"Where are the firearms?" Topic

Why are so many post apoc minis armed with hand to hand combat weapons when firearms would be so easy to acquire or build. There are millions of rifles and pistols stock piled in armories all around the world, not to mention the millions owned by civilians, and it would take decades to run out of all of the ammunition in existence, meanwhile brass can be reloaded if you have the right equipment. Bullets can be cast out of lead in your own home and gunpowder can also be manufactured. I have built cartridges for hard to find calibers and I know many other people that do that as well, so it's not like ammo has to be created by little elves at Winchester and Remington. I know that it's fun to field minis with that "Mad Max" look, but those minis can have firearms too. So how about a little more realism in this fantasy world. :-)

Considering the current peacetime demand and usage of ammo in the US, I think 'decades' is…optimistic. By orders of magnitude. It depends on how much shooting you're doing, but I'd assume that any general apocalyptic breakdown will involve more than most people have prepared for.

Sure, you could cast your own bullets, and make your own black powder (you're not making smokeless powder at home – well, not for long, anyway). And you could reload your centerfire rounds with that…

YouTube link

15 rounds until fouling halts it.

And that's an AK.

But in the end, what kills modern firearms in a PA situation is the primers. Those would vanish in days, and assuming that the factories are down, there wouldn't be any more incoming.

Modern weapons would be around for a while, but it'd be back to muzzleloaders soon enough.

Also, gasoline and diesel is gone in a few years on the outside. Keeping wells and refineries going? If you've got a nuke or hydro plant next door and people to run them, sure. Otherwise, no gas, no diesel. And you're not going to be able to make enough biodiesel to run anything for a significant period of time, not without modern agriculture…which depends on petroleum. You'll be farming for food, not fuel.

So, horse and musket is 'realism'. :)

Same for the inability of people in a post-apocalyptic environment to use nothing more than postage-stamp sized bits of random cloth to make clothes with. Making cloth and clothing is a basic skill we mastered before the first civilisations were around.

I think it would depend on how "Real" you want your world to be. Firearms, ammunition and all the technology of the world decomposes unless cared for. Gasoline decomposes and within months that sitting in storage tanks would be useless. Ammunition and firearms rust unless cared for. So those that scavanged early and cared for things (or scavaged the manufacturing capabilities) would have tech longer than those that lived by scavaging only. Leaves the scenarios open to a wide range of possibilities depending on how apocalyptic your world is or variably locality by locality.

Ammunition and firearms are not going to rust unless they are in a very humid environment. Degradation is a non-issue for decades.

I agree that primers will be an issue.

Unless you spray all of your ammo away, most people will be dead or killed before they can fire off their basement/closet supply. The guy who owns a pistol and one box of ammo may find himself blowing through his rounds pretty quick, especially if he lacks fire discipline. Ammo guys tend to fall into two camps: 1) Have a gun and a box of ammo/a couple boxes of 5 round boxes of shotguns shells or 2) Have many hundreds -- if not thousands -- of rounds for each weapon type that they own. The guy who has 2,000 rounds of .223 and 500 rounds of 9mm will probably die or be killed before he uses all of his ammo. They guy who owns an 870 and has two five round boxes of shotgun ammo is going to be out of ammo pretty quick, so will have to resort to improvised weapons. Also, even in the US, there are a lot of people who have never fired a gun, nor would they have any idea how to load and operate one if they happened to come across it, so these folks are at improvised weapons right from the start.

All of that said, I get your point. Survivors are going to look a lot different in NYC as opposed to, say, the rural South.

Much as I shudder to say it, the re-enactors may become a power to be reckoned with – they know how to use a muzzle-loading black powder fire-arm, although as noted after a year or so a flintlock will be much more useful than anything requiring a percussion cap

Maybe the same reason we see space marines with power armor and advanced rifles/pistols wielding swords and battle axes.

Maybe they're British, and have access to nothing more offensive than sarcasm?
Give them a +1 in melee against anyone wearing the tattered remnants of a different-coloured football shirt and remember to schedule a break for afternoon tea.

"Maybe they're British, and have access to nothing more offensive than sarcasm?"

Does mean less people shot on the streets though………..

Be fair… we do have a serious problem with people being poisoned in the drawing rooms of stately mansions.

But not by Mrs White, the cook. She's been dropped from Cluedo.

". I have built cartridges for hard to find calibers and I know many other people that do that as well, so it's not like ammo has to be created by little elves at Winchester and Remington."

Well thats you sorted for ammo then, but I don't anyone around here who would know how to do that, and only a few that would have well stocked toolshed sufficient to the task. There are some firearms in the area- its semi rural and I've heard them shooting rabbits out in the fields, but I doubt there would be enough to go around if everyone in the town wanted to have a go. With my own abilities and knowledge I'd probably manage slings, bows and possibly some form of musket but most weapons would be anything swingable…

Reality check – in the 19th century, a reasonably smart person could brew their own mercury fulminate and make their own primers. link

Getting mercury these days would be a bit more difficult though.

Agree on the apparent extremes among firearm owners – have a brother that has purchased firearms and then waited months (or longer) to even purchase ammo for them (bought a pistol for a niece before she was 21 and when he gave it to her .380 ammo was unavailable so she couldn't shoot it for several months) and when he does buys enough to sight it in and have enough for a hunting season.

On the other hand I know people who could supply a squad for a week of continuous combat. In multiple calibers.

As to the OP though, my thought would be to use hand or non-firearm weaponry whenever practical. No matter how good the stocks of ammo they would not be infinite.

How common are good flints? Would that supply be an issue?

I recall reading once, long ago, that some reenactor groups were having fits getting quality flints, but maybe that was just a case of wanting the very best and not settling for less.

A well-organized and militant PA reenactor group would be a fun command in a PA scenario! Good idea up there. And you could use your "regular" armies for them!

Who needs a gun when you have a fabulous Sun Sword?

YouTube link

Looking at it practically, presume an apocalypse of some form and that you are a survivor. You're not ex military, ex cop just some bloke. Given time, a sufficiency of ammunition and a safe place, you could probably work out how to use a gun from scratch. Your skills would be poor and maintainance lamentable and the sound of your practice would be an huge risk. But let's move on….where do your guns and ammo come from presuming you're not a survivalist or a collector and didn't own a gun yourself.

Gun shops? Military armouries? Police stations? There will be guns there but the odds are they'll be locked away. Do you have the skills to get past the security? If there is no power, are they locked away behind time locks that are now dead and shut? You tell me, I don't know!

I suspect that guns would be scavenged off of the dead, from police cars or poorly secured premises. There wouldn't be as many floating about as you think.

And yes, knives, clubs, axes don't need ammunition and a far more readily available.

In Russia they pull a T34 tank out of a swamp, drop in a new battery and drive it away. The Smith and Wesson Model 10 sold today in stores started life as the Model 1899. Modern firearms can be manufactured in any decent machine shop. Some of you have enough stuff in your own garage.

I work for a small police department with fewer than 50 officers we buy tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition per year for practice. It's not hard after the apocalypse to find ammo. And ammo in a cardboard box in the average home closet will last at least 50 years, just keep it dry.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
Bunker Talk blog

gunpowder can also be manufactured

Well this is the reason why.

In order to make this you need several materials and in the Apoc future some of them just might be a tad hard to get.

Plus you make a bad batch and your weapon does not fire or it blows up in your face.

Modern firearms can be manufactured in any decent machine shop.

Sure but to do this would require someone who knows what the hell they are doing.

Oh and yes you could learn but this also requires you to have metal to make the barrels and other parts of the weapon.

The standard basic load for a US Infantry is around 200-300 rounds.

You know how long that lasts in a serious firefight?

Not very long at all, even if they only shoot at a rate of one round every ten seconds 300 rounds would last for 50 minutes.

But they will be shooting more like one round or more every second or so. So they will be out of ammo in around 10 minutes.

In a Post Apoc world getting more Ammo is not something that you can get easy.

Which is why in Mad Max 2 the leader of the bad guys only pulled out his pistol with those few rounds when he really needed it.

So you fall back on the easy things to make.

Clubs
Spear
Sword
Knives
Metal Bars

I kind of agree that at least in America in some areas there are large supplies of arms and ammunition in the hands of people who know what they are doing with them, but the term Post Apocalyptic does not merely refer to surviving the Apocalypse, but also anything happening
after.

This can be like Mad Max where its only perhaps 20-40 years after the Gas Wars, or Fallout where its over a hundred. In such a scenario getting guns and ammo in working order will be easier for people who already have them, allowing them to form their own enclaves similar to Barter Town or Immortan Joe's triarchy. Most survivors on the other hand will be down to Raidertech.

One caveat: I think much of the confusion in the "Post Apoc" genre comes from the conflation of Zombie and "Zombie Apocalypse" movies and games with Post Apocalyptic scenarios. This is not the case, even in the Walking Dead they are not far enough removed from the event to be described as Post Apocalyptic, but rather just trying to ride out the Apocalypse.

>>But in the end, what kills modern firearms in a PA situation is the primers. Those would vanish in days, and assuming that the factories are down, there wouldn't be any more incoming.<<

Primers can be manufactured. I've been watching youtube videos where people are doing just that. It is not easy or economical, but it can be done. One video showed how to resize the primer caps. Another showed how to use striker matches to make the primer powder. You can also use common cap gun caps to fill the primer caps. Yes, you can run out of those materials too, but more on that later.

>>Considering the current peacetime demand and usage of ammo in the US, I think 'decades' is…optimistic. By orders of magnitude. It depends on how much shooting you're doing, but I'd assume that any general apocalyptic breakdown will involve more than most people have prepared for.<<

I believe that at first people will use up too much ammo, but as the supply dwindles people will be more careful using it.

>>Firearms, ammunition and all the technology of the world decomposes unless cared for.<<

I don't know about you, but i'd sure care for mine. If you're thinking that firearms in arsenals will decompose, you are wrong. The police and armed services take good care of stockpiled weapons. They are kept oiled and that's all that they need. Firearms are being uncovered all over the world packed in cosmoline. I've been to gun shows where crates of SKS rifles are opened and sold "as is" to the public. Clean off the preservative and they work just fine.

Regarding reloading and creating ammo:

>>I don't anyone around here who would know how to do that, and only a few that would have well stocked toolshed sufficient to the task.<<

All that you need is a basement and a reloading bench. It's worth it to note that as the ammo supply dwindles someone will start to manufacture it from scratch or reload it. Ammo will be valuable to barter with, so somebody is going to start making it. Remember, it will take a *very* long time to use up all of the ammunition in existence now. The powder will be relatively easy to manufacture by someone who knows what they're doing. The spent primer caps and brass can be collected and bartered for more ammo. And don't underestimate human ingenuity. Ammunition manufacturing is a lot easier than splitting the atom or space travel.

>>In a Post Apoc world getting more Ammo is not something that you can get easy.<<

As i've pointed out, I don't see why it would be so difficult. Maybe it would be tough in the UK, but not impossible. There are millions of firearms and tons of ammo in war zones, like Boznia. Enterprising individuals will get them and distribute them around the rest of Europe.

We played a Zombie Apocolypse game where the players could only start with weapons they actually owned in real life. Out of 8, only 2 had modern assault weapons. Another 3 had WW2 or WW1 rifles, 1 had black powder weapons and the last had nothing. He proudly announced he would be fighting zombies with a pair of sissors and a hammer.

The best final result was the historical re-enactor gamer who went to battle zombies wearing roman armor and helmet with a WW1 Mauser rifle and bayonet with a samurai sword slung on his back.

Modern weaponry may abound but not everyone has access at least not right away.

>>Out of 8, only 2 had modern assault weapons. Another 3 had WW2 or WW1 rifles.<<

First, for the benefit of our British, Australian, Canadian and European friends, and for the purposes of this discussion, we should be clear in our terminology. So, the two "assault rifles" that you mentioned are not likely to actually be Assault Rifles. Here in the USA you need a special collector permit that costs $200.00 USD per rifle for each Assault Rifle that you wish to own, as fully automatic rifles are against the law here, and Assault Rifles are full auto. Further to that, not all states will allow you to own one no matter what. What we *can* own are semi-automatic (one shot per squeeze of the trigger) rifles that *look* like Assault Rifles, but the true Assault Rifles are almost always full auto. Some fire only bursts. Sporting rifles cannot fire bursts or full auto. I'm not trying to be political here. We just need to understand that a civilian version of an Assault Rifle, which we call "sporting rifles" are not too far removed from WW II weapons. The biggest differences are the cartridges used, the weight and the sporting rifles ability to take a large capacity magazine. The M1 Garand, which was one of the most widely used rifles of WW II, uses a far more powerful round than an AR15 sporting rifle, so if you're trying to kill someone in our post apoc scenario, the M1 30.06 has more stopping power and greater range than the very common AR15. It's better for hunting as well, as AR15's are not typically used to hunt animals larger than a coyote. Yes, you can certainly kill someone with an AR15, and a large capacity magazine is certainly a benefit, but the 8 round clip fed magazine of the Garand is quick to load with practice. OK, I *did* say with practice. M1 thumb anyone. LOL. Anyway, I own an M1 Garand, a bolt action Springield 03A3, which was commonly employed as a sniper rifle, even in Viet Nam, and an M1 Carbine. Both the Garand and the Springfield are very accurate and have great range. The Carbine has a less powerful round and shorter range, *but* it's very light and I can hit a man sized target out to 100 yards.

So, what you had in your game was 5 out of 8 with very useful battle rifles. And you didn't mention how many rifles that each of these people had. My guess would be that at least a couple of them would have decent rifles to give to you and your unarmed friends. But the most important point here is that there are about a zillion M1 Garands stockpiled all around the world, as we sold or lend leased them to just about everybody, and we'd have even *more* if a certain party would allow us to buy back all of the stockpiled M1 Garands from South Korea that we left there after the Korean War. So, as I said before. A lack of useful firearms would never be a problem.

While I do take your general point about there being weapons aplenty in Eastern bloc trouble spots – and while there was undeniably a Soviet policy of weapons stockpiling…. I had to LOL at "Bosnia"!

Their war ended more than a decade ago and the hardware has long since been policed, first by NATO/Coalition forces, then the UN, and finally the National Authorities.
The roads are lousy, the beer is cheap, and the level of visible state armament is low. (For example, the majority of border personnel are unarmed, unlike the guy who needs a full-size nine to look at your passport in Hartsfield!)
No extras from "Taken" selling AKs in the farmers' market!

The rule of thumb for the ex-Soviet nations would be – if they've had open conflict, their stockpiles were breached. If that conflict is over – the weapons got policed during the resolution.l
I'd look to Ex-Soviet locations that have been relatively stable since the fall of communism as potential weapon sources – Bulgaria, maybe?

I'm not a massive post apocalyptic fan but this is intriguing me. A few comments…
1 whoever say we are talking about the event and the post event is right
2 as I'm in the UK about the only way I can think I could find weaponry is if I found a police armed response team that had been killed by, let's say aliens, leaving a handgun, mp5 or two and ammo lying around. That presumes I was there first and missed the aliens!
3 unless the event featured massive rapid depopulation and you had room and time to look for firearms. It may be different in the USA but I don't think that your average civilian who doesn't own a gun could expect to scavenge one.
4 to look at the post apocalypse say 20 years later, I really think you are stretching it to think of manufacturing stock of ammunition. Power? Materials? Knowledge? Knowledge of basic agriculture could be gone let alone munitions. Black powder, possibly but I'd not guarantee it.
5 trade? Sourcing ammo elsewhere such as E Europe is Very unlikely IMHO – what currency? What transport? How do you know where to go to look. And if you were sat on an industrial pile of 5.56, your price would be high indeed.

To conclude, I think if you survived the event and found a gun with a good supply of ammunition, you'd be really careful with it – it could almost be handed down, "12 rounds left, use them wisely". And you'd have a good knife or similar because that would not need bullets.

Terry Pratchett quote
"His gun will run out of bang before my spear runs out of sharp."

Norman D. Landings

I guess that I shouldn't have specified Bosnia. And I certainly shouldn't have spelled it Boznia. LOL but i'll quote from an article printed in Time.

"Once European terrorists realized the strategic advantages of guns, they quickly discovered they were surprisingly easy to find. Just beyond the countries of Western Europe, with their restrictive gun laws, lie the Balkan states, awash with illegal weapons left over from the conflicts that raged there in the 1990s. According to the Switzerland-based Small Arms Survey, there are anywhere between three million and six million firearms in circulation in the Western Balkans—and possibly more".

Better? :-)

"Remember, it will take a *very* long time to use up all of the ammunition in existence now"

Ive just been looking up some figures on the subject and Im not convinced thats the case- the US currently produces about 10billion bullets a year, all factories producing at full capacity and can barely keep up with demand.

so imagine a post apocalyptic world- the factories are in ruins, the workforce dead, and demand is probably a little less…but you're still going to burn through whats left in about a week, even assuming it wasnt all used up during the events that caused it to become a post apocalyptic world in the first place.

It would seem to me that unless there was a very definite requirement for bullets they might be a bit more effort than anyone would have time for, and people would gravitate to weapons that were easier to procure and supply.

"Switzerland based", you say…?

Shadow, mate I think you just nailed it!

Switzerland has compulsory military service, and thousands of Swiss reservists keep their mil spec weapons at home.
A cohesive, unified society of trained shooters with immediate access to assault weapons.
I, for one, welcome our post-apocalyptic Swiss overlords!

>>A cohesive, unified society of trained shooters with immediate access to assault weapons. I, for one, welcome our post-apocalyptic Swiss overlords!<<

OMG! We'll end up slave laborers in a CooCoo clock factory!

>>Ive just been looking up some figures on the subject and Im not convinced thats the case- the US currently produces about 10billion bullets a year, all factories producing at full capacity and can barely keep up with demand.<<

OK, i'll take your word for the figures, but here in the USA we use up a lot of ammo just plinking in the fields and deserts, practicing at ranges, hunting, competing, and of course, training our police and military. Firearms are a strong part of our culture. When I was younger and competing heavily in the International Defensive Pistol Association, Cowboy Action, and for eventual competition in NRA Bullseye, with shotguns, AR15's, several different types of pistols, and just shooting WW II weapons for fun, I would burn up a thousand rounds in a weekend! This is pretty typical for competition shooters and people that just really enjoy shooting guns. What would happen in a post apoc situation is that all of that type of shooting would cease and the ammo would only be used for hunting and defense.

I wouldn't mind the Swiss ruling what's left of the world. The chocolate will be good (assuming they can find a way to keep making it), the clocks will keep accurate time, and let's not forget those marvelous wacky knives!

>>and let's not forget those marvelous wacky knives!<<

I want one with a sun dial, a bow and arrows, and access to the internet.

Do you suppose that the Swiss Army actually uses the ones with about twenty gizmos?

The swiss army uses this model_ link the civvy version is the trailmaster…

You don't need to use fulminate of mercury to make a good primer. The reality is that anyone with a good knowledge of chemistry can make any number of primers using fairly available chemicals. If you go with the Mad Max scenario you will fairly quickly develop basic survival level manufacturing. Production may be low but in your little band you'll acquire an armorer, just like you'll want some mechanics and the like. So why does post-apocalyptic SCIFI adopt a steampunk version of Flintstone technology? Simple, it looks cool. Why do so many Fantasy women wear chainmail bikinis? Because the audience is dominated by young men. It has nothing to do with some futurist analyzing what might happen, it has everything to do with ticket sales.

Jowady

I agree with your post. Just thinking about my own neighborhood alone in a small town of 3000, we have a mechanic, two National Guard members, a greenhouse owner, an ex FBI agent, an engineer, and others that can fill the roles necessary to sustain and defend a small community. I, for instance, am a chip level electronics technician and friend on the other side of town is a Master Gardener. Our town has a police force, a firehouse, an emergency squad and a volunteer Civilian Emergency Response Team as well. Some of us are vets and many of us are proficient with small arms. There are many firearms here, as our county is well known for deer hunting and I can teach almost anyone that can hold a rifle to hit a man at 100 yards in about an hour. I would teach with a scoped .22 rifle to avoid wasting man stopping ammo. Many of us are also proficient with compound bows, which we would use to hunt deer and small game. It's harder to be handy with a bow and arrows, but i'm sure that I could teach that too. I'll bet that there are all kinds of usefully skilled people in our town and we are good in emergencies. When hurricane Sandy knocked our power out for a week during some very cold weather the CERT team immediately organized a "warming station" at the emergency squad building, which has an emergency generator, for anyone that needed to get out of the cold, have something to eat, recharge phones and laptops and get information. I have every reason to believe that the people in my town would not panic, and that we wouldn't start hitting each other over the head with shovels. I can't speak for what would happen in a large metropolitan area, but i'm not in one, so I don't care.

There are many places you can buy sprues of weapons, though I have noticed an unfortunate lack of anything that would be available in a non-American gun shop. At least anything modern; bolt-action rifles have marched on since WW2, but that is usually the most modern you can get. Anything else either belongs in the Old West, the pulp era, at Waterloo or on a pirate ship, or is so modern it wouldn't appear in most places at all so it wouldn't be there for anyone to loot or scavenge, and isn't going to miraculously appear just because suddenly whatever passes for the law in your area is unable to issue a rodents' posterior about the Weapons Act.

Those older weapons may be a bit more plausible depending on how far your apocalypse goes, and how few communities band together and attempt to rebuild their lives and how many just bash each other just because there are fewer and fewer people around to tell them not to, not having an apparent future because they just won't lift a finger towards getting one. Black powder may be more common, or perhaps the West did come back after all (there was one PA story I heard of where the protagonist has a distinct advantage over all his enemies because they bring along flintlocks and he has a caplock revolver).
Shotshells may be easier to manufacture/recycle, though in many cases this means going back to paper shells. Manual actions and break-actions are going to be the order of the day, and I don't know how paper shells go with slugs…

The problem is that most figures are automatically taking on the zombies/bikies/looters/etc. with weapons which, where I am, require a special collectors licence just to acquire a full-scale model that isn't obviously a toy, with reasonable prototypical appearance but no actual function.
I want guns that sportspeople shoot clay with, and farmers put down stock with, and hunters bring down roo and feral pigs. AND STOP SAWING OFF THE DAMNED SHOT-GUNS.

" I would teach with a scoped .22 rifle to avoid wasting man stopping ammo."
You'll have to move them up some day, as I have tried a .22, .223 and 8x57mm at the Armour and Artillery Museum, and the latter is a whole lot more gun. A couple of magazines from a rimfire rifle and they may be able to go on to a .223 by themselves, but it takes a bit more to get much out of something recommended for aerial pig hunting apart from some injuries when the rifle spins them around sideways and topples them over.

The prevalence of minis with too many modern weapons may have been what prompted the change in Nuclear Renaissance between editions, with some phlebotinium being invented to allow the characters to use "rail guns" that look suspiciously like modern guns.

I want some armed with normal weapons like I actually see in a gun shop.

>>(there was one PA story I heard of where the protagonist has a distinct advantage over all his enemies because they bring along flintlocks and he has a caplock revolver).<<

That's one of the reasons the Texas Rangers adopted the Walker, which was one of the first six shooter cap and ball pistols. A pair of them and you have some serious firepower against Indians and outlaws.

>>Shotshells may be easier to manufacture/recycle, though in many cases this means going back to paper shells. Manual actions and break-actions are going to be the order of the day, and I don't know how paper shells go with slugs<<

I don't know anything about reloading shot shells, but i'm sure that I could learn. :-)

>>AND STOP SAWING OFF THE DAMNED SHOT-GUNS.<<

You're right. Bank robbers and gangsters used them because they were easier to hide. There'd be no reason to do that anymore.

>>it takes a bit more to get much out of something recommended for aerial pig hunting apart from some injuries when the rifle spins them around sideways and topples them over.<<

The US Navy used to train with .22's in boot camp. That was many years ago, and i don't think that they still do. Anyway, the whole point of the .223 cartridge, as used in the AR-15, is that it doesn't have much recoil. I trained with the M1 Carbine in the Air Force and became proficient very quickly as there is little recoil. The AR-15 doesn't have much more recoil than that.

What's an "aeriel Pig"?

"You're right. Bank robbers and gangsters used them because they were easier to hide. There'd be no reason to do that anymore."

Gangers in the UK still do that, because they can't get handguns any other way; they would also do it in Australia because of the rather long and convoluted legal process required for a Category H licence (if you can make it through that and have the means to keep it, you obviously don't need to rob a bank).

"What's an "aeriel Pig"?"
I was simply referring to airborne management of feral pigs, such as from a helicopter (I've never heard of people hunting pigs from a balloon or airship. Utes, pickups, 4WDs, a taxi once…)
This requires more firepower than a ground takedown, although those are more what you call guidelines than actual rules; not following the guidelines opens you up to animal cruelty lawsuits, is unneccessarily cruel and unusual for the animal, and runs the risk of the pig not dying, or even noticing the damage, until they've had plenty of time to squash you or rip the middle half out of you. Those guidelines state that the bare minimum is .222 or .223, for advanced users who have demonstrated that they are good enough; for most people, it is recommended a minimum of .243 for ground hunting and .308 for aerial.

If you want realistic play The Road, otherwise give me a good fantasy apocalypse with whatever I want. I don't want what reality would be like. I want zombies, robots, crazed cult leaders, psionics, mutations, aliens, vehicles with spikes and metal plates attached to them, and secret Nazi enclaves who have hidden since WWII (trust me, I've read that theme in a number of bad post-apocalyptic novels).

Chironex

In which country do you live?

Australia. Queensland, to be precise (the states do still have different laws; here you can just buy replica pistols and revolvers over the counter at novelty stores and keep them at home, whereas in Victoria one Transformers collector had to have his lower floor turned into a vault-like armoury chamber simply because he had a G1 Megatron in there. As just one example.)

Chironex

It's hard to believe, but there are people in the USA that consider Australia's weapons laws a shining example of how it should be done. But assuming that all law will break down in our post apoc scenario, you can start manufacturing your own firearms. Until you can get that up and running though, make sure that you have the biggest and heaviest sledge hammer in town. :-)

Type what you will, but it still looks stupid to have a system that considers a pump-action centrefire rifle to be appropriate for civilians to have for recreational shooting as much as any other reason, but treats pump-action shot-guns as if they were self-loading. I am not entirely over the weapon regulations here, but there are definitely things I would rearrange, even rip clean off, if I was in a position to dictate the laws. Example: once I saw a motifake on Deviantart showing someone locked and loaded with Nerf to an impractical degree, marked "Nerf: because Mummy won't buy me any airsoft", and had to stop laughing long enough to remember that airsoft is flatly illegal here. And then tell the poster in the comments.

Chironex

Governments work in strange ways. Sometimes a law will be instituted to accomplish something entirely different than it's alleged purpose. I guess you know that every firearm transaction through a Federal Firearms Licensed dealer (an FFL; which is anyone that owns a store that sells firearms or a dealer at a Gun Show) must call into the National Instant Check System (NICS). This system can confirm that a dealer may sell the firearm as there is nothing in the customers background to prevent it. A call must be made for every individual transaction. So if you buy a gun today and another one tomorrow, that's two different checks. The dealer may charge whatever he wants for each check to cover his time and paperwork. California is notoriously anti-gun, but they can't legally outlaw firearms outright because of the 2nd amendment to our Constitution, which grants every citizen the right to own a firearm. So here's what California did. They passed a law that all *ammunition* purchases must pass a NICS check too. That means that if you buy a ten dollar box of .22's today and a ten dollar box of .22's tomorrow, that's two separate NICS checks. My local dealer charges fifteen dollars for a NICS check. I don't live in California, but if I did, and it was the same dealer, the price for a ten dollar box of .22's would become twenty five dollars! Every single time that I bought one! Yes, you can buy a *lot* of ammo each time you make a purchase, but not everyone can afford a big investment each time they want ammo. They say that they want to prevent terrorists and nuts from collecting an arsenal of ammo, but that's not true. It's just to harass gun owners to a point where it's too costly to own a gun.