Low-buck Foraging Kit-- .22lr Revolver, 20ga single shot?

[John in WI]

Long time Castboolits member--but I just learned of the Preppers section 10 minutes ago.
I've spent the past couple years wheeling and dealing on several firearms. Getting rid of "toys" that I wasted money on as a kid, and acquiring solid, useful stuff.
Last fall I picked up a Rossi single shot and an HR single shot, both in 20ga. The Rossi is particularly light--if you've ever handled one, they are very practical. Cheap, ugly, but reliable. I also impulse bought an HR 622 revolver in 22lr. In single action mode, it's actually a great shooter.
I just got in an old Austrian surplus shoulder bag, and am getting ready for some spring camping/foraging. I got to thinking, a 20ga and a .22lr could actually cover any game I would run into here in Wisconsin. I've practiced enough that I'd be confident shooting rabbits with the revolver. The 20ga could serve for larger game (turkeys especially, or even deer with slugs).
I'm thinking of making a case for the 20ga, to carry it while it's broken in half, and carry the revolver (maybe in a flap holster) inside of the shoulder bag, which would also have my foraging tools (a heavy trowel, pruning shear, Mora knife).
Do any of you folks have a dedicated foraging kit? I'm thinking it could spend most of it's life in the trunk of the car, as a sort of bugout/in shotgun.
I have an elastic shell holder on the stock that currently is holding 2 trap loads, 2 #3 buck, and 2 Brennake slugs. I could carry spare ammo in the shoulder bag.

Sorry these are probably no-brainers for most of you folks. I have some firearms experience and interest, but not a ton of real-world hunting experience. I'm just trying to put together a solid food gathering/pest controlling kit. As I said, I already have a decent 20ga and good shooting .22 revolver. It seems like that could do a lot. Especially the shotgun.

[Outpost75]

You are on the right track. Most common 20-ga. Single shots are full choke, but some of the youth models are choked modified, which you may find more versatile. The Hatfield and other Turkish imports are available threaded for choke tubes and are worth checking out.

[GhostHawk]

John I agree totally.

20 ga makes a good tool in the woods especially if you bring a variety of ammo for it. Some birdshot in 6's or 7.5's, some dueces, some buck, and a few slugs covers a whole lot of bases.

Any .22lr pistol that you can hit with at 25 to 50 yards will put meat in the pot.
If you want to extend the range or the size of the critters you'd like to shoot at consider .22mag.

I'd say you have your head on square and straight and you should enjoy the time spent out. At 70 its getting hard for me to get out and about. Lucky to be able to still do some fishing.

[hoodat]

I had a single shot 20 ga. as a kid, and it accounted for quail, rabbits, squirrels, grouse, pheasants, ducks, chucks, ummmm that's about it. I bought that shotgun when I was twelve, and two years later I got an 870 pump.(also twenty ga.) I also started reloading for those guns with a Lee Loader, which you may want to think about. jd

[Outpost75]

FYI my guns for this exact purpose are a Ruger Wrangler .22LR and a Beretta SB1 folding single barrel. Mine happens to be a 12-ga, but I use mostly the short shells in it. I like the option of being able to use common 12-ga. loads. I also have an old Savage Four-Tenner insert tube I can use in the 12-ga. barrel, but I seldom use it. The short 12-ga. shells are more effective than .410s.

[BamaNapper]

I like your thinking, John. And I assume most here would back up your choice if it's something you're confident and capable with. It's also not a lifelong decision you're making. If you choose to start with the .22 pistol and a 20 ga single shot, you can change your mind later if you wish.

I've seen a couple threads on here regarding backpacking or survival gear, and choice of weapon(s). My personal thought was typically more horsepower in the sidearm and perhaps a .22 single shot or pump rifle. While you may feel confident going for rabbits with a handgun, my experience was less than optimal when I tried it decades ago. Perhaps if I had a 22LR/20ga over-under I might just think I had it all in one package.

[John in WI]

Thanks for the thoughts, folks. The revolver shoots great in SA mode. The one thing that drives me nuts is that in DA, the hammer is directly in line with the sights. I haven't been able to find a spare hammer, that I would like to modify to move it out of the way, or cut a groove in it, or something. That you can't see the sights until the hammer is 3/4 of the way back seems like a very poor design! (see picture)

The only thing I didn't like about the 20ga is the limited ammo choices. I started reloading for it about a year ago, just using a roll crimper to close them up. I just sent off these buck and slug loads for pressure testing. It's a 0.5ounce "socket slug" ahead of 4 pellets of #1 and 4 pellets of #F. I thought that would be a pretty mean defensive load. First things first--make sure it's safe!

[John in WI]

Those are good points, Bama. I do quite a bit of shooting--I even got out frequently this winter. In the recycling I found a whole bag of small propane cylinders (empty) and I set them out along a fence line behind my mom's house. I spent a couple hours plinking them from various distances and approach directions, figuring a propane cylinder is roughly rabbit sized. I should clarify that I'm thinking about a food foraging system. I have different thoughts for a bugout/trunk of the car get home setup. That rig is actually a mossy 12 and a 9mm. More emphasis on power/capacity. In my limited hunting experience, I've never had a chance to take a second shot on anything. I seem to either hit, or the critter is long gone. I grew up with my not so trusty single shot Savage .22 bolt action. Even with practice, we're talking at most 7 shots a minute. But it shot straight.

[Tracy]

Great choices for foraging guns. I really like the old H&R revolvers, and have one of the 9-shot versions.

[Kestrel4k]

My father was a subsistence trapper in the AK wilderness back in the day, and his very favorite gun was the Savage 24; 22LR over 20ga.
I grew up with that gun in the truck cab; harvesting all sorts of small game w/ it, up to the occasional mallard.
Once for variety, he set aside his 30-06 & took one caribou with it. He saved the slug which I still have.

Having taken many grouse with the 20ga and a few with a 12ga; the smaller bore is such a better choice for upland game. :-/

[John in WI]

I have been on the lookout for an over under .22/shotgun for some time. Chiappa makes some for around $500. But I've never seen anything used. Years back, I was going through this same debate with myself, and I got an M6 survival rifle. It was 1 of 2 firearms that I was trying to sell the day after I bought it. Empty .22 cases didn't eject. The trigger system was the most ridiculously bad thing I'd ever seen. Cool idea--but their implementation was just terrible. The overall idea I liked very much--the stock held extra ammo. A .410 slug has about the same ass as a .41 magnum--in a pinch you could take a deer with it. The other thing I was kicking around was a chamber insert for my 20ga. But from what I saw, the insert would cost as much as the shotgun did. It seemed like throwing good money after bad--instead of turning my shotgun into a not so great rifle, maybe save up for something like an over under combo. If I could get 20ga/.22mag, that would be wicked.

[dverna]

This got me thinking. What if I had to live off the land? I have plenty of guns to hunt with but they are hunt specific. IE, I do not use a shotgun to hunt deer, or a rifle to hunt grouse.

Foraging legally looks like harvesting small game that either is in season or has no season. IIRC, game birds cannot be hunted legally with a rifle or pistol in Michigan, so that makes a shotgun the best option.

So, my choice would be a SxS or O/U shotgun in 28 ga. The shotgun would have a small frame, barrels shortened to 18 1/4” with tubes, and LOP reduced to 12 1/2”. I reload so a 28 ga is not a problem for me to get ammunition for. The gun would weigh about 5 lbs and be nibble to handle.

This will not meet the “low buck” criteria. After decades of shooting, I have learned “low buck” solutions require too many compromises and money is wasted down the road to solve the compromises. An excellent “tool” that will serve for decades may be worth consideration.

[BamaNapper]

I'll admit my mind has gone down the rabbit hole of foraging for subsistence more often than it should have. Plenty of books out there about foraging vegetation, but I'm a meat eater so that's where my mind goes. Obviously, since I'm on this site, I like guns. OK, what guns? After countless hours debating with myself I came to the realization that even the perfect gun is not the answer. My solution...

If you're foraging seriously, and not just having fun, you'll have far too many other things to deal with and won't be able to justify spending several hours tromping the woods looking for animals. So take some time and learn to make simple snares and traps for small game. You can make dozens of squirrel snares out of a few feet of abandoned phone wire from the attic. Total investment: $0.00! And you can bait a good number of those snares with a tablespoon of peanut butter. Now you have your day free to collect and filter drinking water, cut firewood, build a solar cooker, play golf, or whatever. At the end of the day you take 30 minutes to walk your line of snares and collect your bounty. In my opinion this is a far more efficient way to gather protein. There are plenty of YouTubes and articles on making and using snares and traps. It's also a much more efficient use of ammo. Small game like squirrels don't require any at all. And a raccoon in a trap requires, at most, one 22 round to dispatch. Yes the idea of bagging a deer seems awesome, but I'm lazy and would rather be able to easily gather up a pound or two of small game at a time.

With that said, there is no reason to ever stop looking for the perfect hunting gun. To stop looking would just be silly.

[John in WI]

That's a good point! My dad used to say "buy once, cry once". I do have higher value firearms. A .30-06 who's optics are worth more than my Rossi shotgun. I have a Ruger .22 mag. A couple other decent things. Nothing high end, but good, reliable solid firearms. This one in particular I wanted to be low buck, because I wanted something that would spend most of it's life stashed in a bag. Just something to mostly be there as a last ditch bugout or survival foraging weapon. I follow the law to the letter, now during stable times. And the law here in WI says that you cannot hunt turkeys with a rifle. That said, I've spent enough time shooting turkey targets with my .22mag and if things ever went sideways, I have a number of spots picked out where I routinely see 30-40 of them pecking around. This survival foraging weapon system would just be something light weight, and spartan. If things really went sideways, I would definitely call in my other dedicated rifles and shotguns. In my county in WI, it's shotgun only, and then only slugs. So locally I hunt with a rifled 12ga Mossy. It's plenty accurate out to 50 or 60 yards. I have my .30-06 which I just started casting and reloading for (finally, decent weather to do some testing). I have a nice .38 revolver, which is what I'm traniing my fiance on. SHe's not a gun enthusiast, and she really fumbles with the Smith M and P I got her--forgetting the safety, forgetting the location of the mag release... For that, I figure a DA revolver is about as simple as it gets. Not fast, but plenty powerful enough.

[John in WI]

I agree with that assessment--I know I've gone out hunting a lot, and I've failed a lot more times than I've succeeded. Hunting in the absence of "rule of law" would make matters easier, definitely, but even then. I would think my hunting would mostly be what I do already--popping the occasional rabbit in the garden. The occasional predator that's trying to get into my sister's chicken coop. I did do quite a bit of trapping when I was a kid. Back in the 80's, you could get a bundle for a good male mink. Even a coon would bring you $30. I have an old Stevens bolt action .22 that I use almost always with .22 shorts. For dispaching a critter in a trap, it's works perfectly. Very little noise.
I've been working with my fiance these past years, trying not to freak her out with "prepper" stuff. There are a lot of fun and interesting components too--foraging wild plants, for example, is a great way to spend the day in the woods. Some standard bugout skills, a bugout bag with the ability to make shelter, fire, a survival straw, a crank AM/FM/SW radio. The hope is, if things ever went sideways, I'd have at leas a small crew to help out. My sister is an avid chicken hobbyist. Mom has about 1/2 acre already under cultivation.... The ideal thing would be where everyone had a role to do, that they were good at. My fiance, I'm afraid, is never going to be a hunter. She just really has not the stomach for killing anything. That's fine--she loves planting and caring for a garden. SHe's an excellent cook. I think that's the deal with survival--always have a backup of some kind. I mean, I like the idea of harvesting a fat deer or turkey. But, it's rural WI, and I am obviously not the only person with a gun who thinks he's going to go out and hunt. I do need to dig out my old Fur Fish and Game books on trapping. I've been meaning to put together some box traps too. I picked up a couple of small conibears that I was going to boil and dye whenever I get an outdoor fire next.

[DDriller]

John if it gets to a survival stage state laws on hunting won't mean much.

[Kestrel4k]

But other people do ... i.e. subsonic loads & suppressors.

[GhostHawk]

10 days after the SHTF wild game is going to be hard to find and is going to take some long walks to locate.

They are not stupid, they figure stuff out quick. And they know that 90% of the hunters won't walk more than a quarter mile from where they parked their truck.

So to find them you will need to accept that it is going to take some 2 to 4 mile walks just to get into the area they are using.

Snares for small game make perfect sense. It is one area I need to build skill in.

[dverna]

SHTF should not play into this. Like GhostHawk posted, people who think they will live off the land if that happens are living in a fool's paradise. Not only will there be little or no game to hunt, but you will be murdered by the locals. You will be taking food off their table. During SHTF, game laws are not the only laws suspended. If you forage, you will be at best be driven off and possibly murdered by the locals. You are taking food off their table, and they will be in organized groups.

Preppers have been sold lies and fantasies. Bugging out is almost certain death. If citidots want to bug out, they will need to be organized into armed gangs to take what they need from others. Those of us who live in the boonies, and have what they want, know that and what to do about it.

Shooting squirrels, rabbits and grouse to survive is never going to happen.

Think about this. How many of you been confronted by locals when hunting on public land? You have every right to hunt there but some "hick" will say, "This is my spot and I have hunted year for 20 years". Now, think about a SHTF event. No DNR, no LEO's, no "laws", just you and him and he may have a couple of friends with him. Are you going to tell him/them about your "rights"?

[BamaNapper]

I don't see it as a SHTF thing either. I think working through the what ifs is mostly a result of a couple decades of reality TV shows

As for the snares and traps idea, I'm perfectly willing to use them during hunting season. Live traps are fun to build and entertaining. Great fun for squirrels in the back yard. I call it entertaining because I'd typically let them go and see how many times they can be recaught. A box trap to help keep raccoons in check on the hunting property is also cool, but I haven't bothered. And raccoons are pretty goid eating. But its the squirrel snares that I find most interesting. We have countless grays down here. Put out a few snares one evening, check them mid-day, check again in the evening, day after day. just disable them when you cant check often. A simple wire snare can be reset and reused for weeks, perhaps the whole season. It lets me go deer hunting and squirrel hunting at the same time.