Your backpack is full of all the essentials. Your party is outside waiting for you. You have a long walk ahead. You open your Arms Locker… It is full of your life’s collection… all your favorites… with magazines and ammo to spare. But you can only pick one, because you are going to have to carry it a very long way.
You don’t know what you will face… but you know that out there… outside the borders of The Shire… are dark horrible things and you could run into some or all of them. Orcs, Trolls, Uruk-hai, Dunlendings, Goblins, Olog-hai, Easterlings, Wights, Wargs, Ring Wraiths, Nazgul, Skin-Changers, Giants, perhaps a Dragon and Balrog (with wings… because freaking Balrogs have wings, damnit), and if you are unlucky… a Tom Bombadil .
You reach in, grab the gun and head out.
What was it that you grabbed?
This was a question asked in the very early days of TheFiringLine.com… I remember it well because I thought about it a lot before I answered, and I have thought about it still since then. My answer at the time was a Krinkov. Smallish, Lightish, but reliable and potent. I think it was a good answer then. I think it’s a good answer still.
For me? 18″ Winchester Defender. Loaded with buck and slugs. Lightweight and plenty of power. I have a youth stock on mine for a more compact package.
I’ll revise my opinion on WTA and modify the one I gave on Facebook: a Khyber Pass-style AKMS (7.62×39 but with the AKS-74 side-folding stock), suppressed if at all possible. Reasonable balance of weight, ammmo capacity, and firepower/stopping power. And it’s an AK, so dead-nuts reliability is pretty much a given. Plus, the stock folds out of the way for storage/carrying/moving through tight spaces, but is still solid enough to get a good cheek weld on.
Off-topic: Ogre, would you mind if I reposted this on my blog and/or Facebook?
Go for it.
My .308 Saiga with the folding stock and 3×9 Redfield on TWS rail. Lots of CSSpecs mags.
While I have never owned one, I have long lusted after a Galil AR in 7.62; it would have to be my choice. Reliable, relatively compact with the stock folded and .308 punch.
Only one weapon,would say a Ruger 10/22. Can cary 3 bricks(1500 rds) of 22 in the space of less than 6 7.62-39 AK Mags
I would probably choose a mid-length barreled AR with collapsible stock. I just know the platform so well, and the ammo is so common in the USA that it makes sense for me.
The same Glock 19 I carry everyday if we are talking pistol. My 16″ BCM Middy.
Mossberg 500. Or, maybe a Mossberg 500. Possibly my Mossberg 500. I wouldn’t want to go up against anything in armor without having something that delivers a lot of punch.
And despite the “Lord of the Rings” basis, this hypothetical serves an important inquiry. What firearm would you rely upon if the SHTF in society? Particularly in a suburban/urban area? I already know the answer: a Mossberg 500. Or something very similar.
+1.
Ditto.
I don’t have to be able to see 400 yards, or in the dark, or hope it works after it has been under the bed for 6 months.
Point and click. Even if I get and Orc coming at me, he’s hurt. Balrog? 3″ 00 baby, set that on fire bish.
I might want a do over for the Balrog. Slugs instead of shot, but otherwise, still in.
Don’t see how a man could go wrong with a 12 ga. pump in the worst of situations.
Kim du had his version of this, which was, what gun to carry if crossing America in the year 1700 (or whatever it was)
Start out with two horses and a dog, was how he had it.
I figured that when you got to the west coast, the horses would be gone, the dog would be dead, and anything weighed more than half a toothbrush handle would be left behind.
For that trip, I figured a Browning .22 auto or a 10/22 would be the gun.
For your scenario, with goons and whatnot that need to be hit hard, I guess Id take the mini 14 or the CZ 7.62×39 carbine.
I like the CZ Carbine… That’s a solid gun.
I gotta go with my 1895 GBL Marlin and a mix of 325gr LeverEvolution/Garrett 420gr SuperHardCast. Probably not a great choice tactically but it will blow a hole through an Orc you can throw a Hobbit thru. This is the gun I call my shillelagh.
I’ll go with my current 300blk AR. High cap – super sonic barnes triple shock copper burners or subsonic 220gr thumpers. Leupold 1-4 power custom reticle with drops out to 400m for each load. SAS TI arbiter muffler. Does well on hogs and should work ok on orcs too.