small is beautiful

SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL


As I just said, but because I love indoctrinating into you the idea that repetition, at least by me if no one else, is okay and perhaps even desirable, I just read the novel Castigo Cay. A great novel, but not a very good militia porn one. Anywho, a few great ideas were thrown our way every few dozen pages. The kind that made you note it, and either interrupt your reading so as to ponder it or at least remember it later and naval gaze over it ( predominately economic future possibilities or government Stasi actions ). One of those was our hero’s preference for smaller caliber sidearms. As a former sniper, of course he was obsessed with shot placement. His reasoning was that since he could easily control the recoil his follow up shots were spot on and in pistols, shot placement is more critical than caliber/power. Plus, being able to control the arm better, he could shoot it at a greater distance. It is a bit hard to argue with this logic. So, can we scale this up to include rifles?

*

Rimfire isn’t really in this discussion, if only because the power is really too weak to be used in terrain outside of dense and heavy foliage. Rimfire is great, but mostly after all the “real” ammo is used up and then they are superior to black powder or bows and arrows ( tactically, not for hunting purposes ). If you are trained in it, pistol ammo in a carbine or rifle would fall under the same terrain restrictions. A lot of my minions are probably living under these conditions, but you’ll pardon me if I talk about more open surroundings. I’ve pretty much lived in semi-arid lands most of my life. And I’d rather be over gunned rather than under armed. This is pretty much why I don’t talk a lot about a shotgun. Great inside and in heavy woods, but under extreme frugal conditions you might be limited to one gun. If you can afford an extra gun, the shotgun rounds out your arsenal. Otherwise, stick with a rifle. The one exception would be firearms novices. If you don’t know crap about guns and need to arm yourself, I wouldn’t recommend anything other than a single shot break open 12 gauge and/or a revolver.

*

I’ve always been a 45 fan. That was what the military used when I was in my first tour. During my second tour, stationed in Korea, the unit had already been issued the Belgium crapstains but since they ALL had to be shipped back to the manufacture due to some problem or another they were reissued the 45’s to use. Luckily, before I got there. I had to hump the M60 turd, itself a monstrosity, so it was nice to know I had a backup gun that would actually work. To me, a 9mm was a mouse gun. And since my eyesight wasn’t great ( why I prefer scopes on rifles ), the accuracy issue wasn’t too important. I just needed to empty a clip center mass at close quarters, then smash the enemies skull in with a heavy iron frame. However, that is just me. I can see the better availability of 9mm and its lack of recoil being a distinct advantage ( assuming, naturally, that you are not using metal jacketed rounds ). But what about rifle rounds? We’ve always been taught that the 30 cal rounds were needed for penetration, that the high velocity 223 was easily deflected by foliage and wind. Yes, true. And in hunting, you want stopping power at long distances. Although, if we are talking long range, isn’t the terrain open anyway? If you are shooting from 500 yards, bushwaking the enemy, he doesn’t know you are out there, right? So he isn’t going to huddle behind a leafy branch, assured of his safety. If you aren’t trying to use a fusillade of heavy caliber weapons to try to blast an opponent out from behind an engine block or a sandbagged position, is the heavy caliber so important?

*

So, to a large extent, isn’t the caliber debate, hinging around conventional military tactics, not applicable to survivalists? If we avoid all but ambushes and sniping, do we need heavy calibers? We don’t need stopping power, do we? Wounding the enemy is sufficient. Cap one, slink away. Let time elapse, because you are only attacking as benefits you, not the enemy, and the slightly wounded soldier dies. Demoralized, his buddies will more easily freak out when one of them is wounded next. In a sense, isn’t wounding far better than instantly stopping the soldier? Now, a word on the war surplus bolt actions. Yes, I love that their caliber is a heavy round. Since the sights aren’t great, nor are the built in accuracies of most, you aren’t shooting long distances. Since they are closer, best to put then down hard. Which is a good reason to have that built in bayonet as a back up. On the other hand, being inexpensive until recently, they could be cheaply upgraded to sniper status with some easy fixes. Then, the heavy calibers also came in handy for that 800 yard man blaster. Yet, despite all those advantages, the bastards were heavy as hell. And to a smaller framed person such as myself, naturally skinny, the recoil was almost debilitating. There was no such thing as rapid fire if you hoped to keep some kind of accuracy. After about five rounds my shoulder hurt so much I couldn’t get away from Feet Of Accuracy. Again, this is a personal problem I have. Everyone is different. So, this isn’t merely against thirty cal rifles. I have them, but I also have a love/hate relationship with them. If there is no time to upgrade an arsenal, the war bolts will serve me well. But in the back of my mind is always the question if I should upgrade to a small caliber. Avoid the recoil, and really make those scarce rounds count. A hit rather than a suppressive fire round.

*

As ammunition becomes way too expensive, most will have little choice but to cut back the amount of stored rounds they have. Every round will have to count. So, not only must you not waste rounds on semi-auto, you also can’t waste rounds on inaccurate fire. Just some food for thought. Not to take heavy rifles out of contention, but merely to include small rifles back in the discussion.

END
The Official Bison Web Site http://www.bisonpress.com/

*
My e-mail is jimd303@netzero.com
*
Anyone can submit a guest article. No minimum word length, no writing skill necessary ( just get the idea across ). You retain copyright ( this must be your original writing ) and I’ll just use the once. I’ve yet to turn down an article, just don’t use the N Bomb or libel another that can sue me. Send by e-mail ( please, label as “guest article” so I can find it easily later ). Payment will be your removal from my enemies list.
*
By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there.
*
Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon links in each article. You can purchase anything, not just the linked item. Enter Amazon through my item link and then go to whatever other item you desire. As long as you don’t leave Amazon until after the order is placed, I get credit for your purchase. Thank you.