I suggest keeping a separate set of tools with your gun cleaning kit so you don’t have to hunt for them when you need them. To keep your wife happy, buy a drop cloth to clean on, it makes an oily mess! You can find step-by-step video instructions for breaking down, cleaning and re-assembling almost any gun on youtube. When I buy a new gun I always first completely dis-assemble it while watching a video tutorial on youtube. This gets me familiar with my weapon and lets me make sure I have any specialty tools for that weapon in my kit.

Ownership - You’ve got to OWN your guns. This means being completely familiar and comfortable with them as possible. Go shoot regularly (come with us) just to remind your body what it feels like to fire each weapon. Be familiar with all the mechanisms in your weapons so you’re able to repair and clean them when needed. When you NEED your gun is not the time to be trying to remember what steps you have to take in order to enable it to fire. Range time doesn’t need to eat up your whole day. Grab a gun after work or on the weekend, go to a range, fire off a few mags and come home. This isn’t target practice, it’s familiarization. But you’ll need to target practice too

Conclusion:

These are answers to the questions I get asked a lot, if you have other questions, please ask in the comments - I and the other active shooters on this site will be happy to help! Right now, our future ability to purchase and own firearms is in question - if you don’t have one yet, get a gun while you can! Don’t be embarrassed about not knowing what you need/want - we enthusiasts are all too happy to dump our opinions on you!

We’re putting together a meet-up at the gun show this weekend with Utah Preppers!

We’re thinking about also doing a quick shooting meet-up after the show.

The short version is to meet this Saturday at 9 am at the South Town Expo Center.  The long version and all the details are here on Utah Preppers - hope to see you there!

Wow we had a lot of fun!  This past weekend several of us got together just outside of Eagle Mountain to do a lot of shooting.  Most of us brought a son or two along so in all we had about 12 people there.  We spent 3 1/2 hours doing a lot of shooting and checking out different guns.  Here’s a qik movie that HumanCell shot at the end of the day when we were starting to load back up.
We’re hoping to do another one of these before the end of the month, probably the weekend after this one.  This weekend of course is the last gun show of the year - we my try to do a meet-up there.

The nice thing was that we had the whole place to ourselves - we could easily have 50 people come out there and have a great time!  Hopefully we’ll get a larger turn out next time, we’ll announce it more than a couple days ahead of time

We’re planning a big Geeks-n-Guns shootout tomorrow! We’ve got several things lined up - we’ll have lots of Tannerite, a BMG .50, at least one AR-30 and several AR-15, AKs and others. Plan to be courteous and pay about $4/bullet for the bigger guns, about $5/bottle of tannerite. Bring your own guns and ammo as well!

We’ll be meeting in the north-west most corner of the Saratoga Springs, Smiths parking lot and going from there to the range. Meeting time is 10:00 sharp - we plan to roll out at 10:05 to the range. Several of us will have our younger sons with us so NO HORSEPLAY! (have to show the future shooters of America how to be responsible).

Bring your paintball gear too if you want, we might just go into paintball mode if there are enough people.