How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It - James Wesley Rawles [89]
Purchases should be made systematically and dispassionately. As with buying any other tool, you shouldn’t skimp on quality. A well-made gun can deliver years or even generations of reliable service.
One final note: You can buy the best guns in the world, but unless you practice with them often, you are not prepared. Getting training at a top-notch firearms school is money well spent.
Storing Guns and Magazines
The precautions that you need to take depend a lot on where you live. If you live in a humid climate, then you need to be particularly vigilant with your guns, magazines, and other tools. The higher the humidity, the greater the degree of protection required, and the greater the frequency of inspection for rust.
Wear lightweight cotton gloves when you do your gun maintenance. This is particularly important if you have sweaty hands. My college roommate was notorious for inducing rust on guns because of this, and he has always had to take special precautions.
A light coat of gun oil such as Rem Oil will suffice in a dry climate. Although exotic lubricants such as Break-Free CLP are great for lubricating, in my experience, they leave so little residue that they are actually inferior to traditional gun oils for preventing rust. In damp climates, I recommend Birchwood Casey Barricade (formerly sold under the product name Sheath). Rem Oil and Barricade are both available from a number of Internet vendors, including Brownells (snipurl.com/hneta). And even Amazon.com now sells Barricade.
For long-term storage, all metal parts (inside and out), especially the bore, chamber, and breech face, should get a coating of grease. There is always the tried-and-true USGI “grease, rifle,” but I prefer rust-inhibitive grease (RIG), which is available from Brownells, as well as from other Internet vendors. Even though you will know how the gun was treated before storage, someone else in your family might not. I therefore strongly recommend attaching a warning note: “Warning: grease coating—bore, chamber and bolt face! Remove grease before firing!”
Small quantities of magazines stored inside a humidity-controlled gun vault (with a Golden Rod or similar dehumidifier) or in sealed ammo cans with a large packet of silica-gel desiccant probably won’t need more than a light coat of oil and annual inspection. Any larger quantities of magazines that are stored outside of your vault in non-airtight containers should probably be rubbed down with RIG. In most cases this requires disassembling magazines, to get at their innards. Don’t forget that the spring needs rust protection.
Frequency of Firearms Practice
I recommend shooting as frequently as your time and budget allow. Once a week would be ideal to stay in top form. Dry practice (commonly called “dry firing,” with an unloaded weapon) is quite useful, particularly for developing muscle strength and motor control. Note, however, that some stringent safety rules must be enforced and a safe backstop constructed, to eliminate the risk of a negligent discharge.
The Memsahib reminded me to mention that bird watching with heavy binoculars or a camera with a long lens is also great exercise for building arm muscles, acquiring targets, and practice with holding a considerable weight perfectly still.
How Much Ammunition to Store
It is important to maintain balance in your preparations. Food storage, first-aid supplies, and heirloom-seed storage should be priorities. But after those have been taken care of, it makes sense to stock up on ammunition. As long as you store your ammo in sealed military-surplus cans, there is no risk in overestimating your needs, since ammunition has a storage life of more than fifty years if protected from oil vapors and humidity. Consider any extra ammo the ideal barter item. The late Col. Jeff Cooper rightly called it “ballistic wampum.”
For your barter inventory, I recommend that you stick with the most common calibers. For rifles: .22 LR, .223, .308, .30-06 (and in the British Commonwealth,