Best bug out guns?

I understand the worry about .22LR ammo shortages. I also own a few air guns including a CO2 .22 air rifle and a break barrel .22 air rifle. I think getting the air rifle for backyard varmint control or for practice is a worthy cause.

For "bugging out" I'd still pick a magazine fed bolt action .22LR rifle over an air rifle. Break barrels will break their springs in time, and given my experience around gas springs in other fields, the Nitro Piston gas springs will die too. Plus, in every pump up air rifle the seals don't last forever, maybe a decade or so before they leak.

So, if bugging out for a end of the world as we know it scenario, a firearm doesn't have all those weakness against it long term. Plus, for the weight and size of a fast shootin' air rifle, you can get a .22 bolt rifle. And with that bolt rifle, you can shoot ammo ranging from 700 fps to 1600 fps, all with more energy than a 14 grain .22 pellet.

If you get a youth model .22LR rifle you will have a smaller and potentially lighter package. The top gun is a 7 lb. 43.5" air rifle in .22. The bottom gun is a mag fed .22 LR bolt gun that weighs 5.5 lbs. and is 35.25" long. If you don't want pink, paint that sucker!

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Well... It seems my opinion on this subject changes from time to time. Everybody seems to have reasons why one way is right and another isn't so right. I think a lot of it depends on the actual bugout situation for example... will there be ammo shortages or can you still expect to find ammo reasonably well ? Do you have to travel light ? in which case a huge gun might not be in the cards. Do you expect to be confronted by groups of armed assailants and need a rapid rate of fire and quick reload or like me the occasional large hungry bear ?
I try to have something for every possible situation. A silent gun, light gun, fast gun, powerful gun, reliable gun...
For my use... Shotguns are a little obsolete my Taurus .454 out performs shotguns... period! the only advantage a shotty would have is spread and that's not really an issue i'm worried about in fact I see it as more of a hindrance.
Cost of ammo is a factor... I try to keep all my guns standardized for that reason I can swap ammo reasonably well. Here in Canada no matter what the ammo... its still damn expensive! My rule of thumb... learn to reload your own keep about 1000 rounds handy and enough supplies to reload that 1000 about 10 times. Just my opinion.
A good reliable rifle you really cant go wrong with ! I personally like the .300 win mag but its not everybody's cup of tea.
My go to gun for everything and as it stands just about any SHTF situation is my .454 hands down.
I have plenty of ammo for it. The round is extremely versatile. You can load it up enough to take on bears or low enough to stun a bunny. The size and weight aren't an issue for me... i'm of a size myself that makes this gun fit me like a glove. Its accurate and reliable and if I do run out of ammo I can use it as a club lol I really am obsessed with this revolver and this caliber so I am a bit biased. To me its the perfect gun and in a SHTF situation I think its paramount to have a gun that suits your individual needs.
The recoil doesn't bother me. It's more compact than just about any shotgun or rifle.
The only thing I would change is I would like to add another gun to go with it... something very small, light and silent. Its a noise issue. Sometimes you don't need the whole world to hear you make a shot. If there was such a thing as a suppressed Taurus .454 that would solve that issue. That's my two and a half cents.

GreenWolf70 said:

My thinking lately is running towards pellet guns, especially the silenced kind. To keep the sound down (as well as accuracy up), you need to stay sub sonic, or no more than 1,000 fps. Just as with silenced gunpowder ammo, you make up for velocity with mass. .22 pellets seem to be the best size at the moment, but .25 and even .355 are just now gaining momentum. The 2 quietest I know of at the moment are the Stoeger X20 Silenced and the Benjamin Marauder. They both come in at about 85 decibels and one of the advantages of a suppressor is it makes finding the direction of the sound almost impossible without highly sophisticated equipment. The X20 Silencer is a break barrel springer while the Marauder is a PCP (meaning it uses stored compressed air, or also CO2 in this case).

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I can't speak for the loudness of those airguns, but I have fired regular air rifles versus the quieter ammo out of .22 LR rifles. From a distance of about 50 feet to the side, something like the powderless Aguila Super Colibiri out of a .22 LR rifle is real close to the sound of a pellet rifle.

Here are just a few videos of pellet guns versus the quieter .22 LR ammo.


I have on hand some CCI Quiet, Super Colibris, and standard Colibri. I haven't tried standard Colibri out of a rifle barrel as it is not advised, but it works good out of handguns. The CCI Quiet is more accurate than either Colibri type though.

When ammo gets back on the shelves, stock up on this stuff. I think you'll like it.

Oh wait, I found some Super Colibri if you want to give it a try. .22 LR Aguila Super Colibri LRN 20 Grain 500 Box 500 fps No Powder Super Quiet

I too have a collection of small arms including an Anshutz bolt action in .22LR, a H&R Model 700 in .22Mag, an AR, a .308Win bolt gun, a bunch of single barrel, pump and auto shotguns, and a couple of pellet guns. That's not counting handguns. My point with the .22LR is that once SHTF, there will be no more rimfire ammo made. Centerfires will be able to reload until they run out of powder. Blackpowder firearms will be the same, except you can make crude blackpowder fairly easy. But I have seen people actually construct accurate projectiles out of a nail, some electrical tape and half a Q-Tip that function quite well out of a pellet gun. If you are worried about spares, now is a good time to stock up as pellet guns have not got caught up in the Obama hysteria like smokeless powder firearms.

Bows and crossbows are not a bad option, if you can shoot them worth a damn. And Backwoodsman magazine recently ran an article on making your own arrows using duct tape for fletching. Along with some articles on making your own atlatl, spears, and boomerangs. They have even run some very good articles on making your own water filters. If you are a prepper, or just worried about SHTF scenarios, it is a good idea to have a stash of Backwoodsman magazines to use for reference.