Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles The time has come to show off your SHTF rifle

Alright, lets have it. Show me your best SHTF rifle and tell me why you think its the best. There's always a lot of talk about these rifles and how they never fail. My rifles dont fail me either, but some here think they are only good off the bench. This bs coming from the guys that have never had to shoot against me. ha ha.. This can be a fun thread. Lets see what you got. I'm thinking one of my favorites is my Northtech defense. It shoots everything accurately. Yeah, I know it has a 20" barrel, but it gets the job done. Just for chidts and giggles:

Less than 8 seconds on target downrange in preparation for one of my AR shoots. Yeah, the bigshots from Portland and Vancouver got their chidt stomped that day. Just sayin :

This rifle is fast and smooth and has never had a hiccup. Not one in over 3,000+ rounds downrange with it. It likes just about every kind of ammo I've tried in it. It isn't finicky... Excellent for chidt hitting the fan scenarios, if you will...

Same rifle in the Carl Ross positional match. Its the High score rifle in that event, where guys like Formid also shot..


I like the idea of an AR10 for a SHTF rifle, but it just doesn't send rounds downrange as fast as the .223/556 does:

Its accurate enough and would make a hell of a good longrange SHTF rifle, but for up close and personal, I'd take my lighter ar15 over the AR10. Don't be bashful, post yours up. This isn't about shooting 10 shot groups, but if you can put them all in the x ring in under 8 seconds, I'll give you bonus points...

Uh, I don't have one. Out in the woods one day, I set it down to pee and couldn't locate it afterward. Still out there. Sad part is that it had my 60rd pmag in it at the time.....

This sounds much more like a "yall stop making fun of my bench rifles" thread than a "show off your SHTF rifles" thread.

Boomers envision a fox hole and sandbags. A sgt York sceniro.

In an effort to contribute, I'll offer this.

A SHTF rifle is a rifle that would presumably be used to fire at other people who also have rifles in a situation of societal collapse. And it will likely happen within 200 yards.

To accomplish that, the rifle, and you, need to have the following characteristics:
1--It's gotta be reliable. Not mostly reliable. Absolutely reliable, no matter what. Part of reliability is that it should be made of parts that won't break and are assembled in a way to eliminate the likelihood that it will fail.

2--You need to be able to see what you're shooting at. If you're going to encounter bad guys doing bad things, the likelihood of you encountering them in the dark is very, very high. A fighting rifle should have illumination. Preferably illumination with more throw than spill. I like mine as close to 12 o'clock as I can get it.

3--Once you can see it you need to be able to discriminate if you should shoot it or not. Societal collapse involves lots of good guys and bad guys all mixed in together, or folks that move freely between those two and look like each other. Or folks that are partially obscured behind cover or concealment. Magnified optics are great for that. Good optics are very reliable and work even without batteries. 4x on the top end would be good, 6x or 8x would be better. The low end being very low is more important than having 6x or 8x. A generous field of view and very generous eye box are more important than high end magnification. Set it up to work from 25-100 all the time from any position, and build up from there.

4--You need to be able to retain it. That nonsense in Kenosha brings that out. A sling isn't optional. I prefer an adjustable two point sling. I like the Magpul.

5--It needs to be "accurate". This is the bottom of the list. SHTF scenarios would theoretically be mostly defensive in nature. As such, a shot anywhere on a person, or likely even real close to a person, would be enough to stop them. As much as we don't want to admit it, a 3MOA rifle would be more than accurate enough for defensive purposes. By that, I mean 3MOA on demand from field positions. Accuracy is a function of the rifle and shooter. This is the thing we obsess over the most, which is probably the least important. We should probably obsess more on our field shooting than our rifle's accuracy potential.

6--It should be reasonably portable. 16" guns can work. Shorter is more better.
___________________

Everything else, IMO, is lagniappe. I want a reliable rifle, with a sight and light that lets me see what I'm shooting at, that I can keep with me, that I can use to hit a 6" target at 200 yards.

No Frills, with a if I can see it, I can hit it zero. Nuts on minute of center mass @ 300, even tighter from 50-200. Prone, kneeling or sitting. My problem is I shouldn’t be able to hit sh*t from those positions as I am a boomer, we can only shoot with sandbags, foxholes and high mag scopes as in 71 they were really prevalent in rice patties and jungle trails.😂

I've got a few that would suffice just fine, but this is the one purposefully assembled.

BCM 14.5" SOCOM upper
Primary Arms 3X ACSS
Cloud Defensive OWL
Troy handguards
Milspec trigger
H3 buffer

KISS. Bushmaster Dissy upper.

Me and my bud were just talking about getting 14.5 barrels of course with the pinned bird cage. I been told SBR tax stamps coming back in less than 30 days. I should get one..

My 14.5 is pinned/welded.

Wouldn't mind SBR-ing my 11.5" pistol though.

Tell me, how good is your grouping when someone is shooting back at you with a surplus 303 British?

My SHTF firearms need most-likely would be sitting on this rock on my land and thumping any unwanted visitors.







For that, the M1A pictured above might work, but so might my .340 Wby.

Don't forget your body armor and helmet boys and girls!

One of these. 6940 on left with aimpoint, 6920 on right with shaved fsb and velocity trigger. Mark4 2.5-8x

Good post. Not sure why the OP is harping on group size.lol

Lol

The 10mm rifle on the left below would be a nice option if I also had my G40 with me. They both take the same mags. Not really a 200 yd gun, but it's light and handy and uses the same ammo and mags as my preferred nightmare scenario handgun.

[img]https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/galleries/15600898/colt-ar[/img]
Sorry, but I couldn't figure out how to post from the image gallery. It's a Colt M4 with gray Magpul furniture, a Leupold VX-R 1.25-4x in a Burris PEPR mount and YHM BUIS, Rock River 2-stage trigger.