In this survival guide blog from Scott Wagner, choosing a survival pistol is covered. What makes for a good survival handgun? The author picks the Beretta 92FS.
The Beretta 92FS gets the author's seal of approval as a survival pistol. Image by BerettaUSA.com
Let me put the five principles from my previous post together in making a decision concerning a pistol. Clearly, I am examining only one selection, because there are MANY pistols available that would work in this role, which I will discuss in the future. The pistol I am going to examine is my all-time favorite combat pistol: The Beretta 92FS. This is known to the military as the M9 or M9A1.
There is no questioning the reliability of the original Beretta 92FS. It has been given the ultimate field test since 1985 as our Armed Force’s standard issue pistol, and the M9 and has passed with flying colors. The latest rendition purchased by the military is the mildly modified M9A1, which has a light rail on the frame.
Click the image to download Beretta exploded gun drawings.
With smoothness of operation rivaled only by custom pistols, the 92 was for much of the 1980s and into the 1990s second only to Smith and Wesson autopistol designs in terms of police service use. That dominance changed with the advent of the Glock design and its widespread acceptance for police use due its somewhat simpler design. But the 92 just runs and runs and runs.
In terms of ruggedness, the same qualities that make it reliable bolster its ruggedness. Its design has stood up to the worst environmental conditions on earth, and the worst neglect possible by men in combat. It would not still be going strong some 27 years after it was adopted if it wasn’t rugged.
Portability is less of an issue when discussing defensive handguns then it is when talking long guns. While the 92 may not be the best choice for deep cover carry, it still can be done. I know because I have done it. There are many ways to carry the 92 concealed. Backpack, sling pack, fanny pack or IWB holster work well just to name a few.
I mentioned simplicity of operation as a factor earlier. This is an area where the 92 gives up some ground to designs such as the Glock. There is a manual safety/decocker, and the standard DA/SA trigger requires transition practice. While some find this a problem, I haven’t, as the first duty auto’s I carried in my law enforcement career were the early Smith and Wesson series with the same design, starting with the elegant Model 39. Training and practice will overcome any such concern when using a DA/SA auto.
Finally, we come to effectiveness. Yes, clearly the 9mm in FMJ bullet profiles is not as effective as the .45 in the same configuration in terms of raw potential to stop a determined assailant.
However, the 92 carries more rounds in the magazine vs. the .45. That's 15 per magazine rather than seven or eight. Get proper hits with all those smaller bullets and you will be effective.
Keep in mind, too, that all pistol calibers fail. The much-vaunted .40 S&W can claim quite a few rather spectacular failures. If you need close-range protection from large amounts of people, warding them off from my position, be it in the open, in a structure, or in a vehicle, I want to put as much ammo downrange.
The high capacity of a 9mm Beretta 92 will allow me to do just that.
What type of survival pistol are you choosing? Leave a comment below.
Tom Turpin's new book, Custom Rifles: Mastery of Wood and Metal will be hitting the bookstores this month. It's a handsome hardcover and heavy with photos printed on glossy paper. Turpin takes the reader inside the workshop of one of the best custom riflemakers in the world: the David Smith Company.
In Turpin's words, on this fine gunmaker: “To my knowledge, no other custom riflemaker has ever been featured in the Wall Street Journal – David Miller Co. has. No other custom gunmaker, to my knowledge, has ever been awarded the prestigious Robb Report “Best of the Best” Award even once– David Miller Co. has received it twice. Only a few custom riflemakers have ever had their creations featured on the cover of a widely circulated magazine even once. David Miller Co. has been featured on covers twenty-one times, nationally and internationally.”
Much of the custom rifle barrel work in any shop takes place on a machine lathe, as in this typical set-up.
Learn about the three kinds of barrel rifling in this article about custom rifle barrels.
The vast majority of custom rifle makers do not manufacture their own barrels. It is simply too costly to perform this function in-house due to the cost of the equipment necessary and the relatively few barrels that the maker will require. This is, simply put, another area that required years of expertise to achieve anything close to perfection. Instead, they rely on specialists that usually do nothing but manufacture barrels.
The three basic methods in common use for rifling a barrel are cut, button and hammer forging. Each method is widely used for custom rifle barrels. Each can and does produce quality barrels.
Cut Rifling
Cut rifling is the oldest method and has been in use for about 500 years. I-read somewhere that it was invented in Germany about the time Columbus was sailing the ocean blue.
It is performed basically as it has always been done, the only exception being the equipment used to perform the cutting. To simplify, cut rifling involves actually cutting or scraping the grooves in the steel to eventually form the lands and grooves of the rifling.
These days, specialized equipment is used to insert a cutter in the drilled-and-reamed bore of the billet in order to cut and remove a small amount of steel with each pass of the cutter.
While the cutting is going on, either the steel billet or the cutter is slowly rotated to form the twist in the rifling. Such twist normally is specified in number of inches required to complete one full turn in the bore.
For example, the usual twist for a 30-06 is one in ten or 1:10. That means that the rifling requires ten inches to make one complete turn in the bore.
The cutter is passed through the bore as many times as is necessary to cut the grooves to the desired depth, one groove at a time. The number of grooves cut in a barrel is variable, but three, four or six are the most common.
Button Rifling
The operator prepares to cut the action threads on this Krieger barrel.
Perhaps the most commonly used method today among custom barrel makers is button-rifling.
In this method, the deep drilling and reaming are the same as for cut-rifling, except that the finished hole is slightly undersized for the button system. The barrel maker either makes or purchases a carbide “button” that contains the rifling impression in reverse in the button.
Once the bore is drilled and reamed, this button is either pushed or pulled through the bore, essentially “ironing” the rifling into the steel of the bore.
Whether pulling or pushing the button is the best method remains the subject of debate with advocates on both sides. I think that it is safe to say that a majority of barrel makers using the button method pull the button through the bore.
Still, some much prefer pushing the button through. Excellent barrels can be and are made using both methods.
Hammer-Forging Rifling
The third method of rifling is hammer-forging.
Another German development, this method is not in common use among custom barrel makers. In fact, I don’t know of a single one that hammer-forges their barrels.
Many factories do, however. The cost of the equipment to hammer-forge a barrel is very expensive and is cost effective only for high volume barrel production.
A lathe is set up for cutting the chamber and fitting the custom rifle barrel to the action.
Hammer-forging is quite similar to button-rifling. In hammer-forging, the barrel billet is drilled and reamed as with the other systems. However, the billet is much shorter and much larger in diameter. The billet is inserted on a precisely finished bore-size mandrel containing the rifling (and in some cases, the chamber and outside contour as well) in reverse.
This mandrel, with its stubby barrel billet attached, is then inserted into the hammer machine which literally pounds the steel in the billet to form not only the rifling in the bore, but some machines also forge the outside of the barrel billet to the final contour.
One company, I believe it was Steyr from Austria, proudly proclaimed that their barrels were hammer-forged and the spiral hammer marks were left on the outside surface of the barrel to prove it.
This system is very fast and very efficient at producing barrels in quantity and quality. The best of the hammerforge machines will produce a barrel about every three or four minutes.
The commonly held view is that hammer-forging produces the least desirable quality barrels of the three methods although I haven’t found this to be particularly true. Very high quality barrels can be and are produced using all three of these methods of production.
Personally, I think the major difference in quality of barrels produced by all three methods is much more dependent on the experience of and care exercised by the operator and the condition of the equipment being used than it is the method employed.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) is offering schools the opportunity to receive–free of charge–educational videos about firearm safety and wildlife conservation.
The firearm safety videos help teach students how to react when encountering a firearm in an unsupervised situation.
In addition, the conservation titles educate students on how wildlife and wild lands are protected, and how hunters support this effort with contributions amounting to more than $1 billion annually.
The Firearm Safety DVD offers these three videos: “McGruff the Crime Dog on Gun Safety,” for students in kindergarten through grade 6; “It's Your Call: Playing It Safe Around Guns,” for students in grades 6 through 9; and “Firearms Safety Depends on You,” which covers the 10 commandments ofgun safety and is for audiences of all ages.
The first two titles help teach students how to respond if should they encounter a firearm in an unsupervised situation at school, at home or at a friend's home.
The Conservation DVD contains “Wildlife for Tomorrow®,” which is designed for students in grades 4 through 7; and two other videos, “The Unendangered Species®” and “What They Say About Hunting,” which are for students in grades 7 through 12.
“Wildlife for Tomorrow” and “The Unendangered Species” tell the story of how game animals such as the wild turkey, white-tailed deer and Rocky Mountain elk were once endangered and have been restored to abundance.
“What They Say About Hunting” takes a close look at hunting and its relevance today through a pro-and-con debate.
Teachers in more than 100,000 schools nationwide have shown these NSSF videos to students in their classrooms and have praised them for handling the topics with sensitivity.
Educators can order or preview the free videos online at https://www.nssf.org/education/video.cfm.
A Great Gun Cleaning DVD
An excellent gun cleaning DVD.
Education is one part of gun safety. The other is maintenance. The Cleaning and Lubrication of Firearms DVD offers simple, easy-to-understand instructions to keep firearms functioning their best.
The Bianchi Allusion Model 135 Suppression CCW holster is an inside the waistband, or IWB holster design, which is all about concealability and comfort.
Bianchi's new Allusion is a top-notch IWB holster with lots of features.
The first word in concealed carry is, obviously, “concealed.” For the longest time that meant simply hanging a holster on your belt and covering with a shirt or jacket. But as consumers demanded more options, holster makers became more creative and the Inside the Waistband (IWB) Holster has come a long way since the original “lay-flat” pouches used to hide J-Frame revolvers.
Today you have all kinds of options including tuck tabs so you can tuck your shirt in, but still have access to the pistol and, most importantly, molded internal components keep the holster open so you can easily re-holster your pistol, should you need to do so.
Still, there is one thing most IWB holster buyers forget: You need to get bigger pants when you carry IWB. The pistol and holster combination adds another entire waist size to your belt line. If you usually wear a 36-inch waist, get 38s to help you carry your .38 comfortably.
Now back to the holsters. One of the biggest names in the holster business has a new IWB that you will love. The Bianchi Allusion Model 135 Suppression inside the waistband design is all about concealability and comfort. Concealability is enhanced by the holster sitting low enough that the thickest part of the weapon lies directly underneath the belt, helping to obscure the shape.
Meanwhile, two shirt-tuckable C-clips grasp the belt and, taking as little real estate as possible; give the appearance of an empty belt. The gun cant is optimized to put the grip into the kidney area of the back, minimizing any visible printing. Comfort is enhanced with a body-facing holster liner composed of soft foam covered with an anti-microbial mesh coating to reduce bacteria growth and odor.
The MSRP for the holster is $74, but you can find it online for $55.
Bianchi Suppression Model 135 Holster Features:
• Dual tuckable C-clip design for attachment to the belt • Provides strong belt retention on the holster • Minimizes visible portion show • Anti-bacterial and microbial foam padding on inside liner • Prevents germs and odor from accumulating • Padded liner provides added comfort • Slight detent in trigger guard for enhanced weapon retention • Available in Plain Tan or Plain Black finish • Carry: Strongside
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The world of tactical gear is a serious one, but it's not without a sense of gallows humor. Here are seven terms from the lighter shade of black.
Bane Dangerous Scale
Named after gunwriter Michael Bane. The more often someone tells you how dangerous they are, the less dangerous they actually are. The more direct the statement, the greater negative impact on the scale. Mike: “The third time this guy told me how dangerous he was, I knew my trained attack beagle could take him.”
CDI
An imagining a CDI gun for a typical mall ninja. [Image via cracked.comAcronym for “Chicks Dig It”; used for guns, gear, cars, stereos, etc, that men kid themselves into believing women appreciate. The guy who gets stuff “CDI” is no threat on the range. He’s usually so convinced the coolness of the gear will see him through that he hasn’t practiced.
Frankengun
This is assembled of parts from various manufacturers. While many manufacturers assemble rifles from parts supplied by subcontractors, they are not Frankenguns. A Frankengun typically has mismatched upper and lower receiver colors (gray and black, old and new, etc.) and scrounged, surplus, salvaged or obsolete parts. Commonly, it is built from the least expensive parts, parts found, saved, salvaged or refurbished.
Hoplophobe
A word coined by Jeff Cooper, “an unreasoning fear of weapons. Specifically, firearms.” Someone who cannot discuss things firearm or firearm-related rationally due to a fear of guns is a hoplophobe.
M4-gery
As in “M4-forgery”: a copy of the Colt without the name and without the select or burst-fire fire control system. Some use M4-gery as a derisive term, for rifles not Colt-made or not real machineguns. Others simply use it to describe semi-auto clones of the M4, Colt or other brands.
Mall Ninja
Someone who seems compelled to have all kinds of cool gear, equipment and clothing. Upon closer look, you often discover that: A) Their gear is all cheap knock-offs, B) they are all talk, not having been anywhere or done anything, and C) can’t back up their talk. A typical Mall Ninja is barely capable of finishing a practical competition match without DQ-ing himself.
Sweeney’s Equipment Paradigm
Once any piece of gear has a high enough quality or sufficient durability, extra cost is better put to practice ammo. A $1,000 scope will not serve you as well as a $500 scope and $500 in practice ammo. A $50 scope and $950 in ammo, however, is probably a wasted $50 scope purchase.
The AR-15 isn’t reliable. Just ask the critics. They'll often site three reasons why the AR-15 isn't reliable. They're debunked here.
1) The AR-15 Gas System
The big slam against the AR-15 is the gas system, which blows gas back into the receiver. Two problems result.
One is that the receiver gets impossibly grubby, so dirty that you really don’t want to touch anything in it unless you have to.
At Second Chance, a thousand rounds in a couple days was normal. The guns kept running.
The other is heat. Apparently, the gases blow back with enough heat that the receiver can become hot to the touch. Both are seen as bad things.
I haven’t done any door-kicking in Iraq, so I can’t comment on that environment. However, I can use two high-volume uses as a basis: the law enforcement classes where I work as an instructor and armorer, and Second Chance.
At Second Chance, ammunition consumption could be measured by the cubic foot. Those of you with a little reloading history might remember the old eight-pound powder tubs. The fiberboard tubs with a press-on lid. I used those (I went through a lot of powder, reloading in the old days) for storage. I would commonly go up to Second Chance with two or three of those filled with .223 reloads. I just went down to the shop and measured one: 184 cubic inches. About 500 rounds worth of volume.
So my stash of three tubs would be good for 1,500 rounds, which went downrange in two or three days. How many malfunctions did I have in all that shooting? Perhaps two or three in 14 trips “Up North.” And those were busted cases, from reloading the empties too many times.
I was not alone in that level of reliability. There were others who went to Second Chance more times than I had, who had fewer malfunctions.
The secret? We cleaned and oiled them. Now, Second Chance wasn’t a Middle-east re-creation of the Alamo. We were able to stop, rest, cool the rifles and do some scrubbing. But if the AR was such a range queen, so beastly to keep running, we never noticed it. And if we had, we’d have either figured a way to fix the problem (the easier solution) or switched rifles.
2) AR-15s Require Cleaning
Everything needs cleaning. The exemplar is the AK. It supposedly (just ask some owners) doesn’t need cleaning. Or maintenance.
Excuse me, but BS.
When I went through the Gunsite 223 class, most of my classmates were either military or police. There were a doctor and his son, and a whole slew of SEALs, Air Force Security Police, a Delta operator, and I. We all had ARs (or M-16s) except for some of the security police.
Finding themselves scheduled for yet another rifle class, a couple had opted for something different: they had checked a couple of AK-74s out of the armory, along with a bunch of ammo. Why go through yet another class with the same old rifle? Why not learn something new? They did, and we did.
One thing we all learned was that you can neglect an AK and have it fail, too. The most interesting malfunction we observed was truly bizarre: the empty case was extracted and stripped off the bolt face, but instead of ejecting it traveled further into the rear of the receiver. Once there, it stopped the rifle from working.
One thing critics of the AR do not complain about is accuracy. With its free-floated (or nearly so in standard trim) barrel the AR manages to wring almost all of the inherent accuracy out of a barrel-ammo combo as possible. With a good trigger and a decent scope, you can manage regular hits way out past where the cartridge has enough energy to do much.
Which actually ends up being viewed as a fault: “I can hit the bad guys at 800 yards, why can’t I get a rifle with enough oomph to paste them?” Because if you had a rifle with that kind of power, you’d be much less likely to be able to hit them, that’s why.
3) AR-15s Will Quit in a Pinch
One last comment on reliability: any rifle can be made to quit. In U.S. Infantry Weapons in Combat, Scott Duff interviewed Frank Fulford about his experience in Korea.
During the battle at Kunu-ri, his Garand stopped working. He hadn’t had time to clean it, and it defaulted to a single-shot weapon. So he tossed it aside and found one that would work. The combat was so fierce that there was no time to clean rifles, so he went through a succession of Garands, dropping each one when it stopped working, and trying found rifles until he found one that worked.
The Garand, the exemplar of WWII reliability, can be made to stop working. If the Garand will stop, so will any other mechanism.
The ultimate solution? Either clean your rifle on a regular basis, or depend on something less likely to malfunction, like a Bowie knife.
The M14/M1A Blackfeather® “RS” aluminum rifle stock is patterned on the light weight, balance and ergonomics of a traditional USGI fibreglass stock but it offers modern features such as precision bedding, our proprietary, self-lubricating, adjustable oprod guide, removable, keyed picatinny rails, a removable, interchangeable butt stock adapter, improved trigger ergonomics, end plate adapters for all industry standard AR buttstocks as well as true component interchangeability for the M14 platform.
The M14/M1A Blackfeather® “RS” aluminum rifle stock. (Click the image for a larger view)
Blackfeather is comprised of 9 components, the stock, butt stock adapter, 2 end plates, 3 rails and the oprod guide and wear plate.
The stock and its component parts (excluding the oprod guide and oprod guide wear plate) are made from 6061 T6 aluminum and are Type II hard coated matte black in an ISO:9001 certified anodizing facility. The oprod guide and the oprod guide wear plate are made from 4140 HTSR (heat treated and stress releived) steel and ship black oxide coated.
The stock is well-balanced, fast handling, light-weight (see weigh scale photos below), offers precision bedding surfaces, improved trigger ergonomics and “natural” handling characteristics over existing M14 platform designs. The Blackfeather® fore end was modeled and follows the natural contours of a USGI synthetic stock.
Included with the stock, are three “keyed” picatinny rails. Two 4 inch side rails and one 6 inch under rail. The two 4 inch rails are keyed with male studs protruding on the back of each rail. The studs interface into the side openings of the stock along a track way to afford placement fore and aft. This modular picatinny rail track system is unique to the Blackfeather® stock. The stock also includes a permanent 4″ picatinny under rail and a threaded hole for a steel insert (not included) for QD slings or bipod attachment.
This slim grip on a Savage lightweight rifle is strong because it has perfect layout. Fiddle figure, too.
Rifle stocks made out of walnut look and perform like nothing else. Here's a look from Wayne van Zwoll at the materials that go into walnut custom rifle stocks.
When I was a lad, you could buy a fancy American walnut stock blank for $25. I paid $7.50 for the plain but semi-inletted blank that went on my first deer rifle. Now even American walnut has become costly.
Black polymer is taking over. The problem with walnut is that you can’t manufacture it. You have to grow it, and growing walnut takes a lot longer than growing tomatoes. We’re inletting wood from trees that may have been around before rubber tires, before metallic cartridges, even before the Declaration of Independence. Don’t figure on cutting gunstocks from trees you’re planting now.
The color and figure in this Gary Goudy-stocked .350 G&H shows why fine walnut stocks are still popular.
In a cruel twist of circumstance, the people who discovered walnut had no guns to put it on. That was back in the 13th century, when Marco Polo allegedly brought walnuts from their native Persia to Italy.
Nuts and seedlings eventually found their way to England, then to France and other parts of Europe. The scientific name for the species is Juglans regia, or “royal walnut.” Common names denote location, not genetic differences. English walnut is J. regia; so is French. The tree eventually wound up in California, to be adopted as “California English.”
Typically, California English wood grown from nuts has a tawny background with black streaking and less “marblecake” than England’s walnut. Classic French is often red or orange. Circassian walnut – named after a region on the Black sea – seems to run heavy to black.
“These days the best regia walnut comes from Turkey and Morocco,” the late Don Allen told me before his untimely death. Don knew a great deal about walnut. He searched the world over for gunstock blanks to use at his Dakota Arms Company. Those rifles still wear gorgeous walnut.
Claro walnut, J. hindsii, was discovered around 1840, in California. Decidedly red, and with more open grain than English walnut, Claro was crossed with English to produce Bastogne. Nuts from this tree are infertile, but fast growth and dense grain makes Bastogne a favorite of stockmakers. It checkers more cleanly than Claro and withstands heavy recoil.
Sadly, this walnut is in short supply and diminishing fast under unrelenting demand. As with J. regia, the best Bastogne comes from trees at least 150 years old.
Cooper rifle stocks wear some fine walnut, selected from its ample store of carefully selected blanks.
American or black walnut, J. nigra, has been the mainstay of our firearms industry since the first “Kentucky” rifles were forged in Pennsylvania. Typically, it’s an open-pored wood, warm brown in color, with just enough black to justify the name. It can be as plain as a power pole or richly patterned.
Quarter-sawn walnut has the “striping” common to many gunstocks; the saw runs across growth rings. Plane-sawed walnut shows wide color bands because the saw runs tangent to growth rings. Either cut can yield a sturdy, handsome stock, but quarter-sawn walnut is most in demand.
The warm glow of Claro walnut makes Winchester’s M70 O’Connor Tribute Rifle fetching indeed.
Walnut must be dried before it is worked. But if the water leaves too fast, the wood surface can crack and check and eventually crust, inhibiting movement of “bound” water from the core. Structural harm may result. A kiln helps throttle the release of free water.
According to Don Allen, drying damage occurs most often in the first weeks after cutting. Moisture content will then stabilize at about 20 percent, after which time the blank can be air-dried or kiln-dried without damage. When the stock no longer loses weight, it’s dry enough to work. Stockmakers may turn the blank to profile then – and let it dry another six months before inletting.
Proper layout imparts strength to a rifle-stock. The grain on a quarter-sawn walnut blank should run roughly parallel with the top of the grip, when viewed from the side. The grip will then best withstand recoil, and the forend won’t easily bend. Seen from the top, forend grain should parallel the bore.
Figure in the buttstock won’t affect accuracy, but knots and crotches that produce interesting patterns up front can twist the forend. Though wood can shift with changes in moisture, modern finishes can make it almost impervious. Both wood and polymer stocks react to changes in temperature.
Michigan concealed carry has gained acceptance by the state's residents as a whole.
As the Detroit News recently reported, “Of 401,000 active concealed pistol licenses in Michigan, more than half – 202,353 – were issued in the past five years, nearly 20,000 in 2008 alone, according to Michigan State Police data.”
“There's a ton of interest, and it just seems to keep growing,” said Steve Dulan, an attorney and a college professor who serves on the Michigan Coalition for Responsible Gun Owners' board of directors.
Why the surge in Michigan concealed carry? Many theories have been offered, including fear of crime and fear of increasing gun control.
Additionally, “A 2001 state law made it easier for residents to get a CPL as long as there was no history of felonies or mental illness. Before that, most county gun boards required people to prove they needed to carry a handgun.”
“The other thing is there's been a culture shift,” Dulan told the Detroit News. “After 10 years, there's been an acceptance by the culture in Michigan. Most people in Michigan now think people who [legally] carry guns are ‘the good guys.' It's not something weird. It's not something to be ashamed of, and it doesn't mean you're a criminal, if you carry a gun.”
Concealed Carry Tips from Massad Ayoob
Whether you're a practitioner of Michigan concealed carry or somewhere else, you'll find plenty of useful concealed carry tips from Massad Ayoob in The Gun Digest Book of Concealed Carry.
Gun Digest Book of The Tactical Shotgun [Kindle Edition]
The Kindle version of the Gun Digest Book of Tactical Shotgunis perfect if you need to decide between pump action and semi-auto shotguns … and even double barrels. Or if you want to see top tactical shotgun choices for home defense. Wagner also reveals tactical shotgun ammo secrets and accessories to customize your tactical shotgun.
One of the things I really liked about this eBook is the Product Index at the back, which is basically a catalog of currently-available tactical shotguns on the market, with specs and photos — really useful for narrowing down your search if you're in the market for a new combat shotgun.
Whether you're a prepper, home owner, cop or concerned citizen, you need to have the Gun Digest Book of the Tactical Shotgun — and you can get it right now, and have it at your fingertips in just a few seconds. Don't waste anytime: Download this Kindle book below (while you still can!):
The Mauser C96 “Broomhandle” pistol is the first military semiautomatic pistol to prove itself both rugged enough and reliable enough for field use, argues Massad Ayoob in his newly-released Greatest Handguns of the World, Vol. II.
But that's not all. Here are 5 more reasons why the Mauser C96 made the cut as one of the most important handguns of all time:
1. The 7.63mm Mauser C96 was the first pistol to lock its mechanism open automatically when it ran dry of cartridges, the better to facilitate reloading. Mauser set a standard for auto pistol design with this feature.
2. This 19th Century single action auto set early standards for handgun ergonomics, particularly when taken from “cocked and locked” carry to “Fire” mode.
3. When viewed from above, the C96 Mauser was a “Flat” pistol…”the shape of things to come” in semiautomatic pistol design and set the stage for the Luger, the Colt/Browning 1911, and all the others that followed to this day.
4. The Mauser C96 was carried and used in battle by a 23-year-old British cavalry Lieutenant by the name of Winston Churchill in the Battle of Omdurman. It was also carried by Lawrence of Arabia!
5. In WWI, 150,000 Mauser 96s were ordered by the Imperial German Army to supplement the Luger pistol. It had become abundantly clear that, in trench warfare, a handgun was a vital tool of close-quarter survival and the C96 filled the role.
The first Steyr SSG 08 long range tactical rifle made its debut back in 2009 but recently the company has upped the ante with a brand new adaptation chambered in what many believe to be the ultimate long-range tactical cartridge, the .338 Lapua Magnum.
This new version was released only after the prototype rifle underwent a grueling 10,000-round endurance and reliability testing at Steyr’s Austrian factory. The SSG 08 is based on Steyr’s unique Safe Bolt System (SBS) action, which is bedded in a skeletonized aluminum stock.
The stock is equipped with an UIT rail (running the length of the forend), an adjustment cheek piece and buttplate, an integrated, finely adjustable rear-elevation pod and a butt capable of being folded forward for transport.
For further versatility there are also multiple mounting points for attaching a wide variety of Picatinny rail-mounted accessories. The enclosed detachable box magazine holds six of the big .338 Lapua Mag. rounds and the rifle comes with a Versa-pod, or heavy-duty bi-pod, and a hard travel case.
Recommended retail price for .338 Lapua Mag. chambered Steyr SSG 08 is $6,795.
Would this McMillan TAC-308 tactical rifle work well as a survival gun? Read the author's five principles to determine what makes for a good survival weapon.
I would like to start my next post by laying the groundwork I believe is necessary for selecting the survival guns and weapons you will need, both lethal and less lethal (the proper term is “less” not “non” lethal, since many of these weapons systems could kill if used improperly), as well as the equipment to support that the weapon selection.
Before we get into specific weapon selection for specific need, I need to state what I consider to be the underlying foundations of the weapons type you select, no matter what form, or for what situation. While the location and conditions may dictate different weapons be purchased for those specific situations, the underlying concepts used for selection remain constant. I feel that there are five basic parameters that a suitable firearm for tactical preparation must meet.
1) Reliability of Survival Guns
This may seem to be a no-brainer, but from what I have seen, it sometimes gets overlooked because of other factors that come into play, including the “looks cool” and/or “my buddy said…” which may prevent those who are starting to explore this concept from making a better choice.
To put it succinctly, your tactical preparation gun MUST, I repeat, MUST, be absolutely drop-dead reliable. Every time you pull the trigger you must get the proper “bang” and the appropriate projectiles leaving the muzzle. Reliable right from the box is best. If we suffer a national implosion, a finicky firearm, or one that needs to be babied isn’t going to get it. If your situation involves travel, whom are you going to get to fix it? Not likely to be a gunsmith in the crowd of angry, dangerous people who are attempting to surround you and your family.
2) Ruggedness
Your survival guns need to be able to take a beating without damage, especially guns that will be traveling with you. They need to hold up to lowered levels of maintenance, because unlike our military, you won’t have an unlimited supply line from a rear echelon to keep you supplied with spare parts and maintenance materials. Therefore these survival guns should not be of a type that will need replacement parts or specialized service for the duration the uncivilized conditions.
3) Portability
The M1 Garand is the author's favorite rifle overall, but its bulk makes it unsuitable as a survival gun.
I will be 55-years-old later this year. While I feel I am still in good shape, carrying heavy things around on foot over long distances in terrible conditions just doesn’t appeal to me much anymore.
The survival weapon(s) you choose must be light and easily maneuvered. This means some great guns that will work for shelter-in-place situations won’t work well for travel. My favorite all-time rifle is an M1 Garand manufactured in 1942, refinished once and given a new stock by a previous owner, and purchased for me for my birthday by my father. It is highly reliable, extremely rugged (although I would hate to mar that excellent hunk of black walnut it is nestled in), shoots-the-all-time greatest battle cartridge (sorry to all you 7.62 NATO fans) and is simple to operate.
But who wants to lug it around over long distances at a loaded carry weight of over 10 lbs., plus a healthy supply of loaded clips (WWII combat load on an ammo belt held a total of 80 rounds), plus whatever other gear you are carrying—a pistol, food, clothing etc.? Not me.
For the purposes of this discussion, “portability” also includes maneuverability in confined space—vehicles, buildings, or concealment/cover locations.
4) Simplicity
The survival gun needs to be simple to operate in all facets-loading, clearing, making safe, and firing. This is especially important in terms of getting the weapon to run from an empty and unloaded state. How quickly can you go from empty to “boom” without injuring yourself or someone else?
For me simplicity also means that you aren’t hanging bucketfuls of equipment off your weapon. That includes flashlights and most any other gadget you can think of on, including electronic sights, but excluding a bayonet. Electronic accessories that you become operationally dependent on are likely to fail under extreme conditions.
Further, how many different types of batteries do you want to lug around during travel or store at your home? How much benefit do you really get from that electronic device? Don’t get me wrong; during normal societal conditions for law enforcement or civilian where re-supply is not a problem, you can add whatever additional pieces of equipment you feel you need.
In times of extreme crisis, you should be able to pick up the survival weapon, charge and immediately fire it. There should be no knobs to fool with or system to check, no batteries to test. This principle of simplicity is the same concept I use when it comes to recommending police patrol rifles and shotguns.
5) Effectiveness
The AR-15 is a good choice for tactical scenarios. But is it versatile enough to get you through a survival situation? The author thinks not.
The survival weapon must be effective in terms of completing the task assigned to it. This also means that you can only evaluate a particular weapon based upon what it is designed for to judge effectiveness.
For example, the 5.56mm AR-15 and its variants work very well for a number of tactical and defensive/offensive purposes. For dealing with single or multiple aggressors within 300 meters, it is hard to beat. In other words, its effectiveness rating for this purpose is very high. However, if it was the weapon you choose to take with you for say, protection against grizzly bears in the wilds of Alaska over any other gun, then its effectiveness rating, and your I.Q., would be very low.
So if your primary mission is addressing single/multiple human threats at ranges within 300 meters, there would be a number of possible weapons choices for this purpose, some being better than others. There are also survival weapons that may be selected for this purpose that are totally unsuitable, and that is what we are trying to avoid.
Effectiveness in terms of the tactical preparation firearm used for defensive/assault purposes would also include its potential ability to hold off, stop, or turn a large mass of people away from their goal. Some weapons are extremely effective in stopping single offenders due to the amount of destructive energy each particular round puts out, but due to lower ammunition capacity, would not be effective in dealing with larger groups of assailants.
For example, in the “Blackhawk Down” incident, two Delta sniper team members, SFC Randy Shugart and MSG Gary Gordon, lost their lives after they volunteered to protect downed chopper pilot Michael Durant—who was later captured—from hordes of Somali assailants. At least as depicted in the motion picture, the two Delta Operators were armed at that time with 1911 .45s as their fallback weapons. They exhausted their primary weapon ammo supply and turned to their 1911’s as the mob moved in.
The ammo supply for the 1911s was exhausted in short order. They were finally overrun and killed, and Durant was captured and held hostage. The .45 was very effective in its basic mission of personal defense, but not in terms of being able to hold off large masses of angry, determined individuals.
This example leads me to the selection of a potential extreme close quarter firearm for tactical preparation—the pistol. That essential survival weapon will be covered next.
Looking to go armed, but are stuck in the weeds as to what to arm yourself with? Here are 20 of the best concealed carry gun options that will keep you on the defensive.
