We aren’t going to do this here often, because there is no point. Don’t get me wrong, guns are the most critical part of your anti- zombie collection.
So Anders, why are we not going to talk about guns much here?
Well, because you are not good at them. I can’t tell you how much my ass sucks fabric when somebody tells me they are going to get a handgun for home protection. It’s like getting dog, they always underestimate the amount of work it takes once you get it home. Can you spend at least three days a month at the range? Can you fire 60-100 rounds every time you go? Can you afford 35 cents a round? Will you buy extra magazines and rotate your loaded magazines weekly so your feed springs don’t hyper compress? Will you clean and lubricate your gun after every use? Will you clean and lubricate it weekly when not in use? Now you are thinking…
But some of you are out there saying “yeah dude, that’s totally me”. Then let me be the first to apologize for your piss poor sex life.
In real life, you need something that is great for close range (sorry, you are not an 31337 awesome sniper), requires minimal maintenance and you will stand a better than even chance of hitting your target without hundreds of hours of range time.
“But, but, I go to the range with my cousin and we shoot his glock 9mm and I got them all on the paper at 10 yards, I’m a great shot.”
 |
| I'm sure your cousin's rap label will love his OG percussion gat. |
Okay, next time you are out shooting with Greasy Larry, before you shoot, drink a full mug of cold coffee, an equal amount of whole milk, rip out 30 push ups and then empty that mag in under 30 seconds. After you are done ringing the barf out of your shirt in the bathroom at the indoor range and trying to dry your tears of shame in the hand blower, go see what a shitty job you did on a stationary target. That’s about as close as you will get to a real simulation of stress induced fear-for-your-fucking-life combat. Now imagine that target is moving, and hungry for delicious “your brains”. I guarantee you will shoot yourself in the foot right between screaming for your mother and shitting your pants.
The solution:
You need something that you can pretty much point on the direction of the target, pull the trigger and run. You also need something you can keep in the closet behind your LARP gear or under your bed with your secret pictures of David Hasselhoff, and still have it be able to function with a little dust and moderate neglect.
 |
We are not judging, you are amongst friends. |
Enter the Mossberg "Special Purpose", available in the 500 and 590 series.
pump action shot guns are generally pretty hard to mess up, but when you add the special Marinecoat finish, it becomes wonderfully resistant to many things that would corrode the crap out of your weapon. Finger grease, powder residue, sweat, and diet mountain dew are all things that can really fuck up a gun in normal use, what they don't show you on TV is how much you really need to clean guns. Now imagine a world where your gun might be killing 10-50 meatbags a day, filled with blood, puss and poison Crisco.
 | |
| Imagine these guys have been rotting for weeks, and are spewing at your weapon from fresh holes. You are lucky movies don't smell. |
These weapons can take quite a bit of torture and still function.
They function like most other pump shotguns, feed from the bottom into a tube magazine, rounds cycled into the chamber from the tube by the pump action. Button safety on the top rear of the receiver, activate with the thumb gripping the stock, red dot means go.
They come with several tube magazine configurations, this model is the 5/1 version (five in the tube, one in the barrel) a 6/1 version is also typical. Some states require a restrictor so that they only hold three rounds total. This is usually a wood or plastic dowel inserted into the tube with rubber bushings, and should be removed where legal (can be done in minutes with no tools).
Ammo
Know now that there are commonly two types of shot for shotguns, "bird" shot and "buck" shot.
Bird shot has pellets of ~2-4mm that can have as many as 500 pellets per cartridge. These are worthless to you. These are made so British assholes in powdered wigs can hit a small bird in flight without turning the meat into a fine spray.
Buck shot ranges from 6-15mm and typically has 6-10 pellets per cartridge. 00 (double aught) buck is the most common, and is fantastic for stopping bucks, boar, meth addicts and blowing deadbolts out of door frames. Buy these.
There are also slugs, which are a single round (not shot) used by shotguns, it's more or less like shooting a 3/4" steel rod out of your gun. Common in commie countries where rifles aren't allowed, these are only good to about 75 yards and take more skill to hit than a shot "blast" but the large size makes them fantastic for blasting through car doors, body armor, and thick plate at close range. Buy these too.
Get a mix of "00 buck" and "slugs" in a 7/3 ratio. Get as many as you can carry.
The British military figured out after years of being married to 9mm sub-machine guns, that at 30 yards, a shotgun with five rounds of 00 buck is as accurate as a 30 round mag of 9mm.
Now get out and shoot it.
This will not work for skeet. The pellets are too big, and the choke (angle of shot spray) too narrow. Get some bottles of water, set them up down range and go to town. Now that you have beaten the crap out of yourself with the massive recoil and hopefully figured out to press the butt stock hard into your shoulder before pulling the trigger, let's talk about modifications.
Don't modify your damn gun!
No, you don't need to put a pistol grip on it, it reduces your ability to use it as a club (see also: buttstrike) It also makes it crap tastic at longer ranges, and unless you can bench twice your weight (and you probably figured out at the range) you need the butt stock for control and recoil. If you even bring up folding stocks, I will come to your house and slap you with my glove in front of your kids. They are worthless, and unreliable.
Light rail interface? Aimpoint scope? bayonet lug? Look, most of the guys that put all this shit on their guns are the same guys that spend all weekend polishing their boats and yell at their wives for an hour if there are any naturally occurring scratches. The more shit you have on your gun, the more shit will fail, it's simple math. Also, more shit to get knocked off, smashed off, broken or run out of batteries. Don't get used to it, you won't miss it when it's gone. This also goes for aftermarket fore grips, side kick cartridge holders, butt stock extenders, and all that other garbage. What you are adding is weight. Weight sucks ass. In the post apocalyptic zombie world, you will need to sprint, climb ladders crawl in holes, and hike for miles. You don't want to be lugging more than you need to, to that, you don't want to be trying to un-fuck your "raptor talon laser aim assist™" after it got snagged on a hurricane fence you had to climb. Don't buy that shit, If you already did, give it to greasy cousin Larry for his birthday, hill be stoked.
Lets look at a prime example:
Let's look at this. Spend the cost of the gun (~$500) to go from 7-10 rounds, add almost three pounds, and while you get a "magazine" configuration, you now need to carry extra magazines (that you will not be able to loot spares from the military that doesn't use this crap) and you have increased the profile and snag-ability of the weapon, not to mention the risk of questionable aftermarket parts malfunctioning. All for three extra rounds.
I vote no. If you MUST add something to your gun, get a flashlight that takes NORMAL batteries that can easily be looted from gas stations. Those little lithium disc jobbies that you need to go to a watch maker to find will be GONE. If it's not AAA or some such, forget it.
This pretty much covers primary weapon. Can you do something else? Yeah. I know a few people who would be OK with assault weapons, and you should probably get a handgun to supplement this, but ultimately its about you being realistic about your skill, your fitness level to haul equipment, and minimizing your failure rate with complex mechanisms. Remember what happened to the high-tech German machine guns in the Russian mud and snow? Even the best things on paper can get compromised in nature. Know your gear inside and out and be comfortable with it.
We will cover handguns another day.
Be ready, and good luck.
They function like most other pump shotguns, feed from the bottom into a tube magazine, rounds cycled into the chamber from the tube by the pump action. Button safety on the top rear of the receiver, activate with the thumb gripping the stock, red dot means go.
Ammo
Know now that there are commonly two types of shot for shotguns, "bird" shot and "buck" shot.
Bird shot has pellets of ~2-4mm that can have as many as 500 pellets per cartridge. These are worthless to you. These are made so British assholes in powdered wigs can hit a small bird in flight without turning the meat into a fine spray.
Buck shot ranges from 6-15mm and typically has 6-10 pellets per cartridge. 00 (double aught) buck is the most common, and is fantastic for stopping bucks, boar, meth addicts and blowing deadbolts out of door frames. Buy these.
There are also slugs, which are a single round (not shot) used by shotguns, it's more or less like shooting a 3/4" steel rod out of your gun. Common in commie countries where rifles aren't allowed, these are only good to about 75 yards and take more skill to hit than a shot "blast" but the large size makes them fantastic for blasting through car doors, body armor, and thick plate at close range. Buy these too.
Get a mix of "00 buck" and "slugs" in a 7/3 ratio. Get as many as you can carry.
The British military figured out after years of being married to 9mm sub-machine guns, that at 30 yards, a shotgun with five rounds of 00 buck is as accurate as a 30 round mag of 9mm.
 | ||||
| Your Shotgun is actually better than this at targets closer than 30 yards. |
This will not work for skeet. The pellets are too big, and the choke (angle of shot spray) too narrow. Get some bottles of water, set them up down range and go to town. Now that you have beaten the crap out of yourself with the massive recoil and hopefully figured out to press the butt stock hard into your shoulder before pulling the trigger, let's talk about modifications.
Don't modify your damn gun!
No, you don't need to put a pistol grip on it, it reduces your ability to use it as a club (see also: buttstrike) It also makes it crap tastic at longer ranges, and unless you can bench twice your weight (and you probably figured out at the range) you need the butt stock for control and recoil. If you even bring up folding stocks, I will come to your house and slap you with my glove in front of your kids. They are worthless, and unreliable.
Light rail interface? Aimpoint scope? bayonet lug? Look, most of the guys that put all this shit on their guns are the same guys that spend all weekend polishing their boats and yell at their wives for an hour if there are any naturally occurring scratches. The more shit you have on your gun, the more shit will fail, it's simple math. Also, more shit to get knocked off, smashed off, broken or run out of batteries. Don't get used to it, you won't miss it when it's gone. This also goes for aftermarket fore grips, side kick cartridge holders, butt stock extenders, and all that other garbage. What you are adding is weight. Weight sucks ass. In the post apocalyptic zombie world, you will need to sprint, climb ladders crawl in holes, and hike for miles. You don't want to be lugging more than you need to, to that, you don't want to be trying to un-fuck your "raptor talon laser aim assist™" after it got snagged on a hurricane fence you had to climb. Don't buy that shit, If you already did, give it to greasy cousin Larry for his birthday, hill be stoked.
Lets look at a prime example:
 | |||
| Sidewinder 10 round detachable magazine kit |
I vote no. If you MUST add something to your gun, get a flashlight that takes NORMAL batteries that can easily be looted from gas stations. Those little lithium disc jobbies that you need to go to a watch maker to find will be GONE. If it's not AAA or some such, forget it.
 |
| These guys do this for a living, and they keep it simple. |
This pretty much covers primary weapon. Can you do something else? Yeah. I know a few people who would be OK with assault weapons, and you should probably get a handgun to supplement this, but ultimately its about you being realistic about your skill, your fitness level to haul equipment, and minimizing your failure rate with complex mechanisms. Remember what happened to the high-tech German machine guns in the Russian mud and snow? Even the best things on paper can get compromised in nature. Know your gear inside and out and be comfortable with it.
We will cover handguns another day.
Be ready, and good luck.
