Why we prep
Here's another reason why you – and your friends and family – should prep:
Venezuela institutes forced labor, orders citizens to do farm work
Oh boy, here we go again. Whenever a failing tyrannical government gets to the end of its rope, away goes the general populace to the "farm" team. (See Soviet Union, China, Cambodia, Vietnam, Nazi Germany ...) Never mind that none of these folks are farmers. Never mind that most of the large Venezuelan farms are mechanized. Never mind that people working on a farm aren't working in manufacturing, mining, infrastructure. ...
Care to guess how many politicians, bureaucrats, military officers and soldiers will be out there pulling weeds and sorting turnips? Yeah, me too.
But it's not like the citizens of Venezuela have much choice. In 2012, Venezuela banned the private ownership of firearms.
Prior to 2012, private gun ownership was legal in Venezuela provided (a) you could prove you needed one; (b) it was an acceptable caliber (read small and weak); and (c) you paid the appropriate bribes, er, fees. Sounds like "common sense" gun control to me. But then it was determined that even poorly armed and starving slaves might be a danger to their masters ... er, leaders.
God provides us with fundamental rights. The purpose of government is to steal those rights away from us for the acquisition of earthly power. The purpose of free and Godly men and women is to crop their government back every now and then, preferably at the ballot box, though other options are available.
And that's one of the reasons we prep.
All right then. Let's start talking about the best rifle(s) for the beginning prepper. But first, a bit of housekeeping.
As I've said before, I am not a gun expert. By that I mean, I've owned and used and tinkered with a lot of guns over many decades. But gun experts are a whole 'nother breed. For instance (from a real gun expert forum), the following quotes:
"Anyone know what the actual alloy is in the Pre 64 Model 70 receiver?"
and
"There seems to be almost nothing written on this model. Flaydermann skirts around it, and no book in my library offers much more than a bare mention of the Forehand & Wadsworth No. 38. This model is appealing because it was an obvious competitor with the Colt DA M1877 'Lightning' with a 3-1/2 inch barrel. But who got there first, Colt or Forehand & Wadsworth?"
Personally, I don't know Flayderman from Forehand; and as far as I know, Wadsworth was a poet. But I do know what I like, what's worked for me and what hasn't. And I know that "gun experts" can scare the pants off someone new to ownership of a firearm that might someday help save their life. So don't worry too much about alloys or Colt DA M 1877 competitors. Let's work on getting you set up with an essential prepper tool: a gun that can do the job.
So just what is a rifle? Well as usual, the American language simplifies as much as it confuses by shortening the term "rifled gun" to "rifle," meaning a long gun whose barrel interior has been engraved with one or more spiral grooves. In the process of cutting those grooves, much like pulling a plow through soil, both a ditch and a rise are created. The rise in a gun barrel is called a "land."
When you pull the trigger, the bullet (hopefully) separates from the rest of the cartridge and is accelerated down the barrel by a high-pressure gas wave created by the fast-burning propellant in the shell case. The pressure is so high that the bullet will actually expand in the barrel until it comes into contact with, and is engraved by, the lands. Since the pressure is still increasing, the bullet begins to rotate as it heads for the barrel exit, following the land spirals.
Rifling a barrel causes two extremely important effects: The first is it slows the bullet acceleration before it leaves the barrel. Now that might seem kind of stupid, because why would you want to slow down the bullet? But there's actually a very good reason to do so – at least temporarily. Because the gas from the rapidly burning propellant wants to travel faster than the spiraling bullet, it builds up tremendous pressure behind the bullet. As soon as the bullet reaches the end of the lands just before the crown, away it goes like a greased pig, accelerating much faster than it would have without the rifling.
The other important effect is that the bullet is now spinning, often rotating around an axis parallel to the gun barrel at over 100,000 rpm. That spin turns the bullet into a gyroscope, and gyroscopes resist being turned away from their initial orientation. That means that the bullet remains aligned with the barrel of the rifle in flight and – as importantly – with whatever aiming mechanism you used to align the barrel with your chosen target when you pulled the trigger.
So why go to all this trouble? Why not just have a smooth bore? Well, long ago, back in the DBM (Days before McLene), long guns were all shotguns (more or less) with smooth bores. And they all fired spherical bullets (balls). They had to, because any projectile that wasn't round (and wasn't spinning) would quickly begin to tumble in flight and end up who-knows-where.
The principles of rifling were known as early as the 15th century, but were considered pretty much a novelty because gun design, manufacturing, metallurgy and gunpowder developments simply weren't capable of the mass-precision needed to supply an army with rifles. So back then, the powers-that-be satisfied themselves with long lines of soldiers firing relatively inaccurate muzzle-loaded muskets over relatively short distances, figuring if you put enough lead in the air, you were bound to hit something.
The true and effective military use of a rifled long gun was first demonstrated by a bunch of traitors who rebelled against their legitimate ruler around 1776. As one (now anonymous) British captain wrote, "The Americans had riflemen who could hit a man anywhere they liked at 200 paces. ... At King's Mountain, they destroyed us."
So that's enough history for today. Next week we'll get a little more 21st century and cover some of the more modern descendants of those early rifles. And after applying the 4C's (Caliber, Composition, Capability and Cost), we'll take a look at the "reach out and touch someone" options for the modern-day patriot, otherwise known as the prepper.
Until then, keep your powder dry, defend your Rights, and get prepared.
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