As much as I love my firearms, the fact is; without cartridges, they are some high-priced paperweights! So, when it comes to getting prepared for scarcity, possibly sky-rocketing costs, one of the first things I prepared for was the ammunition.
And it all started with being smart with the calibers I have guns cambered in, so I'm not trying to stock too many different types of ammunition. For handguns, it was a relatively easy choice. When you look at the factors of stopping power, common availability, cost, and a wide selection of firearms; it was pretty simply the 9 x 19, or Luger/Parabellum. That choice has allowed me to find both a "service" type weapon and a "concealed carry" option, along with a "pistol caliber carbine" that fit me. Why not the 40 S&W, which is more powerful? In my opinion, it's only marginally so, and more expensive to buy and shoot. It's also a caliber on the wane so would be more difficult to find in a pinch. Remember, the "9" is the primary caliber of both the armed services (in most of the world even) and civilian law enforcement agencies as well.
My other main "stocking" caliber is of course ".223/5.56". It is again, an easy choice to make, being a standard of military and law enforcement. Depending on ammunition, it can be used on virtually anything ranging from small game to deer sized ammo. Now, before anybody gets all "up-in-arms"; I'm aware that it's not a legal deer hunting caliber in most states. However, in an extra-legal environment, this caliber can certainly bring down deer-sized game especially if used with heavier bullets like 77gr. I typically keep about 1500 rounds of this on-hand with three-quarters of it being the standard 55gr, but also keep 62gr "green-tip" as well and intend to have some of the heavy stuff as well.
There is one other "standard" caliber that virtually everyone stocks (if they prep) and that's 22LR. It's cheap (right now), small and easy to keep. It's WAY quieter and easier to shoot than center-fire calibers. It can be a good bet to bring home small game and if push-comes-to-shove, it can be used for defense as well! While I try to keep around 1500 rounds in my other stocking calibers, I keep several thousand rounds of this. I keep two types; high-powered such as CCI Mini-Mags, but the majority of it is bulk/white-box stuff that's cheap to buy and store.
Then, there's the "others", stuff that I keep but don't keep a ton of around. Here they are and the reasons for their existence in my world:
Shot-shell. I have 12ga now in 00 Buck for home defense as well as some #4 shot. I also have some #6/7/8 "Birdshot" for food gathering purposes if it comes to that. I'm not a bird hunter, but anyone trying to bring home some food is more likely to hit something with a shotgun than a 22lr. If I pick up a 20ga, I'll pick up some shells for that as well. I don't keep a lot of this stuff. It's bulky (making it difficult to store) and I don't shoot it regularly, so I only have a couple of hundred round of it.
Then, there's the random center-fire. Although I've purposely kept my number of calibers to a minimum, I do have a few that aren't covered by the 9mm and 5.56. That's the 380acp and the 6.5 Grendel which I can shoot in an AR platform firearm and capable of bring down most anything in North America. Also, I keep ammo for the 300 Blackout giving me hog-hunting capabilities, it commonly runs wild throughout most of North Americas, but especially in the South.
Along with factory-loaded ammunition, I also have the capability to reload/handload all of the above calibers with the exception of shotshells. Hopefully, this will not only be prepared for disasters of both natural, socio-economic and political.
OK, maybe not exactly crazy, but she certainly thinks I'm paranoid. I'm not going to get into a prolong discussion about my rationale, but suffice to say that I'm increasingly concerned about a number of trends in our society in general, but I'm of the opinion that not being prepared for emergency situations in general is irresponsible. Even FEMA has very specific recommendations for citizen preparedness for emergencies. What emergencies?
Well, let's start with this...... about a month ago, Dallas suffered an EF3 tornado that was on the ground for 32 minutes. That section of town will have power out for a few days at least. Not that many years ago, our little suburb had an actual tornado strike that was less than a mile from my school.
You don't have to suffer this kind of catastrophic damage to have problems. What if you're one of the houses down the street where the electricity and maybe even gas is going to be out for several days, if not weeks? What's your answer to that? You could do it the simple (also expensive) way by getting a hotel room......, but for how long, what about looters......., yes; there was definitely problems with that in the effected areas. So, what are the specific items that any citizen has the responsibility (and right) to answer?
So, at the very least, you have a "defend" situation as related to an emergency. Of course, that's not even discuss the famous/infamous "7 minutes" (average time for police to respond in a metropolitan area) that folks are on the hook to defend themselves if there's an issue with an intruder. And these are the least "far fetched" scenarios out there. The more remote possibilities range from frisky North Koreans executing an EMP attack, or a Cyber-attack bringing the grid to it's knees to the Trump vs. China situation getting completely out-of-hand!
At the end of the day, there are any number of reasons to be prepared for an emergency. So, let's take a look at the elements that have to be accounted for in that area. Above are the 3 basic elements, but let's look more deeply within the concept and discuss them. I have them divided up into modules and define them:
- Module A (Armament): Self-explanatory need to be able to defend yourself and your family whether that's for the "7 minute" gap, or more to the point; what if law enforcement isn't coming?
- Module B (Basic Needs): Literally meaning the things that we need to help us survive on a daily basis (with the exception of food which is it's own separate category). This would include clothing, tech to help us live, such as tools.
- Module C (Communications): This if an often overlooked area that's incredibly important. The assumption is that routine communications systems (cell and landlines) will go down in short order, so how do we maintain comms? These are necessary for not only any access to outside information, but also situational/tactical communications.
- Module D (Medical): If the 24hr pharmacy isn't going to refill your meds any time soon and the you can't get through on 911..... then what?
- Module E (Energy): In any even of an emergency event, one of the first things that we'll lose is power delivery. Look at your life: how will you live for the next week or so, if electricity is down for more than a few hours.
- Module F (Food): How are you going to survive when the stores run out of stock? There'll be no Amazon deliveries in a natural disaster. How does your family survive, even if it's only for a few day, or a week?
These modules aren't in order. I simply used the letters conveniently to represent the major groups of items needed to help anyone to survive after a major catastrophy. The fact is that they are all necessary and work as a system.
Here's the issue: we're not buddies with Bill Gates, and not going to just contact people to have it done. So, we'll have to get ourselves ready in the old fashion way. Meaning; do what we can, when we can, when we can afford it. Over the course of the next few weeks (hopefully), or months (more probably), I'm going to discuss the necessary "preps" to be able to feel secure if any number of "unforeseen" disaster scenarios occurs.
This isn't the goal. I have what I feel to be a well-grounded faith that nothing serious will occur over the course of the rest of my life, but that being said, I'm going to say that there's not going to be some possibility that one of a number of issues happening. ........ That'd be stupid and irresponsible.
