Ruger 10/22 for SHTF rifle?

reply to post by PlausibleDeniability


whoa re your hot lips mags made by? ive heard horrid things (like what you write) about the shooters ridge. general concensus is that the Butler Creek Hot Lips arent to bad.

Lots of good stuff already posted. The biggest draw to me is how inexpensive it is to set yourself up with a 10/22. I'm assuming that a SHTF would last a LONG time, maybe the rest of your life. I'm also assuming you will avoid kiling man-sized things. If you are, they will also be armed, probably with something more appropriate, like .223 at minimum. But you want to avoid that. So .22LR is cheap to buy. There's no reason you can't stockpile 100,000 rounds if you want. If you're in a stable location, that's a lot of food on teh table.

FWIW .223 is not as expenive as has been reported here. 1,000 rounds should set you back about $350 these days.

this is what you need in a 1022 ruger for your survival

reply to post by schuyler


thats my exact opinion on survival, im not gonna be hunting dudes who are armed to the teeth with high caliber weapons. life will be about avoiding those kinds of people, but when S really HTF ill just fire some slugs and buckshot at the baddies.

the .22lr is for food collection, practice shooting, and EMERGENCY self-defense (when my boomstick is out of commission). However, i will end up buying a .223 or .308 bolt action as soon as funds permit.

Originally posted by Darkice19

Originally posted by WJjeeper
Well everyone, i took the dive and think i got a really good deal. $225 out the door, $189 + DROS fees. had an old Butler Creek magazine new in the bag laying around in my garage, anyone had any experience with Butler Creek 25 rd mags?

They make the best 10/22 mags. Just make sure you buy the ones with the steel feed lips. They last forever.

Glad to hear it WJ! Ditto on what Dark said too.

Originally posted by itsawild1
Rember people that just because alot of people here say its so doesnt mean its so. First things first, please remember safty first. Take a nra safety course before you get a fire-arm.contact the NRA or local dnr for schedules With this said, no matter what you shoot, practice is key, practice, practice practice. If you have a gun you cant handle it will not help you much1

1-join a gun club or go to a gun range and ask the people there- their advise, you will get plenty of education there and make solid friends. People there will usually let you try their guns out, out of the generosity of the culture they practice. I cant stress this more than enough. GO - JOIN-

2- A 22 is a very geat gun for its purpose-small game. plinking and beginers. I have shot deer on the farm 3 times as a kid but i also lost deer i shot. loosing 1 is even too much. AS far as personal defence goes, its not recomended since it it so underpowerd. It can and has a reputation of glancing off a mans skull unless hit head on. In personal defence killing is number 1, so a bigger gun is required. You want to take the threat away with 1 shot, not multiple shots.

100%

If you are new to guns, or it's been a long time - take a course. Join a range, too; the amount of valuable advice from folks there is often staggering.

Practice can't be overstated; shooting is a perishable skill. Since this topic is about the 10/22 .22 cal specifically, practicing lots with a .22 won't break the bank.

sadly, no gun ranges in my area... on a bright side, i live in a small mountain town so i can go out my backdoor and walk a few hundred yards and have my own shooting range. i go pick it up tomorrow (damn 10 day waiting period) m pretty excited, ive got a few hundreds rounds stacked up and ready to shoot, ill pick up some more when i get the gun. so far I have winchester 36 gr copper plated hollows and 40gr federal solids, ill be picking up a few different types from CCI, some different federals, and some remington solids and hollows. ill post the results of how everything fires with the factory mags and aftermarket mags.

any other good cycling ammo you guys can reccomend for me to try?

reply to post by WJjeeper


Depends on your vision of what "bugout" entails. Putting meat in the pot, or endless battles and Valhalla at the end of the road?

East of the Mississippi, I've not seen ANYTHING, except one, that I'd be afraid to try to take out with a .22. I've killed everything from squirrel up to whitetail deer with one. A black bear was shot with a .22 pistol at the foot of the hill where my land is, and killed dead. That last one may or may not have been a lucky shot - busted it's heart wide open.

Putting meat in the pot, .22 takes it, hands down. It has the added advantage of not tearing your wallet off your ass buying ammo, and that's key when it comes to the notion of practice. A .22, like a .410 shotgun, is a specialist weapon, and shot placement is nearly everything with one. That means lots of practice with it, to make it as integral a part of yourself as your arm.

I used to use CCI Stingers in mine almost exclusively for hunting, but they're a bit much for squirrels. 32 gr hollow point hyper velocity bullet that just goes all to flinders on impact, dumps all it's energy into the target right then and there. It'll mess a squirrel up, and you need headshots on rabbits even to preserve edible meat. Carry something with a bit less OOMPH for squirrels, like a 40 gr RNL bullet. I know a fellow who can drop a deer at 125 yards with one. He aims for the root of the ear, and it snaps the neck just pretty as you please.

Now, if battle is your game, you need to ask yourself where you expect the most of those battles to take place. If it's brush or woods, an assault rifle will do, anything from a 5.45x39 AK through 5.56x45 AR up to a 7.62x39 AK. Any of those intermediate cartridges would be fine for that. Range, and dropping power at range, aren't an issue, and you can carry a lot more ammo for 'em. If you expect to haunt the wide open spaces, better up size to a .308 or better, in a battle rifle configuration (M1A, Galil .308, HK, FN, any of those hi-cap mag rifles) - unless you at peace with yourself in a sniping situation, when a sniper or other bolt action type would do.

Sniping sounds all cool and sexy, but it ain't for the squeamish, the overly sensitive, or them that's prone to get excitable and jittery. You have to stay calm and collected, even if you KNOW you're about to die. Anything else guarantees that result for you. Can you shoot a man dead square in the head without emotion or remorse? IF not, don't plan on the sniper option, stick with a battle rifle, something that will allow you to shoot shot after shot as you're running away, and without having to fumble around with a bolt with jittery hands while you're doing it.

One of YOU against a bunch of THEM means you'll need lots of ammo, and not be scared to run away. In a bugout situation, your goal is not to get to Valhalla early on, even as a hero, it's to live to fight another day. It's likely other folks may be depending on YOU to deliver aid that you can't quite deliver all dead and corpsified. That's gonna mean some retreating. As they say, "he who fights and runs away lives to fight another day".

That assessment ain't pretty, but if it's candy you want, head for a grocery store.

Me? I've got an AK-74 in 5.45x39 Russian, a Mossberg M590A1 12 gauge, a Browning HP-35 in 9mm, and.... a Ruger 10/22. Out of all those, I expect the 10/22 will see the most use. I'm not gonna go looking for trouble, I'm just gonna erase it if it finds ME - and run like hell if I need to.

Them's the plain, unvarnished facts of the matter.

yea i picked up my 10/22 about 2 weeks ago and i have been LOVING IT! only jams when its real dirty and under-oiled, extremely accurate with the iron sights (havent put a scope on it yet). it tends to jam with 40gr solids loaded in a 25rd butler creek mag, but the 25rd mag loaded with hollow points (36 gr win superX) never fails... its just the crappy hot lips style to. im gonna go pick up about 3 of the hot lips and 3 steel lips. i can see this rifle fulfilling nearly all of my survival needs, except a crazy ass firefight- which i intend to avoid at all costs, in which case I would trust my 12ga loaded with self defense buck-slugs- a slug with 3 00buck on top. im quite confident with my shotty loaded with slugs, Ive reached out and touched a man sized target at 180yds, square in the torso area. the buck-slugs are accurate out to about 75yds (the slug itself out to 150).

Originally posted by WJjeeper
well, the general concensus is the 10/22 is the way to go... seeing as i already have my boomstick. i can confidently plant a .69 caliber slug into the "torso" area of a man sized target at about 180yds maybe a little further. the 10/22 would be for hunting small game and back-up self defense for my girl.

and somebody mentioned buying a carbine style rifle- in the great state of california you have to be 21 to purchase handgun ammo, im almost 20. a carbine would have been my first choice.

dont have enough money for any fancy nice AR models, so the 10/22 seems to be dandy! has anyone had any jamming issues or other issues with mechanical parts on the 10/22?

Watch the bolt catch. Where it's placed, at the front of the guard, if just one of your fingers is in just the wrong place, recoil can cause you to bump the catch, and lock the bolt open. Not really a "jam", but disconcerting when you can't figure out under the stress of watching the big one run away just WHY your bolt is suddenly locked back!

As far as honest God jams go, I had ONE, in several years of toting a 10/22 around. That would involve thousands of round through it, and ONE jam. It was a failure to feed, loose bullet in the action instead of the chamber. I just had to hold the bolt back, turn it to the side, and shake 'till the cartridge fell out of the action.

Your run of the mill Marlin model 60 is as good a gun as the Ruger. There just are not a lot of fancy options for it. I like the model 90 better though because it has a stick mag instead of a tubular one. And I have yet to see why I should spend a lot of money to make my 22 look like a military weapon. I know it looks cool, but I am talking practical use. I am not going to set it on the coffee table and stare at it all night.

Originally posted by WJjeeper
i can see this rifle fulfilling nearly all of my survival needs, except a crazy ass firefight- which i intend to avoid at all costs, in which case I would trust my 12ga loaded with self defense buck-slugs- a slug with 3 00buck on top. im quite confident with my shotty loaded with slugs, Ive reached out and touched a man sized target at 180yds, square in the torso area. the buck-slugs are accurate out to about 75yds (the slug itself out to 150).

Yeah, they used to call those "buck and ball" loads going back to the days of muskets, and more recently the Brits seem to have thought they invented them in the Malaysian troubles, and call them "Malay loads". The thing is, that load has been around for a LONG time, and there must be a reason for that. Fighters tend to stick with what WORKS!

Where do you get them? Or do you load your own? I know the People's Republic of Kalifornia is finicky about all sort of firearms issues. There was some talk some time back of "outlawing" certain shotgun loads nation-wide, and some of the buck and ball loads were among those (one variant I recall specifically was the split-shot load - split shot crimped to either end of a piece of wire, like a little dumb-bell. Pinwheels and tears up a patch!), as well as some of the "less than lethal" loads, like rubber bullets. I don't know if they ever got those banned, and I don't care. I know how to make 'em if I need 'em!

I normally keep #4 buck in my Mossberg. That's just my personal preference, so all the "000 or nuthin'" guys out there can just calm down. You shoot what you like, and I'll shoot what works for me. I sort of like the idea of unleashing 27 pellets all at once.

Originally posted by groingrinder
Your run of the mill Marlin model 60 is as good a gun as the Ruger. There just are not a lot of fancy options for it. I like the model 90 better though because it has a stick mag instead of a tubular one. And I have yet to see why I should spend a lot of money to make my 22 look like a military weapon. I know it looks cool, but I am talking practical use. I am not going to set it on the coffee table and stare at it all night.

I re-stocked my 10/22 with a pistol-grip stock that had a fixed butt for 2 reasons: it "felt" better because pistol-gripped rifles are what I'm used to, and 2) that factory stock had no soul. It felt like I was trying to aim a 2x4. Awkward. Too thick in the wrist to suit me.

That's sorta like saying, in a shtf scenario, I need a tool. Should I take a hammer, a screwdriver, pliers, or drill.

Weapons are tools. Not one does all things well.

Fill your particular need, and don't worry about input from others so much who may have other needs.

Personally I am a fan of the SKS 7.62x39mm. I have witnessed it thrown in a muddy puddle, then driven over by an F150 while still in said puddle, only to be picked up wet and caked in mud, yet still cleanly pumped out an entire banana clip. It's a beast of a semi-auto, and I haven't seen anything else capable of the consistency of it's action in those type conditions.

Now having said that... I once asked a good friend of mine who is career military, what would be my best choice for a SHTF situation(now of course this was a non-ET/space rock SHTF conversation). He gave me an interesting piece of advice and I live by it to this very day. He told me, when the SHTF you better have a 9mm, or Nato round capable weapon, because those are the only types that will still be in production at those times.

personally, ill stick to my 12ga and .22. simple, cheap and easy to stock pile, and lots of variable ammunitions. i dont see the need for a full on assault rifle if all your doing is running to the woods, the point is not to be found, not to kill everything in sight.

I am investing in a .223, no need for a full on arsenal for two - three people.

I personally would bury some arms caches here and there with simple take down rifles like say Winchester model 67 in them, that are cheap and you can afford to leave buried for years.

i have been thinking very seriously about getting the colt/walther m16 .22 caliber..any thoughts on this? good survival shtf weapon?

Your lucky having a 25 round mag before they BANNED them here. Atleast with a .22 you'll never go hungry. Rabbits are awesome in terms of protein.