Originally posted by Reschke
.30-06 ammo scarce???? Where the hell do you live? I can get all you want at the local sporting goods stores around my house. Just send me a couple hundred dollars to load you up and I will ship it to you for free. Its cheaper than $20 a box here. I paid about $10 a box for a case of .30-06 ammo last spring at Academy Sports here in Birmingham. That was my favorite Federal 150 grain round. I have dropped more deer at over 200 yards with my Model 700 long action .30-06 than any other rifle. The only other I shoot is my Dad's modified Ruger M77 .270 with a chopped barrel and its an absolute dream gun for stalk hunting in the woods around here.
That was the point of the "good ole boy ammo" quote above, I belive. Price isnt your prime concern in this situation, its availability. If the poop hits the big fan, and you are concerned over your ammo supply, you need to be shooting something that will take what you can get off the shelf at the local Wal-Mart or whatever. You may not be lucky enough to have a real gun store close by, that stocks all kinds of ammo. Even if you do, you may not be able to get in. Wal-Mart or the equivalent you usually have big glass doors you could drive a truck through if necessary.
Also, as Lazs pointed out, the ability to reload ammo is unbeliveably important in such a situation. Especially if you choose the .308 stuff and cant get it anywhere close by. You may be able to buy the bullets cheap enough now, but how many will you store? 1000? 5000? You can buy and store brass even cheaper, and load it as you need. Plus having the benefit of having whatever bullet weight you prefer right off the bat, not having to settle for what you can scrounge. Now that I'm loading my own stuff, even just on a single stage press, I'm amazed at how much ammo I can churn out just while I'm sitting doing other things. Having one of the little Lee Hand Loaders is even better if you think you might have to go on the dodge and cant stay at the house. No mounting required. Perfect hand depriming tools? Those 6in wooden sticks I see at the craft store with the 3in needles on the end? No idea what they are for, but I grabbed some for my "toolkit" becasue that was the first thing that popped into my head.
The M39 with a scope is, I agree, probably the best compromise sniper gun you can get for your money. The ammo is powerful enough, has good range, and you can still find reloadable ammo for reasonable cost. I love mine. For closer range I have my .30-30 lever rifle. Its reliable, accurate out to at least 100 yards, and still powerful enough at that range to take down a deer so its good enough for me as a mid-range defensive weapon. I also have the matching lever action in .45LC and my revolvers for close range. The .45 rifle is accurate at 100 yards also, although I cant vouch for the velocity of the bullet at that range. Ballpark muzzle velocity is around 1100 fps so I'm guessing that even out that far it would put the hurt on a person.
Lastly, in case everything goes to heck, I can cast my own lead balls, and I have a decent supply of powder and percussion caps, I could always rely on my muzzleloaders for defense. They did the job 150 years ago, they could do it now.
