During the z-paw, weapons will no doubt be a valuable, in-demand commodity.

Say you are in a group of prepared survivors and you have come across others who were not as prepared but were lucky enough to survive. For the sake of argument, your group is about 8 strong and very self sufficient as it is with a fortified base with a garden, a setup to purify and us more than enough water, ovens and stove powerd by that renewable resource wood, even solar power, and weapons with plenty of ammo. Some would argue that you're already setup and should not bother with other people, but rather than become hermits you've decided to expand your number, thereby further spreading out the work load to better your quality of life for yourselves and other people among other advantages. But most prepared people have taken the same path as you and will not be showing up to join someone else's group. So you will be taking in unprepared people; not useless or anything as they deffinately seem to be good, able people who just didn't prepare like you did for whatever reason. You could upgrade from your little collecton of rabbits and the 2 goats you have as livestock to some chickens, maybe even start using horses if you add some able bodied workers to your farm, maybe one of the survivors has a specialized skill that would come in handy for everyone. (if you meet an experienced surgeon or paramedic who happens to have never held a weapon before, would you turn him or her away?)

But I digress, I am posting this to throw around some ideas of how to arm people who may have never been armed before.

I would love to be more generous to someone than to just throw them a sharp stick and say go get em, but at the same time when you are talking about someone who may have never held a weapon before I would not give them something like an AR right off the bat. Not only does such a weapon require more knowledge to use but ammo would be beyond valuable, and in the hands of someone with no training they could burn through 30 precious rounds in 20 seconds or less without hitting a thing, let alone a zombie head.

For this exact reason I would most likely rule out semi-autos as a first gun for new recruits.

Older, cheaper manually operated guns are what I would be more likely to hand to the newb on the team. Keep in mind that when I would likely not put a complete newb into front line zombat unless it is absolutely neccesary, but would rather have them start out on rear duties in most cases, such as ferrying supplies to the front line. I would deffinately want them to be armed in this situation though, because it is quite likely that they would have to take a few shots, plus it's great training.

Instead of an expensive semi auto pistol (lets say an FNP-9) that could burn through 16 rounds before and put in 16 more before you can say "zombies up ahead!", I may give them an old revolver. I don't know about duing todays gun panic but fairly recently I have seen S&W Model 10 revolvers for $100. That price would be for a very used one with holster wear and scratches, but very capable nonetheless. Not to mention the regular pressure .38 special rounds it takes are fairly cheap too.

There are many other old .38s in the same price range as the Model 10 but that's the one that comes to mind anyway. Reason I suggest this over a fancy semi-auto is that for one they are much simpler in just about every way. No magazine to drop and lose, the cylinder is attatched. Cleaning is just about self explanatory, and it takes about a minute to show someone how to work a revolver. And the problem of burning through ammo solves itself, when the person has to reload the 6 shots one by one they will become much more careful about their shooting.

Another option would be the shotgun. Most shotguns, with the exception of fancy semi-autos will be extremely simple to learn anyway. A pump shotgun, again easy to use and like the revolver, hard to burn through too much ammo too quickly. Most pump shotguns are pretty cheap, aside from super fancy sporting models and super ultra tactic00l models with all the latest rail mounts and stuff. Mossbergs and Remingtons among others can be had for well under $300 brand new. You can get used ones for much cheaper, and even really old pump guns are as good as new ones in most cases.

An even cheaper option would be a single shot or double barrel. Doubles these days are usually expensive sporting guns but you can find some old utilitarian ones for under $150 easily. And single shot shotguns on the used market can be easily found for less then $60. And for those induviduals who have a hard time with 12 gauge recoil there are many smaller but still powerful and easily found shotgun loads out there such as 20 gauge and .410, the latter of which just about anyone could shoot. It doesn't get any simpler than a break barrel shotgun, for ease of use, cleaning, everything.

And last but certainly not least on my list are rifles. Surplus bolt actions would be the first thing I would hand out when it comes to rifles. The first thing that comes to mind is the Mosin-Nagant. These can be had for $100 or less, and surplus ammo is still very available and much cheaper than most other centerfire cartridges these days. Being a 5 shot bolt action it will also make your newb careful about his or her shots. And you can reload it pretty quickly from stripper clips.

This weapon is extremely durable and easy to work. It was designed with the uneducated pheasant with little or no experience with weapons to pick up and use easily, and I don't doubt that it could still serve that purpose. While a newb won't be making any 300 yard+ headshots with this or any weapon they could probably do it at under 60 yards with a few minutes practice. Longer range Rifle shooting is a big skill to master, until then the Mosin has a hell of a bayonet!

So anyway, that's what I could think of for now. Any other ideas? Thoughts? Criticizm?

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

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