Poacher's Takedown Rifle

One of the baffling things about the US military is they include a survival rifle in the drop bags for all air force pilots, called the M-7, or AR-7.

 

And it's a .22 Long Rifle. A puny round, very inexpensive, not terribly fast, around 900-1150 fps.

 

Small caliber pistols are chambered for this.

If you're thinking this looks like a Nazi Luger? There's a reason.

 

Small boys carry .22 rifles on farms. Its a step up from a Daisy BB rifle. This is sufficient for rabbit and squirrel, but you can starve to death eating rabbit. They don't have enough fat. This is well known to survivalists. The Armalite version is actually used in the James Bond movie: From Russia With Love, and somehow effectively snipes a gypsy, and takes down a helicopter in two separate sequences. Yeah. The Bond films are hilarious.

Obviously, this should be a larger caliber rifle, even if its a slow rate of fire. Every kid taking his first American History class knows that the .30-30 Winchester has killed every single type of animal in America. Not all the kills were clean or fast, but carefully aimed? Works great. It would be utterly sensible if the survival rifle were a .30-30, even if its a break action short barrel carbine Thompson Center. As light as you can make it.

I own one of these rifles, but its heavy, comparatively. Its action is beefy to handle really big calibers like .375 Holland and Holland. If it were scaled back to much lighter rounds, it would work better at a much lower weight. If the action were engineered for a hot .30-30 spitzer (normal .30-30 bullets are 180 grain round nose and somewhat slow) it would work just fine for hunting or self defense. Should drop the total weight to around 3 and half pounds. If you also engineer it with a set offset bearings and strong lock, you can fold it in half so it is easy to extend, load, and fire. A thing like this deserves to exist.

T/C G2 Contender

 

Of course, if you're really good with a pistol, you can actually order a T/C Contender pistol in .30-30 or if you are a competent reloader, in 7-30 Waters or if you insist on military ammo, in 6.8 SPC. A 7-30 is a .30-30 necked down to a 7mm bullet. I would consider one of those for hiking, though .44 Magnum would probably do just as well, and with bears? Yeah, even with vicious recoil a .44 is probably a move for sanity. However, for the above survival hunting rifle? A .30-30 contender rifle would probably be best. For military persons, you can fit the rifle stock but use the shorter pistol barrel. Naturally, a reloader could use the 6.8 SPC but load it with longer and heavier 130 grain bullets, in proper weights instead of the 117 grain ones used for military purposes. Or use the 7-30 Waters with 120 grain bullets. I've fired one using 7-.223 with 140 grain bullets and the recoil was painful in the T/C Contender pistol. Hot enough that the primer was falling out, burnt. That's a sign of overpressure, dangerous levels of it. Nearly bad enough to explode the gun. Just so you know.

 

I totally understand the interest in long barrel .44 Magnums for wilderness carry, which would be appropriate for their needs. Some people even hunt with this, usually with a scope on the pistol. I have one of those scopes, mounted on a rifle in Scout Mount Position, which lets you aim with both eyes open. The .44 Magnum is a good caliber because you can load them for many velocities, all the way down to .45 Long Colt, and up to full Magnum (which is bright, loud and hurts). Most people shoot .44 Magnum around .44 Special (aka Bulldog) loads, which is very similar to .45 ACP, just around the speed of sound. Nobody hunts with .45 ACP, since the bullets are slow enough they sometimes bounce. Same with .40 S&W, the round most often used by police officers. That sounds absurd, but you have to understand, autopsy doctors who deal with people shot by pistols, some bullets go all the way through, doing damage, others stop in the skin itself and just fall out on the table. No penetration over half an inch. How horrible is that? That's no caliber for hunting game.

 

In Brazil, they have Taurus arms, which uses CNC machining to build revolvers in the .44 Magnum, and the more popular local caliber, 41 Magnum, which has better reach. Their most famous model, the Raging Bull, is setup with a very long barrel, with a compensator, and a scope. It looks ridiculous. If you can buy one of those for $800 + scope, you can afford to carry a proper rifle, which weighs close to the same and costs the same as a bolt action .308, which is a military caliber in its name as 7.62 NATO. And its got more power and longer reach.

 

For all of that, it baffles me. Why does the military give pilots a useless rifle like the M-7? So many better options exist. Including a paratrooper version of the standard M-4, with a short stroke bolt carrier group and folding stock.

 

That's simple and costs about the same and uses the standard 5.56 NATO ammunition. So what are they thinking? Hostages make good press? Pilots starving to death is okay? It baffles me.