Beyond Basic Battery - Specialty Guns Niche Firearms

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1:00Welcome to Gunfighter Life, the podcast we talk about guns, gunfighting tactics, ballistics, the right way with God Almighty at the center, biblical Judeo-Christian values and real world firsthand experience. Military law enforcement, private security contracting, competition shooting, hunting, and a bunch of other stuff, viable points in the show notes. Okay, quick caveat, in case you didn't listen to the last one like this. I have done episodes on the basic battery. I think you should start out building a basic practical battery, which I'm not going to rehash. But they are your core go to guns, depending on how you want to count it or break it down the five to six guns that will cover 80 to 90% of your gun needs. But then we go beyond the basic battery.

2:01I covered some of that in the last installment, but I thought there was a few more worth getting into. The first two I'm going to cover are vastly different, but similar titles. Bird guns and waterfowl guns like upland, bird hunting, and waterfowl, completely different kinds of shotguns, sure you could get your run of the mill shotgun that would do both, but really these are specialized tasks. And I like both of these things. I'm not hardcore, but I'm not the world's most hardcore bird hunter. But I enjoy both. I like putting meat on the table. I like both of those things as far as wild game goes for your upland hunting. Now there's you could get super specialized, you could say, this is my this is my quail gun and this is my chucker gun. This is my grouse gun. Okay, but we're going to lump that all in.

3:02Let's not get crazy specialized unless that's just you in which case you probably know more about this topic than me, but an upland game hunting shotgun in general going to be a sub gauge, meaning a gauge smaller than 12, so 20, 28, 410, 4 hunting doves and quail emphesans. Not that you can do it with a 12, but if you're doing this a lot, you're probably slogging it out, covering lots of miles. When you're shooting fairly small birds, so you don't need the 12 gauge and that ammo, it doesn't cost more, but it costs more and weight that you have to carry all day as does the shotgun. And if you've ever done a lot of bird hunting, you'll know that having the gun at the ready at port arms or even more at the ready than that, that's going to probably get you a lot more shots on birds and hopefully more birds than having the bigger gauge that you just get tired of holding up when you're walking mile after mile. So a smaller gauge, lighter weight, like let's say vent rib interchangeable choke hunting

4:10shotgun for hunting upland game birds. Now for waterfowl, waterfowls its own thing and waterfowls especially specialized in that the federal government not only makes you buy your local hunting license, but you also have to buy a federal license. That's right, you have to buy two hunting licenses in order to hunt waterfowl in general. Because they cross state lines, so you must pay, you must render under the federal government to hunt waterfowl. Not only that, but you have to spend more to hunt waterfowl because you have to buy the stamp and you have to use non toxic shot, which is expensive. And it's either not very good or very expensive, steel shot is not as good as lead shot. So all those things, but together mean you generally have a fairly specialized gun, you of course you can shoot ducks and kill ducks with a 410, that was my first shotgun, I duck

5:10hunted with a 410, it's not the right tool for the job. You generally want a 12 gauge and a 12 gauge magnum, meaning it can handle three in shells, three and a half inch is generally more than you need, even for waterfowl hunting. But if you're doing like a lot of goose hunting or something with steel shot, you may see the utility of a three and a half inch, 12 gauge, other than that, it's pretty crazy and overpowered for what you need. And thankfully, if you're doing a lot of goose hunting, it's usually in very cold weather and using a big heavy jacket, some of the recoil, that helps the recoil a little bit. In general, duck hunting, you're not doing a lot of walking, I know you can jump ditches, but that's not how most people hunt ducks. Generally, duck hunting is done from a blind or from a boat, neither one, until a lot of walking in general. So you want a heavier shotgun because usually those waterfowl loads have a lot of recoil. So the heavier the shotgun, the better.

6:11You might want a very heavy ported shotgun, some like a Mossberg 835 or similar, like a Benelli supernova, something like that heavy, that handles big heavy magnum shells, has interchangeable chokes. And waterfowl hunting is one of the most unforgiving generally environments, usually a lot of water, a lot of mud. If you're on the coast, like where I grew up, you're going to be talking about salt water, which just makes things rust, that you wouldn't think could rust. So you want a very impervious rugged design, capable of handling those magnum loads that's a fairly heavy shotgun in general, generally an event rib with interchangeable chokes. And days of you, a lot of those older guns were full choke, but a lot of those six full

7:14chokes from the old days can't handle steel shots. So again, those are kind of what you're looking for, that's a specialty thing, beyond the basic battery. I wouldn't want just a duck hunting shotgun for my only shotgun, right, that I would want a good all purpose survival shotgun, which I've covered a lot of what that is, but that's not this. That's also not the year upland gamebird hunting shotgun. Those are their own things. But beyond the basic battery, if you're really into duck hunting, if you live on the coast, and that's one of the few things you can hunt, you know, you might be really into duck hunting. And if you are, obviously, that's a good place to go beyond the basic battery. You actually probably will do better with a specialized waterfowl gun than you will with a general purpose shotgun. Now if you're just getting into duck hunting, just take the shotgun that you have, assuming it's safe to do so, if you're just going to try out upland gamebird hunting, unless you just want to buy a shotgun for one hunt, you may decide you hate chuck her hunting because you get full of cactuses and you hike mile after mile after mile to shoot a two pound

8:17bird. You may find out you love it because you're like being out there with your dog and the views are great. But just take your general purpose shotgun. But if you decide yet, chuck her hunting is my jam, then you're probably going to want a specialty shotgun, a lightweight, smaller gauge, you know, vent rib shotgun. So those two for beyond the basic battery. The next one is going to be a mid bore rifle for the United States. Now if you're talking about Africa, I try to stick with what I know and I don't know much about Africa because I've never been to Africa. I've never hunted Africa. But for America, once you've got your basic hunting rifle, which I would generally suggest be something like a three LA or a 30 out six or even a six five creed more for for white

9:24tail deer is plenty. So a good full powered rifle cartridge and it could be another one. It could be 270. Let's not get in the weeds, but a good big game hunting rifle. That's part of your basic survival battery or your basic gun battery. But you do a lot of bigger animal hunting. You live in a place that has brown bear, grizzly bear. You routinely hunt elk and or moose. Yeah, a mid bore, you might want to step up to a mid bore and by mid bore, I'm talking of 35 whale and 9.3, a three 38, a three 58. These kind of mid bore cartridges, they, especially if you do what I do and like to spot and stock hunt, not shooting off a bench, not some 12 pound rifle with a giant scope off a bipod or a tripod, but you like to get in there and mix it up. You like to track animals. You like to still hunt.

10:27For those, you may decide you want a mid bore. You may want a 35 whale and you may decide you want a heavier bullet and moderate velocities, which tends to do pretty well on larger game. So a mid bore may be something you want beyond the basic battery. Now again, like the shot, because you're thinking, I may hunt elk someday. You probably don't need a mid bore. You spend your money on what you want. If you're just going to try elk hunting, take your 30 out six, they'll be fine. If you decide, yeah, this is, I really want a spot and stock. I'm going to move cross country or I'm going to hunt elk every year. And I like to spot and stock and still hunt. I don't like to sit on a ridge with a giant piece of glass hour after hour. I want to get in there and chase them. Then yeah, you might decide you want a mid bore, a medium bore rifle. Here is another one completely almost on the opposite end of the spectrum here.

11:27They're both rifles, but a target 22. Now your basic battery, you probably have a 22 and today's day and age is hard to beat. It's hard to beat a Ruger 1022. Like a Ruger, a stainless steel all weather, Ruger 1022 or a stainless steel all weather, Ruger 1022 takedown is not the only one, but it's the one to beat for a go to general battery survival or general purpose 22. But if you have that and you want to work on your rifle craft, you want to work on being a good rifleman and you want to do it at lower cost in your center fire, I think that a good target 22. And again, you can do martianship training with a Ruger 1022, but you may, after you're building out your basic battery, you may want to go with a target 22 or a dedicated training 22, similar to your center fire rifle that you use a lot.

12:31For instance, I have an old communist training rifle, bolt action 22, that's a super long barrel, good iron sights, mounted with an optic, that's pretty accurate. And I use that for training for bolt action stuff. Like when I'm going to train with for using my scout rifle, but I don't want to waste a bunch of, not waste, I don't want to use a bunch of ammo, just practicing going from the stand-in to the kneeling and getting a quick shot off, like training for hunting season. You know, if I'm practicing, bringing the gun up and getting a quick snapshot, well, I can do that with my bolt action target 22. I don't have to spend a dollar or more around every time I pull the trigger shooting the 308 or 308 6, maybe even more than that. I can do those basic drills with the 22, so a target 22. If you want to work on your basic rifle craft, you know, shooting your classic positions,

13:37standing, sitting, kneeling prone, then that's a really good way to go. Having a good target 22. Also if you are more into the tactical side, it may be worth it to have a good trainer for whatever your platform is, like an AR-22. Smith and Wesson makes one, some other companies make one, they're just basically an AR-15 in 22, but same ergonomics, similar controls. You may decide that you want one of those for a good training apparatus or a target rifle in a different sense. Or you can set up the paper alternate wall for the US Army wall and shoot it with the 22 and save ammo. But a good target 22. And you can do the same thing with a handgun, right?

14:39If you want to become a good handgun shooter, that requires practice and there is a time in a place and you should definitely practice with your carry gun with your duty gun. But if you're working on getting down to your sub-second draw, or whatever your next goal is, you're working on a sub-two-second build drill, you're working on a sub-four-second L-Prez, and you're just trying to smooth off that technique, you're trying to iron out that superfluous movement to make yourself faster, that can require a lot of rounds. So why not do a lot of that work with a 22? So whatever your main platform is, it doesn't have to be exact, but something with a similar manual of arms as you go to, let's say, defensive or fighting handgun. If you're a wheel gun guy, and that's your general go-to carry gun, you may want to get a 22 wheel gun, obviously if it's a double action, similar manual of arms, get a double

15:44action 22, but if you're carrying a double single revolver, getting a quick shot off with that long double action trigger pull, that takes a lot of work. Well, if you're working on that, except for the recoil control on consecutive shots, you might as well do that with a 22 and save yourself a lot of money. So your 22, let's call out a target trainer. That is definitely a good thing to have for beyond your basic battery. Kind of related to this, if you just want to work on the fundamentals and you start getting good, you actually may have realized that you can out-shoot many of your handguns as far as accuracy goes. If your Gen 3 Glock 17 only shoots six inches at 25 yards and you can get to the point

16:45where you can shoot better than that, you're not going to shoot better if that's as good as your Glock can shoot. Same thing with the 22. So you might want a very accurate 22 handgun if you're building out that battery beyond the basic battery. And this is going to take a lot of time in training to get to, but for instance, I have a Thompson Center single shot 22 Thompson Center contender if you know what that is. It's not tactical at all, it's the least tactical handgun maybe in history. It's a big, heavy single shot break open 22 pistol. You know what though? It's crazy accurate and it makes me slow down. If I shoot a headshot at 50 yards and I miss with that gun, one, it's me and two, it makes me slow down and think of, okay, what did I do wrong that that shot did not hit? Whereas with a semi auto, I can get frustrated and just pull the trigger again and then I'm

17:46just reinforcing bad habits. If I need to break it down Barney style and get back to the fundamentals, that single shot 22 is good for that. It's a good trainer for that. It doesn't have to be that one, but that is a pretty good example. Okay, another thing you may want to consider is a very cheap break open single shot shotgun. Twelve gauge, 20 gauge. These can be had even with today's post COVID inflation. They can be had very affordably and very cheaply. Even if you have a nice or shotgun, even if you have several really nice shotguns, I think there may still be a place for a cheap break open single shot shotgun. A few reasons. One, you just want to get back to the basics of hunting, let's say small game or something and you want to just carry a single shot.

18:48Yeah, sure, you can just load one round into your pump, but there's something, you know, I guess nostalgic for me about just going hunting with an old, you know, H and R break open 20 gauge or something or 410. It's more challenging. That's one reason a break open single shot. Another reason is because they're cheap and affordable, if you are at all concerned about beating one up, scratching it up, getting it rusty, you're probably less concerned if it's one of these guns. And maybe you're this guy, but if not maybe you have a friend that's this guy, you know they just don't take care of stuff. You love them, they just, they don't maintain stuff at all. If you need to loan them a gun and it's legal and obviously they, they're legally allowed to own a gun and it's legal where you are or some states don't even let you loan your buddy a gun, which let's not just, let's, let's not get into that right now, but you have somebody that you want to loan something, but you know that the kind of guy you're not

19:50going to loan something really nice because you don't know what it's going to be like when you get it back, break open single shot shotgun. And or you have somebody, you've, you've, you've, you're somebody else has taught them the basics, right? You're, you're confident that they are competent to safely handle a firearm. They don't own one, but they have an acute situation where they might need a firearm. They don't really understand a lot about firearms. They're probably not going to, you know, be able to field strip an M16 blindfolded, but they know the basics, right? And you're going to loan them a gun for whatever reason. Let's say in general, they don't want a gun, but for whatever reason in this cute situation, they want a firearm. I, again, it's not the most tactical gun in the world, much like that single shot 22 I talked about, but it's still a firearm. And like a break open single shot 12 or 20 gauge, even a 410 is, is a decent thing to have

20:52if you don't have a gun. It's, it's a huge force multiplier versus no gun. Well, that's a good loan of rifle. You're probably not going to lose any sleep over Aunt Margaret down the street that you loan your single shot shotgun to. So as a loaner gun, especially for loaning out to somebody that is not crazy familiar with firearms, but you, they're going to be safe with it, right? They're not irresponsible. They know their safety rules, but it's just easy, simple manual of arms. The great thing about the shotgun is the first utility, depending on what their problem is, you can give them a couple of rounds of buck shot, right? You can give them a good load for coyote or whatever problem it is that they might face, right? It's a, it's a good thing to have to loan out for that reason. So I think that's a good thing to have. Say cheap inexpensive, a lot of times you can find them old beat up at gun shows or gun stores or wherever for a very small amount of money compared to most of their firearms.

21:54And a gun like that, especially a break open single shot shotgun, I think is something worth having for those reasons if you're going to build out beyond the basic battery. All right, guys, I think that's going to pretty much wrap up this episode volume two of Beyond the Basic Battery. Practical tip of the day, comma wire, at least I think of it that way. It doesn't have to be for communications, but some kind of thin copper coated wire coated with some kind of plastic coating. I think of it as comma wire because you use it to run field phones, old field telephones during the global war on terror and things like that. But anything like that, right, where it's that kind of wire that's got a coating on it. If you don't have a basic hasty field cleaning kit for the gun that you have, a length of this long enough to go down the board that you can just easily put an eye on one side

22:59meaning just a small loop that you can put a small patch with some kind of CLP or something on it. That can be really, really nice if you're in a situation where you need to get something down that bore and you don't have any other way to do it. So appropriate size for the caliber that it'll fit. And then with the caveat that you don't put a patch that's too big that is not going to go down the board and you snap the wire off because that could be a really bad day. But assuming you basically understand the appropriate size patch to put down your bore and it's going to give you some resistance, but it's not at all in danger of breaking off with that wire. A length of two of that wire in your basic field cleaning kit or a basic range bag, that can be really nice to have. Again, if you don't have a field cleaning kit, but that wire can be used pretty well to pull something down a bore. Obviously, if it's something bigger like a shotgun, you can use 550-quarter or whatever.

23:59A lot of times on center fire rifles, that's not going to work too well. But that coated wire can work pretty good and it's pretty easy to make a little eyelid and it's pretty easy to put a patch in it and pull it down the bore. Your tactical verse of the day, your tactical verse of the day, you shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord, your God, which I command you. You're not supposed to add to, this is my comment, you're not supposed to add to or take away from the Word of God. Both can be equally bad. And we are sometimes tempted, if I'm being honest, myself included, to add to or take away from based on what we want or what we don't want to do. But that's not what we're called to do, not to add to it or take away from it. Jesus often reeled against the Pharisees, the Sadducees, not for keeping the Torah, not

25:00for keeping the law, but for adding to it or taking away from it. Instead of doing what it actually said, they were making up stuff that they wanted to do or not do based on the traditions of men. Let us not add to or take away from it. With that guys, thanks for listening and have a blessed day.