Help a Friend Pick a Gun

C

Coronach

New member
A buddy of mine is looking to buy a gun. He has a decent amount of experience (his dad shoots and he has been shooting since he was a kid), but he has yet to buy a gun of his own. He's not sure what he wants, and has expressed interest in handguns, shotguns and rifles. His price range is $200-$500. Shotguns and handguns I can discuss intelligently with him, but once you get into the realm of rifles my expertise (such as it is) begins to thin out.

If he includes milsurp bolt actions he can get a good shooter in that range and some glass for on it. I feel reasonably comfortable discussing the pros and cons of the usual milsurp rifles. He can also probably get a decent lever-action, and I know ZERO about them. He also mentioned auto-loaders, and in that range I can only think of the Mini-14, SKS and possibly an AK variant, again guns with which I have exceedingly limited experience.

His stated uses would be general plinking and target shooting, but with a secondary defensive use in a SHTF scenario (he likes to think ahead, good man). If not for the secondary defensive role I'd advise a .22lr, but he needs something with more oomph. He does not need a pretty collector gun, nor does he need hyper-accuracy, or a black tactical uber-gun (good thing, he ain't getting any of that for under $500 :D). He has no reloading capability, so cheap and available ammo is a must. He'd also like to stay as low in that price range as possible.

Thoughts/suggestions? Levergun, SKS and AK help especially appreciated. :)

(The gun that immediately jumped to my mind was the SKS. Cheap, reliable, powerful, accurate enough for stated purposes, easy to feed, accessories available)

TIA,
Mike
 
Tell him about the Savage 110 tactical in .223 or .308. In my neck of the woods they run about $450. They will run .75 MOA with decent ammo and sub MOA with mill surplus ammo. Dollar for dollar they are hard to beat.
 
If you want a civilian bolt, look at a Howa .308. They're copies (copies, hell, they're real) of the Weatherby Vanguard and should run about $300. I'd buy a used scope from Leupold or Burris if it was me on that budget and I wanted a civilian bolt.

Have you seen the sniper Noisy-Magnets in Shotgun News? You can get some surplus ammo for those without breaking the bank, too.

Steve
 
"cheap, available ammo a must" "limits" him to .223 Rem/5.56 NATO (the ARs/Minis & many bolts round), 7.62X39 (the SKS/AK round) & .308 Win/7.62 NATO (lots of choices for actions here) .... not much of a limitation, all-in-all. Prehaps too many choices.

Any chance you can get him on a few different rifles & let him decide which feels better, etc.?

For a general plinkin'/STHTF-type rifle, I don't think I'd be concerned with any glass for any near-term. You can have plenty of fun with ol' iron sights & at not much disadvantage with same.
 
Thanks for the replies.

Yes, I'm aware that there are far too many choices for his intended usage. Right now he's just trying to figure out what he wants in general, than he'll start looking at individual guns. I don't think he realized that he could get a halfway decent autoloading rifle in that price range, and that kinda made him step back a bit and go "hmmmm."

I agree with the point that the best bets for caliber are .223, .308 and 7.62 russian. If he was looking at Milsurp bolts you can get ammo for the nagants, mausers and enfields too...not quite as cheap and plentiful, but not bad. He was also thinking CMP Garand (Dane), but .30-06 is a wee bit more expensive. Conversions do exist to take the M1 to .308, though.

Keep the ideas coming. I'll start running down the leads.

Mike
 
Or you can go cheap but effective:

Excellent Czech Mauser: $150
Bulgarian Makarov: $150
Used 870: $200

A good all around arsenal for $500. :) Feel free to substitute as needed.

But if I was going to get just one rifle for the things that you describe in that range, I would probably get a SAR-1 Romanian AK. And a case of ammo, 7.62 x 39 is going for $90 a case right now.
 
Why not two rifles. A shootable SKS, a bolt action Mauser type rifle, and a lot of milsurp ammo could be gotten for about $500.
 
Points taken, I just emailed him the rifle suggestions (I've been over shotguns and pistols with him). What about lever actions? Any suggestions? He expressed an interest in those as well.

Mike
 
Bang for the buck and decent accuracy with a full power cartridge. Mosin Nagant $50.00. Match quality brass case ammo $100.00/thousand.

Sam
 
My three choices:

Marlin or Winchester .357 mag lever action. Accurate, cheap ammo (Shoots cheap .38 special too), pretty powerful in a carbine (with .357 fodder), decent SHTF gun.

Same as above except in .44 mag. Accurate, relatively cheap ammo ($20 per 50 for win. white box magnums), very powerful inside 100 yards, decent SHTF gun.

AK-47 (either $300 Romainian SAR-1 or $350 Chinese MAK-90), 4-5" @ 100 yard accurate, about as powerful as the .44 mag, but without the ability to use big, bone crushing 300 grain bullets, CHEAP AMMO, ($5 per 50 rounds), FUN FUN, FUN :D ... but then they all are. Excellent SHTF gun... cheap 30 rounders ($8 or so).

You asked about Lever Actions:

Marlin 336 and Winchester 94AE in 30-30 win. will run about $250 new.

Marlin 1894 and Winchester 94AE in .357 mag, .44 mag, .45 long colt, and a rash of other "cowboy" oddball calibers start at around $350 new and go up for certain makes.

Marlin 1895 in .444 marlin, 45-70, and .450 marlin start arounf $350 new. Ammo costs can be prohibitive.

Savage 99 and Browning BLR come in major calibers such as the .308 and others. The BLR is out of his price range, but maybe he can find a .308 Savage 99 used at a gunshow as they don't make them anymore... not familiar with thier prices, sorry.

Kilgor
 
Buy used, cheaper.

Nice 10/22, maybe sporterized, spare mags ~$150

Ruger MK2 target, spare mags ~300

2000-3000 rounds, ~$50

$500 can go a long ways. All depends on what he's looking for. Guns are like other tools, screwdriver works here, pliers here, ratchet here, hammer here... etc etc.
 
I've had a couple of levers and liked them. The ammo would cost a little more than the milsurp, even if he sticks to pistol calibers, but it's hard to go wrong with a 30/30 Marlin. I also had a .444 Marlin. They have power that has to be seen to be believed. But they ain't cheap, to buy, or feed.
 
$500 would go a LONG ways on an AK rig. Plenty of spare mags, couple of cases of ammo, carry case, and still some left over. The only drawback is that AK's can get funny looks from neighbors who aren't as enlightened.

Other than that, he'd end up with possibly the all-time plinking gun (after the .22's of course) that still packs enough oomph to take down medium-sized game out to 150 yards (almost the ballistic twin to the .30-.30)
 
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