If your end days prep ammo choices were distilled to one round, which?

[NYGuns]

How come no one said 45 acp?

 

[Rap]

9mm would be my choice if I had to choose just one caliber. Honorable mention goes to .223.

 

[Marine Cpl]

How come no one said 45 acp?

My guess is because it gains nothing from a longer barrel on a carbine unlike 9mm, .357 Sig/Magnum, .44 Magnum, 45 Long Colt, ect.

A 2 for 1 kind of deal.

It's just too damn slow quite honestly. No offense.

 

[Acer-m14]

if crap happens and I'm down to one cal .. 12ga .. being a reloader I can fill it with BP or Smk less and anything i can find for wading and shot or rocks , sparkplugs , ball bearing .. marbles .. rocksalt .. ..

 

[FCG LLC]

HA, 9mm on a rabbit!
sure you can shoot it, but most of the meat is gone!

Yes, but if you are careful and shoot it in the head, you are able to recover most of the meat. If I had 9mm as my sole round, I would hope to also have a long gun chambered for 9x19 as well.

Depending on your environment one might have to resort to trapping versus shooting game if stealth from other 2 legged creatures becomes important.

The noise signature and broadcast zone for a suppressed sub sonic 9mm round is much lower than a non suppressed shot, and the noise from a pellet out of a pellet gun under 1020fps way lower, and the noise from a compound or long bow lower still. Virtually nothing (sound) from even a hastily designed trap, unless I get stuck in it , or the trapped creature.

If I am in "the wild", and it is end of days, my goal is to minimize broadcasting my location to others (so bare hands or traps or bow or knife / machete / garrote / pellet gun over rim fire over center fire.

They MAY be times when I do want to broadcast my location.

Food for thought.
LHT.

 

[Big John]

.308

 

[MilesTeg]

I was trying to stay out of this one, damn caliber wars!

To the OP I think your asking too much. To be relying even hypothetically on one cartridge is limiting your survivability. If there was the perfect round that could do it all we wouldn't have the multitude of caliber we have now. With that disclaimer I'll play!

To the people the claim 22lr my hats off to you. If my life or my families life was in jeopardy the last thing I would think is I have to grab my 22. I don't subscribe to the thought that it has a benefit because you can carry a lot of rounds. This is a valid characteristic of the popular round, but my question to anyone who thinks this is if your situation has degraded to the point where your living out of a back pack, do you really want to trust your life to a 22? It would take a really shitty situation to up root me to where I had to travel a long ways on foot. In all these scenarios life has taken a really bad turn for the worse and I will want more fire power than a 22 to survive. Now as a disclaimer I do live in the country away from big populations so this could be why I don't get this principle of being on the move. If this is a scenario you think yourself likely to find your self I would strongly urge you to look at pistol caliber carbine. If you combine this with a pistol that takes the same magazines and ammo you really have the best of both worlds.

As far as my situation I would argue a shotgun would be my best option. The gauge would be personal preference. You can hunt all the small and large game in the area. When you get home from hunting you can load it with slug and or buckshot and be a force to recon with out to 150 yds.

 

[Eddie Gunks]

5.56

I will trap small critters. No use shooting squirrels and rabbits. They are far too easy to trap.

 

[FCG LLC]

I was trying to stay out of this one, damn caliber wars!

To the OP I think your asking too much. To be relying even hypothetically on one cartridge is limiting your survive-ability. If there was the perfect round that could do it all we wouldn't have the multitude of caliber we have now. With that disclaimer I'll play!

Yeah, but to not table viable scenarios leaves one less prepared if those are the cards we are dealt in that instance. .
Admittedly, we would run out of brain cells before we could consider even 1/10th of 1% of all "viable" scenarios, so yes we plan for the most likely. No sense in prepping for winter if you live at coastal sea level in the tropics....

To the people the claim 22lr my hats off to you. If my life or my families life was in jeopardy the last thing I would think is I have to grab my 22. I don't subscribe to the thought that it has a benefit because you can carry a lot of rounds. This is a valid characteristic of the popular round, but my question to anyone who thinks this is if your situation has degraded to the point where your living out of a back pack, do you really want to trust your life to a 22? It would take a really shitty situation to up root me to where I had to travel a long ways on foot. In all these scenarios life has taken a really bad turn for the worse and I will want more fire power than a 22 to survive. Now as a disclaimer I do live in the country away from big populations so this could be why I don't get this principle of being on the move. If this is a scenario you think yourself likely to find your self I would strongly urge you to look at pistol caliber carbine. If you combine this with a pistol that takes the same magazines and ammo you really have the best of both worlds.

As far as my situation I would argue a shotgun would be my best option. The gauge would be personal preference. You can hunt all the small and large game in the area. When you get home from hunting you can load it with slug and or buckshot and be a force to recon with out to 150 yds.

Heh.

I see your military tab. You ever got stuck someplace with FAR LESS of everything you were comfortable with or even accustomed to? I have, and it sucks.

We often speak of prepping and end times as if it will most certainly catch us exactly at home, or in a good bug out location, or in our car.

Never or hardly when we are 2 hrs out of recovering from a medical procedure where we were under general anesthesia, or on an airplane (where i spent too much of my life), or in a place foreign to us (customs, laws, population, climate, language, race, food, flora, fauna, weather, currency) - where I spend damn too much of my time. or, or.

Or that our most treasured "things" (or loved ones) might be on that school trip to DC / AMNH in NYC, or some place where we cannot feasibly get to them.

F

 

[MilesTeg]

Comments in red.

I see your military tab. You ever got stuck someplace with FAR LESS of everything you were comfortable with or even accustomed to? I have, and it sucks.
I was somewhat lucky air wing Marine Corps. So yes and no. When it did you are right it did suck!
We often speak of prepping and end times as if it will most certainly catch us exactly at home, or in a good bug out location, or in our car.
I agree that's most of us conceptualize SHTF. Maybe I'm a rarity but I rarely travel more that 45min from home. So for me it will be a relatively short walk to make it home. I do want to expand to having a bag in my car incase I ever do have to hoof it home. For my situation it's just not a likely scenario. This doesn't mean that it isn't a likely scenario for you only the individual can answer that.
Never or hardly when we are 2 hrs out of recovering from a medical procedure where we were under general anesthesia, or on an airplane (where i spent too much of my life), or in a place foreign to us (customs, laws, population, climate, language, race, food, flora, fauna, weather, currency) - where I spend damn too much of my time. or, or.
Again not a likely case for me.
Or that our most treasured "things" (or loved ones) might be on that school trip to DC / AMNH in NYC, or some place where we cannot feasibly get to them.
I'm lucky in this regard. The wife is a stay at home mom and the kid is 15 months old, so I know where to find them. The thing is with this question is if you do go to get them do you plan on walking all the way there? If you do what likely hood do you think you will make it, then find them, then walk home? To me the odds are pretty well against you. With the odds so far stack against you would you want a 22lr on your side or something greater. Now lets say your going to use your car and have cell coverage then your odds of success greatly increase. If you are using the car it will be feasible to carry different weapons and calibers to meet the expected threats.

Once again if you do think your going to be on the move I think the best thing to have a is a pistol and pistol carbine combo. This will allow to meet just about any threat out there. It also gives you the option to stash the rifle and go greyman if you need to go into a town for whatever reason.

 

[Drinkthekoolaid]

I'm thinking perhaps either 12g or .22lr

 

[4excal]

I'm sure someone in these 128 replies answered like me, but I'm to lazy to read everyone's one ammo caliber, I read a bunch bit meh to continuing lol. I have to go with .22, for reasons of availability. In the end o days wandering the planet scenario we will surely find .22 laying around in old drawers and most abundant for barters. May not be the hunting caliber you all may want, but as the title asked, only one choice..I'm going with availability for longevity, and it can be used to hunt if need. Once you've used up your fancy calibers, you're shit out of luck, but someone from 1940s has left a box or two of .22s in his attic that you just stumbled upon, that was long forgotten..and so will the other old farm house and the other..