And is solely concentrating on non defense type preps?

Be it medical, food, water, shelter, mechanical or power.

How many have said, "I have enough to protect my family weapon wise, I need XYZ to complete my preps".

I'm far past what I NEED.  Still collecting though.  At this point I'm more focused on retirement planning than most other preps.  Retirement time comes at some point whether we're ready or not.  I figure it's best to be ready as short term preps are in pretty good condition.

I have plenty of guns.  Less than some around here but more than some too.  There are a couple more guns I want to get but mainly want to build some ARs for my grandsons.  Also want a Glock 43.  Need to get a .22 rifle.  Have a .22 pistol but a rifle is one of the main gun purchases I need to make in the next year.

All my extra money is going into my new house construction project to try to keep the mortgage from being too high when we get done.

Same here... Guns aren't really a big issue to me.

Ditto on retirement planning... I was focusing on that when I was in my 30's. That particular "seriousness of purpose" paid off...  

I reload and have a lot of components and guns aren't a problem.

I've got my portable power/lighting down pretty well, as well as emergency cooking and water filtration.

I guess getting some longer term food items is next, although with hurricane seasons, I keep maybe 2-3 weeks' worth of canned foods like veggies, fruits, chili and soups.

Chris

Yep

Still always on the lookout for the next toy while adding to preps consistently

Problem is, I keep shooting my ammo so have to buy more...

+1 on the "past any real 'need' stage". I'm not above buying playtoys, but serious guns I'm done shopping for. I was in a LGS yesterday not looking to buy anything, just looking for pricing info on a couple toys (a 9mm 1911 and a Uberti El Patron), and ended up walking out with a different toy; a single-shot carbine with threaded barrel in .300 Blackout caliber.

I have more 'serious-use' guns than I would ever live to need & at this point (and at this age), I'm looking almost exclusively at the "how much fun can I get out of it" aspect of any gun-related purchases.

Thats pretty much me....  There comes a time when you have "enough".  

I honestly believe every family needs a means of defending itself.  That doesn't mean you need a fortress, claymores, a moat and six liner miles of concertina wire.  A reasonable means of defending the home and family members is a good idea. Its safety equipment, much like smoke detectors, fire extinguishers and the the like.  There comes a time, however, when you've got the firearm equivalent of two extinguishers in every room, and more is just, well, sorta nuts....  When you can arm every family member more than adequately, and half the neighborhood, odds are you've got "enough".

The problem is this:  Most of us have limited resources.  Every dollar spent on guns and ammo is a dollar less spent on food, medicine, and financial security.  What typically happens is guns are more glamorous than beans and bandaids, so we end up with enough ammo to retake Saigon, but not enough food to get through three weeks of trouble.

Statistically speaking we are much more likely to encounter unemployment, layoffs, hurricanes, blizzards, earthquakes, floods, fires and short term social unrest than we are likely to encounter some sort of social ill that is a equivalent of the Siege of Leningrad.  Accordingly, it is more logical to spend a larger amount of time and money prepping for these first -  of at least more predominantly.  If you;ve got a three member family, and you've got three long guns, three handguns, and a spare shotgun, as well as several hundred rounds for each, you've be farther ahead setting aside more cash, food, and meds.

I'd argue that once you've got the basic security, food and meds set aside, most families would be best served by some serious financial planning and preps.  The end of the world as we know it is a fairly rare occurrence, but I see families battling unemployment, debt, foreclosure, homelessness and despair on a very regular basis.  Need an example?:  The sole remaining decent employer in our county just announced that it is permanently shuttering the plant.  As a result, we're loosing all our remaining decent jobs.  In a town of 6,000 or so that already has 200 homes for sale, its expected that there will be 400-600 homes for sale within the next few weeks.  When you are out of a job, you have little savings, and all your net worth is tied up in a house that cannot be sold, you are pretty much fucked.  

but I was told guns n ammo was all i need in shtf.

I read it in this forum.

I'm past the point by enough that I've been running things in reverse and consolidating, so away went the
backup SKSs and the ammo for them, and a few other odds and ends.

Part of the issue is the realization for 99.9% of the problems I might face, the answer to the question is "the gun I have with me,"
and that's going to be a G19 or an AR. I've been giving serious thought to selling my pair (2 is 1, yadda) of SA58s
due to this. It's not that I don't think a full power rifle wouldn't be handy, but that I seriously doubt I will have immediate
access to it if the need arises. Safe queens don't work very well as prep firearms.

Alcoa/Reynolds leaving.....again?

From a prep standpoint there are only a couple more things I'd like.

Mags and ammo is a different sorty. I call that my red neck retirement fund

I still buy Ammo when I see a good deal.

Still want to build/buy a semi .308


Other than that it's more about the other stuff, mostly just living beneath our means and staying grounded in reality.

Hillery is going to become president and take all my guns and ammo.

So whats a guy going to do but make sure I have replacements.

That was my first thought as well...

+1 to frozenny.  I have more then I need.  Financial security is my priority at this point.

Guns, I don't pay much attention to...

That said, I treat ammo like I treated my retirement all my life.

Plan to have enough to live fine to 130 YO

Are you done?  

Yes, except for:
Canning foods to replace stored, canned foods
Rotating foods monthly
Rotating gas
Practicing cooking with stored food on backup cooking gear
Buying ammo, as available, at my price
Maintaining my shooting skills
Reading history
Test running the generator
Test running camp stoves
Test running the propane fridge
Using and replacing batteries
Using and replacing yeast
Using and replacing salt pork and other stored meats
Trying new recipes
Keeping my home secure and maintaining OPSEC
Maintaining our vehicles
Paying bills on time

Even though I like stopping by the gun counter or an occasional gun show,  probably won't buy another gun for me.  Maybe for daughter or grandkids someday.

Have enough. But want one more to add redundancy to my go tos. Ive debated scaling the collection down in order to do so. But each time i dump a firearm i always look back a year or so later and ask why...

I havent bought anything in 6-8 years.....

Now ammo..mags..gear..homestead stuff....thats an on going deal lol

I'm at the point where I've had my "insurance" guns for a long time. I've sold off most of the stuff I never shoot except collectors items and guns with sentimental value. I keep my fun guns too, but recognize them for what they are. I have a few more guns I want, but they fall pretty far down my list of priorities.

I probably have a never ending "want" of firearms, I just enjoy the history and shooting different guns.

That being said,
As I approach retirement, I am more in the mode of "who is inheriting what"

and have realized that the phrase "you can never have too many guns or too much ammo" may not be true.

The problem does come in when you are training regularly- like we all should be- that every 4-5 years you will begin to actually "need" a new firearm to train with.

We average about 6-10K rounds a year in training and practice, more now that the boy is also shooting the same caliber. In general I shoot one type of rifle or which I have "a couple" of. Training that much, after 4-5 years you will generally want to swap out for a new.

Ever shot out the barrel on an AK? I'm talking a real AK not a WASR. About 40,000 or so rounds through a Polytech and the gauges started reading "no go". Only noticeable change was a bigger spread on groups. Still safe to use, but cleaned up and tucked away as a second string player now.  

So while I generally have "enough" I actually use what I have, so in essence I'm "rotating." :)

Problem is your average "prepper" shoots maybe 200 rounds a year while crybabying about the cost of ammo, so he never truly learns what his weapon is capable of, or whether or not it will truly hold up in a bad situation.

It SHOULD be more about developing skill at arms versus just having a closet full of ammo and rifles you never shoot. If we ever truly NEED them, no one is going to wish they had practiced LESS previously.... Their will be no do overs.

I wish to make a statement here and now, that my complete collection of firearms was unfortunately lost in a rather bizarre boating accident a while ago. Breaks my heart, as I will have to replace them all.

That is all.

Well, yes and no.

Just changed up my bedside AR, again. More better, and the configuration evolves as my skills improve.


I want to have enough guns/ammo for my children. In a SHTF, you need a good rifle, sidearm, and probably 1k rounds total. You won't survive anymore firefight than that, if that.


Where you burn the ammo and barrels is training, as posted above. I've shot out a few rifles and 1 pistol. Have replaced a couple worn AR bolts (barrels aren't far behind I'm sure). Guns are machines, like cars. Do you ever have enough cars? Even if you buy the best pickup available, you will still have to replace it after xxx miles.

Agree completely on the realities of wearing things out, and also the even sadder reality of people not training. I used to run 8000-9000 rounds per year back in the 80's & 90's; now I run probably 4000-5000. I mean total rifle & pistol rounds, other than rimfire. Of that 4-5000, probably 2000 are my reloads; so that means I probably only use 3000 factory centerfire (and probably about the same number of rimfire) per year nowadays is all. Totally understand that everyone has different comfort-zone levels of 'back-stock' of ammo (and other consumables), I'm just frankly way past "need" imo in these particular categories, and I'd imagine others are as well. With the number hitting at six digits combined with the fact that I do reload, I finally stepped back and said 'enough'; should be enough for both me and my kids, and likely their kids as well.

A big part of my thinking is simply cause & effect of political environment and market forces. If things get restrictive and prohibitive, then we probably won't be using nearly as much as we do now recreationally, which means current quantities last longer than in 'normal' (ie, good) times. If things stay free & easy, then they'll also likely be cheap and plentiful; which means that re-stocking is much less problematic.




Agree, but as with ammunition stocks, there's eventually that same point of "enough"; for me at least. I have a nephew who's a special forces instructor and was discussing gun stuff with him earlier this year after my dad's funeral (WW2 ranger, died at 91 in January). It was during that conversation that I realized just how many guns I owned; and it's over sixty. Some are recreational & hunting in nature, but not most. Five 9mm glocks, four 9mm M&P's, four .45acp 1911's, five AR's (four 5.56, one .300BK), two AK's, two M1 carbines, two SKS's - just the off-the-cuff, first-come-to-mind stuff. Not bragging or posturing at all, it's just the end result of being an unreconstructed gun nut for decades running.  And I'm also completely sure that there are guys on this forum who see my levels as that of a piker; this is arfcom after all...

Your car analogy is completely accurate & dead-on imo. But if a person owned more than 60 cars, they'd likely be hitting that same "enough" level in that category as well; at least I would.

I get the hobby aspect of it all, I have had so many different platforms that I can't even name them all.

I've had handguns that range from 1911's to revolvers to plastic fantastic's.......Rifles the same, from com-bloc to all American and many in between.

Calibers all over the map from odd ball to mainstream.......

But as i got older I decided to consolidate my core guns to 9mm, 5.56 and 12ga.

I still have my fun guns and "toys" but I am set for the core guns. I guess I have just hit the wall as far as weapons. I'm burnt out and think going outside of the gun world is where I will concentrate my efforts.

Ammo and food. That's what I'm working on. I'm good with guns for now

+1 on the consolidating & simplifying. As 'scattered' as I still am - 17 calibers total iirc - it used to be worse. Now I don't have any glocks or M&P's that are anything other than 9mm, no 1911's that aren't .45acp, etc. I've been halfway considering a 2011 widebody in 9mm, but that's really one of those playtoy-type things mentioned earlier, primarily for shooting plates on a timer.

Fwiw, as much as I've babbled here I think the best point made in this thread is Lowdown3's point about the typical prepper (typical American, frankly) concentrating too much on having tons of stuff that they aren't particularly competent with.

I think for guns, I've only got one or two that I think I "need". I want to build a precision .308 out of the collection of Armalite AR-10 parts I have. (I'm probably going to send off a big box of parts to Adco and have them do it since I don't have the tools to do the upper.) Eventually, I'll probably get an SBR and a suppressor. I might also get a set of body armor for me and the family, in case we need to go to large public gatherings in the near future,

I may pick up a couple more magic triggers for my XD guns that don't already have them. It makes them SO much more accurate and far more pleasant to shoot.

As for ammo, I have what I think is "enough" so I just replace what I shoot. I figure if the balloon goes up, I'll have enough to weather the storm until supplies return. After all, we've all been thru an ammo drought just recently. I learned my lesson to have as much as I think I'll need on hand.

I've still got some work to do to get food stores, water stores, and PMs up to a level that I think prudent. So, I'm focusing more on those things and have begun shopping for a vehicle that doesn't have 15 years and 327,000 miles on it.

What you "need" for effective, real world self defense is a shockingly low bar in the vast majority of situations.

Speaking purely regarding what statistics tell us ...

A 12 gauge and a tube full of 00 buck, or a glock with a mag full of hollow points ... both will be overkill to dispatch six sigma worth of realistic threat scenarios.

Stated another way ... without actual stats in front of me ...

Odds of being seriously attacked = small to begin with.  Most people live their lives and are never subjected to a life or death attack.
Odds of attack justifying lethal force and victim being willing / able to dispense lethal force = very, very small
Odds of more than 1 mag being needed by victim in defense of that attack, and an extra mag would have made any impact on the outcome = super, duper small.  Astronomically small.  Laughably small.

Sure, 1 good guy in a million will be in a firefight with 1 mag and will fail because he didn't have a second one ... but it's a notable exception and nothing more.

We collect various guns and ammo because we all love capability and the flexibility that having multiple options provides.  Nothing wrong with that, IMO, but call it what it is.

That said, never fool yourself into believing that gun collecting in any form is "mandatory" or "the bare minimum for survival" ... because that threshold was passed LONG ago for most of us, whether we realize it or not.

I hear ya!

I have sold or traded only four real guns and a couple BB guns in my lifetime and still regret it.    

One thing to remember is common sense isn't so common anymore, especially when it comes to 9 vs 45.    Which caliber is best for the apocalypse again?  

Quite well said.

The key to personal defense is just having a gun.  What gun you have is, secondary.  

I always find it humorous to when people want to carry 500+ rounds of ammo in their bugout load.  I've been deployed to Iraq twice and Afghanistan once.  My combat load of 5.56 was 210 rounds.  We carried enough spare ammo in the trucks for another 100-200 rounds per.  But, we never used the spare ammo.  In every firefight, the 210 rounds each carried was plenty (SAW gunners carried somewhere around 400 plus the team carried another drum of 200 for a total of 600)  

I conceal carry a Kahr CM9 and don't even carry a spare mag....and I feel comfortable.  With the recent Paris attacks (likely coming to the US), I'll probably start carrying a spare mag.  But, even with the spare mag, I'll only have 13 rounds.  I feel comfortable with that.

I thought this thread was about the magazine.  

Food and water and the means to keep it should be the priority.  No water, no life.  No food, no life.

I used to not carry an extra mag for my 45. Then I started seeing instances in the news of 20-30 urban yutes attacking people at random. After the 3rd or 4th one of those, I started carrying two extra mags.

Yep if I see something at a good price I buy it, but I don't need anything

Got most of the guns I want. The ones that remain are wish-list guns for the most part.

Now it's more nfa stuff! More Suppressors are higher on my list than guns

Yupper do.

You've got a point, Hardshell.  

While the non-gun preps are where more prep effort is going (I'm fascinated with inexpensive gasifier stoves right now- some as cheap as <$25 on Amazon)I have to admit that there is always an ongoing refinement of the go-to gun choices, ammo and gear.  For example, this year I finally set up the reloaded and have been learning to reload.

Well said.  Prepping for earthquakes or the zombie apocalypse is much sexier than fiscal restraint and a year's supply of edible and affordable food (oxymoron?)

Still want:

Ruger Precision bolt gun in 6.5 and .308
Glock 34
Glock 20
Sig 1911
Bolt gun in .338

.308 Suppressor x 2
.45 Suppressor
.22 Suppressor
NVG
Plate and Carrier

That's it.

if you find you have only guns and ammo on hand, with regards to your preps, then you have had your priorities mixed up from the git go.

That said, you can have all the pails of rice and beans in the world, but if you have no means to prevent the first guy that comes along from just taking them, then again, your priorities are mixed up.

Balance, in all things, along with realistic expectations, is the key to success.

Any reason that you're not re-barreling? Not cost effective for that particular weapon?
Are the older guns primarily parts guns now for replacement guns of a similar type?



Then you get the politics of it all thrown in
People buy stuff now because they've seen it get restricted in the past.
So they buy it now while they're able in the event they aren't able at some future time


Is that the order you've prioritized buying them in, and if so, why?

I really don't need any other firearms.  There's a few I want (back up Glock 19, .22 pistol, .308 AR, and a semi auto 12 gauge).  I am hurting bad for ammo though.

Mostly working on finances, and water right now.  Food, medical, and ammo as I can fit it in.

No praticular order.

In order

1) Armor
2) Cans
3) NVG
4) Guns

Never done.



Always trying to learn and practice more and more.



Even with work being silly getting out more is a big deal to me right now.



Classes can teach someone what they do or don't know.



And you can skew your answers somewhat by only taking what you are comfy taking.



I started off figuring a box stock glock 19 was perfect, plastic junk sites as well.



Then came night sites.



Then came caliber wars in my head.



Then came handheld flashlights.



Now I am looking at holsters that will handle a firearm with an attached flashlight.



Still like the idea of a handheld light as well cause I don't want to pull my handgun out to see what I want to see.



Night vision folks explain night vision by saying it is dark x amount of the time.



Well, can't always have nightvision.



Anyway, always should be practicing what you learned in classes so you are always using ammo and firearms have wear parts and need upkeep and depending on what the firearm is it can get worn out or just not be worth repairing or rebuilding so now you need another firearm.  



I can understand not cracking open mountain house to cook with it on a regular basis, but most other food storage should get rotated here and there.  So never done.



Water storage is never done.



Vehicles don't store well, so never done.



I have decided there is very little I can buy and put away and call done if I expect to be able to use it well.



Buying some cool knife for shtf sounds alright, but the knife I carry and use everyday is the one I am used to.  I am used to keeping it sharp and taking care of it.



So overall there are very few things I can see buying and putting up and saying that I prepared to use it if I never pulled it out and used it.

same here