If the law went out the door and the SHTF would you....?

yes if I can do selective fire, which is something I can't figure out. My AK47 (wasr-10) is made of military parts that failed full auto specifications. I think its very unwise to shoot full auto in a gun not designed for it. The Chinese Type 56 SKS I have is designed for full auto. All the parts were designed for full auto use however few rifles were actually in full auto.

--> to all the people bad mouthing FA: full auto is very useful if you know what you're doing. short 2-5 shot bursts can be very accurate and effective at distance targets. also effective when using the jackhammer strategy. Jackhamering is using bulelts to drill a hole thru especially thick cover or armor. Going spray-n-pray style is not the correct way to shoot in full auto. Quick, short, well aimed bursts is the proper way. I use more ammo but I can be fore effective.

I actually do have a "suppressor" its in parts, made up of completely legal PVC pipe parts and a few rigid polyurethane foam blocks. Its disassembled as just plastic and polymer pieces, it is not a suppressor and completely legal to have. The design works in a computer simulation and was designed specifically to work with my.22lr rifle. Two more advanced versions are under construction to fit my other two .22lr rifles. The new versions are bi-material, the internals made of metal and would be less susceptible to failure with a outer shell made of PVC and foam. They are smaller (10 inches down from a whopping 22") , more durable and increased effectiveness. Also hopefully may work with supersonic ammo. The current one doesn't work with supersonic ammo.

I'm in CA, so more things are illegal here than any other state. one of them is the idiotic "assault rifle ban", which is a ban of "evil" features, so all CA legal semiautomatic rifle must be crippled in one way or other. I can possess the "evil" parts but not install them. So I have pistol grips, forward pistol grips, flash suppressors, all the little goodies.

The ban on "evil"features extends to magazines. all mags over 10 rd capacity is illegal. there are many 10/30 and 10/40 rd magazines that are legal, I have quite a few and made some myself. Basically its a 30 rd magazine blocked to hold only 10 rds max and welded to make it "permanent". In a few minutes I can reverse the changes with a dremel tool and be back to having a non-crippled AK47 with factory-standard 30 and 40 rd magazines.

when the law's out the window, so to speak, I would increase my arsenal to cover various grenades- the flashbang, smoke grenades, fragmentation and explosive.

I'd also assemble my rocket propelled grenade launcher and dozens of the rocket propelled grenades with enhanced charges. Its all just plans right now.

Probably build that 25mm gun I designed and digitally simulated testing. Its a shoulder fired weapon of some kind, mixing an RPG, anti-tank rifle and a field gun together.

I'd have lots of stuff that's not legal right now.

If the law was to come back, well then I'd be better armed than the national guard. Its too bad for them and so much the better for me!

This question seems to get asked a lot. At times, I really wonder if any of the people asking it have any experience at all with full-auto fire.

I do have a bit of experience with it: Brens, Stens, PPS, Schmeisser MP-40, Thompson, Lewis, MG-42, Browning and so forth. As far as SHTF type of work, I would recommend none of the above unless, that is, you were at your Final Redoubt or something. They ALL eat too much. '42, for example, eats FIVE 22-pound boxes of ammo every minute. Browning .30 eats TWO similar boxes. Lewis? It can take half an hour to load the 47-shot drum. Thompson? Good at 50 yards IF you can use one effectively. Schmeisser? Much the same; you can toss in the Sten and the Reising and a couple of hundred more. Bren is a nice gun, effective at out to 400 but it takes training and lots of practice. And it eats a lot, too.

For real-world SHTF-type stuff, your very best bet is a bolt-action .22RF for anything under 100. For 100 to 500, I would take my 1944-built Lee-Enfield with a 4-power scope. It is rugged, solid, reliable, you can repair it yourself and a 100-year supply of spare parts will fit in a Spam can with room left over. I do have others, including the fabled Garand, but the Lee is the one I can COUNT ON when everything else has broken down. Failing the Lee-Enfield, I would take my Ross with the scope: built in 1915 and it will still outshoot most rifles built today... and it's RELIABLE. Remember, after The Apocalypse or the Brain Zombies take over or the Z-Rays from those Klingon satellites affect the folks who don't wear tinfoil hats or the Little Green Men arrive, there aren't gonna BE any convenient gunsmiths to go to.

But then, that's in the Real World.

Going to full auto on my gear? No. At some point if I started to think things could go that way I might acquire something that was full auto - there are specific scenarios where they are useful - but it would be pretty far down on my list of generally useful firearms. If I could easily convert something to select fire? Maybe to give me the option, but still probably not as most conversions of that sort make the overall firearm less reliable.

Suppressor is a little different gig. I'm pretty sure I would experiment with it at least, probably on a .22 long gun or hand gun for exactly the small game hunting aspect, as much for the animals as to be able to be less conspicuous when doing that sort of thing. A firearm report, even a .22 is loud and extremely recognizable. In an extended SHTF environment I probably don't want to be indiscriminately advertising that I happen to be one of the folks who has guns and ammo if I can help it. Sure it creates a strong fear motivator, but it also makes you a target I would think.

In fact, I am pretty sure I would be dusting off the compound bow and getting it tuned in with some arrows if life started to look like it could get into anything like an extended period of bad times. I.e. lets say more than 60 days of real SHTF lawlessness to manage on our own. It's a pretty arbitrary number, but essentially, the way I see it, if you have something like Katrina you have to figure out how to get through a week or two before things get into an organized recovery period. That's mostly about protecting yourself. You get into a couple of months and it starts transitioning into how to survive.

However, there is a good deal of gear I would pull together long before I worried about a scenario where a full auto was a benefit.

Thinkingblade

If I had a select-fire weapon that was fully registered to me on a Form 4, totally legal in every way... And things went really bad really fast, I would likely keep it on semi.

If society has collapsed... You can't just drive on down to WalMart and buy more ammo. Every cartridge is valuable. Full auto wastes ammunition.

In addition, I don't have much practice with full auto. I can count on one hand the times I have actually fired a fully automatic weapon. (They were all legally owned, just not by me.) Most people have similar experience shooting full auto. Without training, the wasted ammunition is going to be exceptionally severe.

First of all, you're talking a doomsday scenario, but just for the sake of argument, NOTHING I own would be converted to full auto. If the SHTF, its going to be guerilla warfare, and shooting from ambush positions, whether with mean intent or just harrassing fire. Ammo, as well as food, water, electrical power, and medicines will be in short supply. I wouldn't, in this hypothetical situation, want to waste ammo.

the only time a fully auto is going to be efficient is if the enemy is holding hands with one another and skipping towards you. even in that scenario I believe I could pull the trigger fast enough on a semi-auto.

Wouldn't make anything full auto, just wastes ammo, as others have mentioned.

But I might suppress one of my .22s so I can put some meat in the pot without alerting the neighbors.

Enemy with a gun, I continuously shop my friends close, yet my enemies nearer. Or enable the enemy walk out of the front door so as that my mom in regulation - if I had one, observed it and concept in spite of the fact that she had to think of.

no to full auto as full auto is only good for keeping peoples heads down which i would have no use for

suppressor would actually help though becuase you wouldnt want to draw attention to yourself when taking a deer or other animal, only problem is you have to kill the deer with a .22 so aim well

Enemy with a gun, I consistently save my acquaintances close, yet my enemies closer. Or enable the enemy walk out of the front door so as that my mom in regulation - if I had one, observed it and theory in spite of she had to think of.