[The Reaper]

IMHO, you guys with infants and young kids are (temporarily) at a huge disadvantage. We do what we have to to care for our loved ones though. I know I didn't understand that attachment till I had kids of my own. OTOH, you have the opportunity to raise them right, and with the skills to survive.

Those asking about the BoB discussion, there are a couple of threads here that cover them, please look around, do some searching, and if you cannot find what you are after, come back here and ask again.

Unless your route offers a lot of opportunities for long range shots and huge danger areas, I believe that the civilian bolt guns will be of limited utility. I would do some serious tactical analysis and terrain study, take a look at the route(s) from various points along the way, and then decide what the appropriate weapons would be. You may find that the terrain keeps engagement ranges within shotgun range, or allows long range shots where you could whittle the enemy down with a long gun and a powerful round and quickly disappear. Most movement over that distance will be a combination, hence the preference for the magazine-fed, semi-auto carbine. The weapon also comes in a variety of rounds that would allow you to tailor the weapon for the METT-T.

The shelter also needs to be designed around the terrain and seasonal conditions you expect to encounter. No point in humping a sleeping bag if the lows are in the 80s.

An axe, a machete, or a kukri may be appropriate for the tasks you expect to encounter. The final choice will be a compromise that you have to live with.

Those who live in cities or close to major highways are going to have a load of challenges.

I agree, if you are on the run, trapping is impractical, unless you are taking a day off to collect food. The gear is so light and so much more efficient that I cannot imagine not taking at least a few feet of snare wire or a couple of pre-made snares.

Ape Man, I think you are selling yourself short. If you are experienced in the woods, trained and tactically competent, you may fare better against a squad of goons with limited field experience than yyou think. Obviously, if you are the only one being pursued, and a large organization can dedicate its full resources to pursuing just you, with drones and electronic surveillance, thermal tracking, etc., we would all be in jeopardy. OTOH, you hurt people chasing you badly enough, they may find less motivation to close with you and take a punch again.

You can quickly and easily drop in a .22LR conversion kit into an M-4 and use that, if noise is a concern. The 10/22 is a nice plinking and squirrel rifle, but you would be very fortunate to hit anyone beyond 50 meters in a vital area that the .22LR would be effective. I would go beyond scavenging ammo to say that the U.S. planned to drop a million unrifled .45ACP Liberator pistols to the resistance movements in Europe, with instructions telling the people who got them to use the pistol to kill an enemy soldier and take his weapon. Food for thought, if it came down to that.

I can get near .30-30 performance out of a .300 Blackout, and have 30 round mags or more. The ability to shoot subsonic (in the suppressed rifle) by merely popping in a mag of subsonic ammo is very appealing. For those with an AR/M4/M16 rifle already, the switch consists of nothing more than swapping uppers. The ammo is still a little pricey, but you make the brass out of 5.56 cases, and the bullets are all .30 cal/7.62. The powder for most loads is magnum pistol powder. You can push a 110 gr. projo to 2400 fps. The preferred supersonic load seems to be a 125 gr. bullet at 2215 fps. Surplus M80 Ball 147s run right at 2000 fps, so the round is right up there close to the .30-30 and 7.62x39, and the bullets are more efficient than the RNs of the .30-30 or FMJs of the Soviet M43 round.

RF1, I would take a look at the route before making that decision. If you can't take advantage of the superior range of the .30-06, the .30-30 is quicker till you have to reload.

Great discussion, guys, hope it is as helpful to you as it is to me.

TR