Choosing To Specialize In (Mostly) One Caliber. Which One?

[Dub_James]

9mm, 12ga (both 00 and slugs), .223/5.56, .308, 7.62X39, and 5.45x39 - Most all available at good prices now, and in bulk quantity. Anything else, with the possible exception of .38Spl and .357, are "boutique".

Most all will be tradable before, or available as "battlefield pickup" after.

[skb12172]

Why IS .38spcl so hard to find? To even find Magtech HP for my little snubbie, I had to pay a premium at a pawn shop, of all places. Some LRN is available in standard pressure, but HD rounds? Fuhgeddaboutit.

[Dub_James]

Why IS .38spcl so hard to find? To even find Magtech HP for my little snubbie, I had to pay a premium at a pawn shop, of all places. Some LRN is available in standard pressure, but HD rounds? Fuhgeddaboutit.

Hard to find, and as you said, *very* expensive. It just doesn't look like they're prioritizing its production like they used to.

[Old Grafton]

Anywhere you can buy ammo you can almost always find .30-.30. It's not the greatest anything, but it'll do a decent job of killing/breaking stuff. I's available because (A) it's the first caliber a lot of folks either bought or inherited in a centerfire, and (B) nobody's put it into an AK or AR yet.(I think).

[rightisright]

.38 spec SD rounds in stock:

http://palmettostatearmory.com/index.ph ... of-25.html

http://www.sgammo.com/product/38-specia ... -ammo-rtp3

I can't find Gold Dot in .38 anywhere.

[randy]

Why IS .38spcl so hard to find?

You talking standard pressure or +P?

If standard, then maybe because standard pressure rounds are perceived as not as effective as +P, and since most current production .38's are +P rated, the demand for standard has gone down and not worth production line time?

I haven't looked for a while so don't know what's actually available around here,since I have a good supply of 158gr LSWCHP +P for my S&W Model 19.

[skb12172]

Standard. My snubbie is mid 60s manufacture and it has been recommended, on here as by others, that I stick to standard pressure. I can find +P without any problem, unfortunately.

[NVGdude]

In my limited experience, problematic .45s generally fall into one of two categores; magazines or springs. A faulty magazine will cause more grief than you can imagine. My general practice is to isolate the magazine, then dispose of it by crushing it in a vise and dropping it in the trash bin. Life is too short for bad magazines.

I respectfully disagree. Almost all 1911 issues are caused by an extractor that is tensioned incorrectly, (especially on newer guns). #2 is magazine issues. Of course some guns ship with shitty mags.

If a gun won't run right with a quality mag like a Wilson Combat then it's 98% chance the extractor is tensioned wrong.

[HTRN]

Which is why A) Manufacturers keep trying to make an external extractor 1911 work, with only fair to middling success(I think the S&W is probably the most successful of them), and B) Why the Aftec is so popular, despite costing damn near a hundred bucks.

[Jericho941]

Which caliber would you choose and why?

Get an oddball character. .222 Remington, 5.7mm, .357Sig, w/e. Maybe .30-06. Anything that good and sensible people think is a poor choice. Stay the fuck away from anything .22LR, NATO or Warsaw Pact. Something consistenly on the shelves and more expensive than the common calibers.

This is because there will likely still be some available after all the very smart people buy up all the very smart ammo choices.

There are two flawed SHTF-planning mentalities that bother me than any other:

1.) "I'm 'onna loot Wal-Mart! I'm so Clever because No One has Thought to go Straight to This!"
2.) "I'm Mr. Practical, I Can't Possibly Make a Mistake because I'm So Much Smarter than Everyone Else."

#2 is the most dangerous mentality to have because it assumes that since he's cleared the hurdle of not being #1, he's safe, as opposed to having merely got in the door. He will continue making the same very sensible decisions every other very sensible person in the country has made.

It would wreck his e-peen to find out that there are more other very sensible people than he believes, and he is not, in fact, a persecuted minority who only needs the zombie apocalypse to prove his good and just superiority. In reality, he and all these other very smart people will all be the same damn dirty rats in the same gutter fighting over the same cheese.

So when every last round of 5.56, 7.62xY, 9mm, .45ACP, and .40 dries up without a trace, he'll be left scratching his head, wondering why he isn't tribal leader yet.

TL;DR: Battle plans, contact with the enemy, etc