MOST COMMON AMMO WHICH WILL ALWAYS BE AVAILABLE FOR RIFLES

[Jeet3]

My humble question is:

WHAT IS THE MOST COMMONLY AVAILABLE AMMUNITION WHICH WILL ALWAYS BE OB STORE SHELVES FOR RIFLES. WHETHER BOLT ACTION OR OTHERWISE. THIS ALSO RELATES TO TIMES LIKE THE RECENT ONES WHEN AMMUNITION PRICES SKY ROCKETED AND AVAILABILITY WAS RATIONED BY STORES. THAT IS, IF YOU WANTED TO BUY A RIFLE, WHAT CALIBER WOULD YOU SETTLE ON FOR ALL KINDS OF DEFENSIVE CIRCUMSTANCES AND SCENARIOS?

KINDLY STATE YOUR PREFERENCE PER YOUR KNOWLEDGE!

THANKS,

JEET

Please do not type your whole post in Caps. it is considered shouting and therefore rude. - Moderator

[Jeet3]

Will follow as said. Thanks MOD.

[bennedose]

In which country?

[saleem]

.22 lr and 30-06 shall always be there when you need them

[xl_target]

.22 lr and 30-06 shall always be there when you need them

Don't count your chickens before they hatch, boys.
In the "land of the free and the home of the Brave", namely these United State of America; .22 ammunition has all but disappeared from the store shelves.
I haven't seen any available for months. No Long Rifle, No Longs and not even any Shorts.

[airguns]

In the "land of the free and the home of the Brave", namely these United State of America; .22 ammunition has all but disappeared from the store shelves.
I haven't seen any available for months. No Long Rifle, No Longs and not even any Shorts.

That is very true, a lot of it has to do with hoarding. In the last few years ammo has also doubled and tripled in price for certain calibers. Oh well, can't complain when sitting on tens of thousands of rounds in assorted calibers myself!

[xl_target]

Oh well, can't complain when sitting on tens of thousands of rounds in assorted calibers myself!

Hehe! I didn't say I was short....

[Gautham Devara]

Jeet, I was kinda confused with your question...till I read the defensive part. Well I guess it's still applicable to most calibers but a .22 or a 30-06 would not be the ones that would come to my mind. These are hunting rounds that are universally available but seldom used for self-defense. The best defensive rounds are the ones that are specifically designed for stopping power keeping humans in mind and therefore cannot be hunting rounds. Slower, bigger rounds would work the best for hydrostatic shock in humans as the encounters would be at a shorter range in self defense scenarios. Also, the gun itself. I can't picture a person using a bolt action rifle for self defense. I can only tell you what calibers I would rely on in such scenarios; .45 ACP, bigger, heavier,slower handgun round with a proven stopping record, .40 S&W they have excellent rounds specifically designed for the scenarios you are looking for.

If you are looking for a weapon with self defense in mind, then these are the factors you have to keep in mind; the size of the gun itself, the magazine capacity and the stopping power. Get yourself a handgun that you can handle, with a caliber that can stop or slow down a person at closer ranges and does not over penetrate.

Or, you can get a shotgun designed just for self defense, you can't go wrong with a 12 guage in shorter ranges. Most homeowners swear by it's effectiveness. Just aim in the general direction and it does the trick, plus it has the intimidation factor. Believe me, the bad guy does not want to be staring down the wrong side of a shotgun.

[TwoRivers]

Jeet, I was kinda confused with your question...till I read the defensive part. Well I guess it's still applicable to most calibers but a .22 or a 30-06 would not be the ones that would come to my mind. These are hunting rounds that are universally available but seldom used for self-defense. The best defensive rounds are the ones that are specifically designed for stopping power keeping humans in mind and therefore cannot be hunting rounds. Slower, bigger rounds would work the best for hydrostatic shock in humans as the encounters would be at a shorter range in self defense scenarios. Also, the gun itself. I can't picture a person using a bolt action rifle for self defense. I can only tell you what calibers I would rely on in such scenarios; .45 ACP, bigger, heavier,slower handgun round with a proven stopping record, .40 S&W they have excellent rounds specifically designed for the scenarios you are looking for.

If you are looking for a weapon with self defense in mind, then these are the factors you have to keep in mind; the size of the gun itself, the magazine capacity and the stopping power. Get yourself a handgun that you can handle, with a caliber that can stop or slow down a person at closer ranges and does not over penetrate.

Or, you can get a shotgun designed just for self defense, you can't go wrong with a 12 guage in shorter ranges. Most homeowners swear by it's effectiveness. Just aim in the general direction and it does the trick, plus it has the intimidation factor. Believe me, the bad guy does not want to be staring down the wrong side of a shotgun.

And I am confused with your answers. You seem to have done a lot of reading, but without comprehension. "stopping power" is a mythical thing, and hydrostatic shock comes from fast, not heavy and slow. A "stop" comes from placing the bullet in the right place. There is nothing special about the human body that requires special bullet design, any rifle cartridge good for hunting, whether men or animals, will do. And that includes all the military rifle cartridges, such as the .30-06 you mention.

What you say about shotguns...applies to hand grenades; and infra-red guided ammunitions. Shotgun pellets or slugs do not have mythical properties, they do not seek out the intended target when launched in the "general direction".

[Oggie]

To be fair - I'm sure we all understood the general drift of Gautham's comments. Yes he did get the hydrostatic shock bit wrong but his general assertions are in the right direction...applying the shotgun example to hand grenades is a bit far fetched though Gautham would have served his answer better had he not used the "aim in general direction" bit ! Overall not a perfect answer but within reasonable logic I'd say

[timmy]

The original question is so ill defined -- it smacks of someone who just wanted to hear himself talk and wanted to impress others with his participation.

What rifle cartridge will always be available? Well, who has a crystal ball?!! Duh! People who had that kind of knowledge would be investing on Wall Street and making millions, not posting here! As XL pointed out, the whole ammunition availability thing is totally topsy-turvy. He points out the absence of .22 LR, which anyone would think would always be in supply.

I was buying 1200 round tins of Romanian 7.62x25 for $129 a few years back. Now I see it is going for $450 a tin. On the other hand, 7.62x54r was running about $70 a tin, and hasn't increased too much, although I see none of that good Hungarian heavy ball (174 gr) is available anymore. My Finn M39 loved that stuff. Good thing I laid some away for a rainy day!

I used to get reasonable 7.62x39 from Cabela's, of all places, pretty reasonably. This stuff went ballistic when Hugo Chavez switched Venezuela's standard arm from FN-FALs to AKs. Venezuela bought all kinds of 7.62x39 to build up its stocks. Then the Middle East wars began, and to arm the new governments, all kinds of 7.62x39 was being bought, inflating the prices tremendously.

Another pernicious influence was greedy businesses. These folks were aided and abetted by chicken littles who thought the sky was falling, due to political circumstances. Hoarding of ammo (among other things) drove the prices through the roof. Many folks who never thought about hoarding ammo began to do so, and I'm sure there are large stocks in many basements. I heard a news blurb on NPR last night, saying that the cops entered a house due to a domestic disturbance report, and searched the house. The local NPR reporter breathlessly told how the cops found 10,000 rounds of ammo. Can such ignorant people really play a valid role of informing the public? 10,000 rounds is a pretty small stash among gun lovers nowadays.

So, considering international goings-on, politics at home, rapacious seller, and hoarding buyers, how on earth can anyone predict what will be available tomorrow.

Yes, the question is very stupid in this respect.

Then we come to the setting in which defense is to be mounted: Are we talking about an urban setting, or country, or the suburbs, or -- what? Only a dolt would form a question with the implicit assumption that all of these settings have the same requirements. Penetration, collateral damage, the sort of threat expected -- there are many things to consider here. Furthermore, what's to be defended? Home? Business? Is there a lot of open space, or is something shorter needed? The OP surely had floored the accelerator of his mouth before engaging his brain!

Then, what kind of yahoo is proposing a bolt action for a defense weapon? I love bolt actions and have a few of them, myself, but really, a defense weapon? C'mon now, we're not re-enacting "All Quiet on the Western Front" here, are we?

Well, maybe a topic of discussion can be extracted from such a silly post...

But combining a discussion of cartridge suitability to a specific task, and then multiplying the complexity with the requirement of clairvoyant techniques is ... well, you get the idea.

Bennedose raises the pertinent question about what country is being referred to -- hey, we can go on and on here.

I do follow the school of thought that "stopping power," "knockdown power," and other such schemes are merely a method (and a poor one, IMO) that someone expressing their opinion uses to back up their assertions.

I think we are talking about energy and diameter, which affects penetration, to accomplish destruction of vital organs. Those formulas and theories just obscure the issue.

But without more definition, there's no real way to address prattle like this.

[Oggie]

Timmy, you make very good points. However can I make one myself please....Do humour me for a moment

Can I ask a stupid question?

In my opinion - There is no such thing as a stupid question. When one asks a question, one forms a collaborative learning relationship with participants on this forum. Every question one has is an expression of their need in this moment. When one asks a question on this forum it is to learn more !

If we were to judge someone for asking a question, it would be misusing our learning relationship. It would be putting one down to put someone else up over you.

This forum should encourage open questioning. Yes to experienced folk quite often some of these questions may seem "stupid" but to call it that may inhibit learning. I've read many of your previous posts and they are all very informative and well presented. You're arguments are well constructed, balanced and make very good reading. I'm keen to keep asking you questions but if I feared you calling me out on my own lack of knowledge I'd feel a bit nervous to ask. And then I won't learn. Just my two bits.

Regards,

Oggie

[timmy]

Oggie, normally, I would agree with you. Howwever, I didn't see this guy's case as normal. He tried to intrude on issues that have been in play here for a much longer time when he was here, as if he really knew what the discussion was about when he clearly didn't. He tried to correct people when it wasn't his place as a newcomer to do so. Here he was, trying to talk about defense when in other posts he didn't think one had the right to use a gun in self defense. He kept himself safe by keeping an unloaded pistol under his pillow. He wanted to get live primers out of cartridges, but refused to tell what he wanted them for by answering questions that were not asked -- a tactic often called evasion. He got hostile with board members and used unseemly language when it was clearly not appropriate. While he was active, he filled just about every active thread with senseless prattle. He opened up many threads just like this one, asking inane questions. He seldom gave any evidence of listening to anything anyone else said, other than to argue.

I think most members here encourage open questioning, and most members are happy and quick to share information with those who really want to learn. This is the way everyone should be. The issue here is not that some know more and some less -- the issue is, if we all share information, we can then all know a lot, in the sense that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

In this case, I feel we had a person who wanted to stand on a soap box and bray, and I for one am not sorry to see his departure.

This is just my opinion, and I don't speak for anyone else. However, since you put the question to me, I have responded with what I think about the matter.

Regarding your asking me questions, go ahead, but from what I've seen from your postings, I have far more to learn from you!

[Oggie]

Tim, I owe you an apology. Context is critical and I did not have that, therefore my perspective was singular in dimension. Had I known or read all (though I do remember reading the primer post and did think that was considerably dangerous and astoundingly stupid !) his posts I would never have brought up this issue. Now my informed opinion is that your response was absolutely on target !

I've also got very low tolerance for idiotic/dangerous/frivolous statements related to our area of interest - firearms. I also feel that statements such as these (even if disguised as questions) should be addressed strongly to prevent these from setting precedents. Our breed of firearms owners and advocates is a diminishing one and we're held to account for everything we do or say hence the bar has to be set at the highest for our folk. On your comment about having anything to learn from me all I can say is that you are very gracious sir - much appreciated

Best Regards,

Oggie

[Gautham Devara]

Wow...I did not realize that my post would generate so many comments..

Let me get to the point. I wanted to elaborate on all the posts but here's the deal, the replies should either criticize or validate a person's comments but should not question the person himself.

Tworivers, to your post...you are absolutely right when you say I have no experience. I will categorically state that I have not shot at another human being or was involved in a close encounter situation. What I go is by logic, and for me the hydrostatic shock makes sense. A bigger wound channel in a scenario where a person jumps at you at close quarters and you do not have the time to "aim at the right place", and a slower moving bullet that expends it's energy into the body than going straight through it is what I would call stopping power.

As far as you comparing an animal to a human being, seriously? Sure, anatomically all the animals are the same including us, but they are horizontal, you are stalking them and are at a liberty to take a well placed shot. Not the same for a "vertical" human who is jumping you at a distance of less than ten feet with the intent of doing you harm which is typical in self defense scenarios (90% of the cases...I know because I am "well read").

As far as shotguns go, this is in a situation where you are at home, sleeping and you realize there is an intruder. When I said "aim it in the general direction"...I was actually accentuating the point that it does not need a well placed shot. In this regard, I have had several discussions with people who have gone through these situations and swear by a shotgun. They for sure are not mythical!!

Tworivers, you might not agree to it, but like I said before, this is my opinion. But I would like for sure to hear about your experiences with a rifle making a well placed shot in scenarios where there was an aggressor jumping you at close quarters.