for the guy that has everything

[Jakensama]

Real men can drop a buck with a .22

[Zirak]

I have an uncle who used to bird hunt with a .22 because he claimed that using a shotgun just wasn't sporting.

[TinStar]

Real men can drop a buck with a .22

Not legally.. I can remember my Dad telling me about killing deer with .22 but seeing as deer can run hundreds of yards (and sometimes miles) after being shot with a .270, why would you do something like that? It's not even legal to hunt deer in most places with anything smaller than a .243 (I believe this is the cutoff?).

[Slamz]

Depends on your disaster scenario. Virus wipes out 80% of the population = lots of ammo lying around. Food shortage leads to massive starvation and riots = lots of ammo probably getting used.

Incidentally, my favorite disaster is still "massive solar flare". I don't think there's data on how often they occur. The last REALLY big one was in the mid 1800s I think, when all it really did was put out nearly global auroras and mess with the telegraph. Something like that today would probably explode the entire global power system and would take years to fix. Short term I can just imagine what an immediate global loss of refrigeration would do to the total food supply. As Vllad has suggested before, all it really takes to make the SHTF is a few days of no food.

(I wonder how long it would take to replace "every transformer in America", or even the most important 10%.)

[Jakensama]

Not legally.. I can remember my Dad telling me about killing deer with .22 but seeing as deer can run hundreds of yards (and sometimes miles) after being shot with a .270, why would you do something like that?

Yeah the animals rights idiots made it illegal because of 'ethics' in most places. But really, if you are trying to claim hunting is a sport then you should at least make it sporting (no big caliber weapons and no lame ass deer stands). A good marksman wouldn't have a deer run miles after being shot.

Then again deer are pests so I guess you can make the argument to use whatever kills as many of them as possible in the quickest and most efficient manner.

[bonestomper]

Not legally.. I can remember my Dad telling me about killing deer with .22 but seeing as deer can run hundreds of yards (and sometimes miles) after being shot with a .270, why would you do something like that?

Yeah the animals rights idiots made it illegal because of 'ethics' in most places. But really, if you are trying to claim hunting is a sport then you should at least make it sporting (no big caliber weapons and no lame ass deer stands). A good marksman wouldn't have a deer run miles after being shot.

Then again deer are pests so I guess you can make the argument to use whatever kills as many of them as possible in the quickest and most efficient manner.

Jake, I don't hunt deer as much as I harvest them. I sit in a12ft tower and shoot the first one that comes by in range I know I am going to drop, farthest they have run is 35 yards.

but Slamz is really correct on the function here. What is the disaster scenario? Zombies, pandemic, aliens, Russians, whatever.

But let me make something really clear. Unless you are a sniper with a specific target , you can't beat a .12ga shotgun as a utility weapon.

It just isn't possible because of the ammo possibilities of a .12ga. I can kill a moose or a quail with the same gun.

[Jakensama]

Jake, I don't hunt deer as much as I harvest them. I sit in a12ft tower and shoot the first one that comes by in range I know I am going to drop, farthest they have run is 35 yards.

That makes sense if you are doing it for delicious food. I knew folk in Texas who would sit in a deer stand with a shotty and then argue that what they were doing is sport, thats silly. I'm with you - If I were to do it I would be doing it to fill the freezer and would do it the easiest way possible so I could get back to drinking beer.

[TinStar]

But let me make something really clear. Unless you are a sniper with a specific target , you can't beat a .12ga shotgun as a utility weapon.

It just isn't possible because of the ammo possibilities of a .12ga. I can kill a moose or a quail with the same gun.

I'm not sure anyone is arguing that. If I could only have 1 gun in my safe (other than a handgun of course...) then it would be a 12ga. The shotgun I have in my safe takes it even a step further as I bought one that you can easily change the barrel, buttstock, handguard etc for multiple situations. In my safe right now it's loaded with defense load(basically buck shot) with a tac buttstock and a short barrel but in 2 minutes I could have a traditional buttstock and a longer barrel for hunting. On top of that you have all of the different chokes that you can interchange for different purposes. And honestly, even for fun it takes a lot to beat the manliness of a 12ga slug..