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As we discussed recently, there has been a surge in firearms ownership stemming from a general desire to be prepared. In light of the general ass-backwardsness of, well, everything these days, I wanted to take the time to put out some considerations and guidance for those searching for their first gun during these strange times. Last time, I recommended a 12 Gauge Shotgun, particularly a pump-action, for a variety of reasons. While that might seem a bit old-fashioned, that particular breed of firearm provides many advantages that others simply do not possess. I encourage you to go through that little article and digest the information presented there.
What if you, as a first time gun buyer, wanted to buy something with a bit more range than a shotgun? Perhaps you are more worried about coyotes eating your sheep or something. Then you need a rifle. Normally, I would recommend some sort of “modern” sporting rifle in a readily available caliber, such as an AR-15, AK-47/74, Mini-14 or other, less common, semi-automatic options are rifles like the SKS, IWI Tavor, or M1A. These rifles aren’t for everyone however, and if you find yourself looking for something else, there are still a lot of options in repeating rifles to choose from.
The most commonly purchased center-fire ammunition in the U.S.A is, by far, the intermediate cartridges of 5.56 NATO/.223 Remington, 7.62x39mm Russian, and even .308 Winchester/7.62 NATO. However, in a situation such as what we currently find ourselves in, where many folks are running out and snapping up all these rounds, a different approach may be in order.
The first, and most common option would be some sort of bolt action rifle. They can be found in a huge array of calibers and from a wide variety of manufacturers. You can even find old military surplus rifles, like a Russian/Soviet Mosin Nagant, British SMLE, or even some French rifles (fired twice, dropped once!). Bolt action rifles are excellent for precision, but are limited in their rate of fire (important if you have multiple coyotes eating your cabbages) and often are limited in capacity (important if your ranch has been overtaken by a battalion of skunks).
The answer, in my opinion, for the bolt action seeking firearm purchaser is what Col Jeff Cooper called the “scout rifle.” Most often these scout rifles are shorter rifles in .308/7.62NATO or .223/5.56NATO, although there are other calibers available. Modern incarnations of this rifle include the Ruger Scout rifle, available in .308 Winchester/7.62 NATO, .350 Legend (a new and not yet prevalent cartridge), .450 Bushmaster, and .223 Remington/5.56 NATO. Ruger also sells the American rifle, which offers a shortened variant called the “Ranch” that is sold in a wide variety of calibers. Both of these are sold with detachable magazines, and many American Ranch Rifles use readily available AR15/STANAG magazines, which is a nice little thing. There are other options out there for shortened, bolt action rifles, like the Remington Model 7 my Grandfather passed to my Father pictured in the featured photo, so if you think this is the way to go you should have plenty of options. These are just a few of the most common ones out there.
A quick note about military surplus rifles. While their often low price point makes them an attractive options for the budget conscious, many of them have issues that make life difficult for their owners. Take the curious case of the Mosin Nagant. I purchased one many years ago that was produced in the late 1930’s. It functions flawlessly, shoots straight, and is overall a pretty decent, if hard recoiling rifle. I had two friends purchase Mosin Nagant rifles within a couple of years of me. One of their rifles was produced in 1942-ish and the other is a model 1944 Carbine (super short barrel). Both of them have horrific tooling marks and rough tooling around the action that makes it extremely difficult to work the bolt. Its almost as if something was going on in Russia/the Soviet Union between the late 1930s and mid 1940s that reduced their attention to detail.
A side note to my quick note, the 1944 Calvary Carbine version of the Mosin Nagant, with a short barrel and firing the hefty 7.62x54R cartridge does two things: Spit a massive fireball that is visible at high noon in a Colorado Desert on a sunny day, and recoil so hard to shell shock you back to Stalingrad and fight for Mother Russia alongside Jude Law. Things the 1944 Calvary Carbine Mosin Nagant does not do well: Accuracy and comfort.
Let’s say, hypothetically, that you have searched far and wide, and you just can’t find a bolt action rifle that, hypothetically, fits your needs. You are perusing your hypothetical, local gun store, and you notice a strange rifle in the corner. At first glance, you think its a shotgun, but with closer inspection, you notice the skinnier barrel with sights instead of a bead.
“Wot in tarnation,” you hypothetically say as you point the rifle out to your local gun store’s sole employee. He/she/they (its your hypothetical, you choose) hands you the strange firearm, and congratulations, you have discovered a real (hypothetical) pump action rifle.
Pump action rifles used to be more common, and it is not totally out of the question to see one in a rim-fire caliber like .22LR on the gun store shelves today. I have never even seen one in the wild, although I thought I had. Turned out I was wrong. There are still new rifles being made using a pump action operating system, but they are few and far between.
I could find two: the Remington 7600, available in three of the most common hunting calibers in North America: .270 Winchester, .30-06, and .308 Winchester. There are two versions of the 7600, the 7600P in .308/7.62NATO and the 7615 Police Patrol Rifle in .223/5.56NATO that are more tacticalized, but I have no idea how you acquire one. They are listed on Wikipedia, and I swear I saw one on a website once, but I can’t find the tacticalized versions on Remington’s website. They might have been discontinued. I don’t know. The second rifle that I could find was the Troy Pump Action Rifle, which looks exactly like an AR15 or AR10, but it isn’t. It has a pump instead of being semi-automatic.
Those are it. All of the pump action, center fire rifles that exist to my knowledge. Well, there are a few more used ones that might crop up from time to time, but even those are few and far between. That’s about all you could find new these days.
Bolt action and pump action rifles are all well and good, but in a survival situation that might also involve taming the West on horseback the best option just might be the lever action rifle. Most lever action rifles feed from a tubular magazine attached under the barrel, similar to a shotgun, and hold between four and six rounds. With practice, the lever can be operated faster than a bolt action and almost as fast as a pump action. There are even some tacticalized versions of leverguns that come from the manufacturers that allow the attachments of optics, lights, and lasers if that’s what you’re into. Lever action rifles have experienced a small resurgence recently, with a number of companies popping up to service this still strong segment of the gun owning public.
Lever guns have a more limited array of caliber options than bolt guns do, with the most common being .30-30 Winchester and .45-70 Government. There are other lever calibers, like .444 Marlin and .35 Remington, but good luck finding those on the cheap. At least .30-30 can be found from cheap import companies, or my personal favorite, Federal Premium. They might not be the longest range calibers, but if you watched Chris Pratt in Jurassic World and thought that taking down a T-Rex might be a necessity, then the Marlin 1895SBL just might be your only option.
There is one more aspect of lever action rifles that we will discuss later: pistol caliber options. There are certain lever action rifles offered in magnum revolver calibers that are more than capable of taking down small and medium game, but we will have to talk about that next time.