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Especially with limited funds, choices should be sound. Especially in a potentially unstable area, choices should be especially sound!

Squantos and I ponder these things endlessly between each other, even though we own a lot of things, his owning just about every second thing there is, and repeats of what has proven itself. We boil our decisions down this way, and end up with well considered advice for people who ask. We both are interested in simplifying our own choices, hopefully settling on just a few, for very practical reasons.

What DO you run out of the house with, and stay out there for a long time, trying to survive?

Now if one eliminates his stellar concept of choosing something "that the dirtball who kills you will not be able to find ammunition for," (sounds like Eaker, doesn't it) something which can be resupplied gets rather important. Nothing does it all, well, so ammunition choices are a big deal too.

To my thinking, the .30'06 is as close to "all around" as any cartridge has ever gotten. The Rem. Accelerators really made it almost perfect, but lighter bullets such as 150grs. do rather well too, also pretty much closing in on the .25'06 and .270...since it hits harder than either at extreme range...kind of important. Squantos uses a Contender in 6.5 Swede as one of his "briefcase guns" for work. I'd hate to try to find those critters during a major emergency, though. He only laughed when I almost bought one last year, in .30'06! I use the round, and still want something small to hunt deer with in more populous areas, say, ski resort areas, where I may want to stop by and socialize here and there, and just put the "rifle" into my day pack. I think that a moderate load with a very heavy bullet would accomplish what I seek. Say, a 250 grain. If such a "short barrel" round could be loaded by me, the Encore would still be usable in a pinch, with standard ammunition, albeit rather nasty, I am sure. It would however shoot, which is better than not...a lot better.

About handguns, we are fascinated with the 10mm Auto, to stand in for our .44s while in the woods, and well, for everything. He just got his Glock back from Mag-na-Port, and said it's like shooting a .38 now.

Where I am, and what I do, I have to consider both self defense against tough, predatory animals, as well as dangerous humans. I would say the 10mm for me....but the area is also unstable for other reasons, and especially these days, with the "terrorist" potential. This may precipitate either a bug-out, or a struggle to return home. Will I have a .223, 12ga., .30'06....or my CCW iron? Right. How much ammo can I carry, will I need, before I may as well throw it away to save weight, when I cannot find resupply. I expect to meet 9mm along the way, one way or another. .45 is now somewhat rare too, sadly. 9mm is a flatter shooting round too, and I can carry more ammunition in a magazine than .45, so I pestered Squantos for everything he knows about the round. I was worried because my BHP pistols do not like to feed Speer 124gr. +P, and I bought Wolfe springs for them. They used to feed everything, but maybe the springs weakened over time. He put me in touch with Cylinder & Slide, who cautioned me that "no current automatic is up to a steady diet of +P ammunition without damage." Woah. Back to Professor Squantos. He said Winchester OSM. I couldn't believe it. I mean I was appalled! Then I read about it on the IWBA site, Dr. Fackler's organization. Double wow. Then the Professor related his little Taliban story about how a member of his team dropped one close on the prof's heels, with one chest shot, from a handgun. This stuff is on perpetual discount at Wal-Mart! White box 147gr. JHP. It feeds flawlessly. I never installed the springs, and never had the slightest problem. The Supreme is even better, and penetrates over 18" in tests, and only starts out at 990fps...subsonic! I have found my solution.

It backs up the .44 when in Yogi and Boo-Boo territory too, but if I really, really had to, I would not feel unarmed, but shoot for the eyes and mouth, and run away as soon and far as I could! Actually, I keep a spare magazine of flat nose OSM ball. Nothing is perfect, and unless I go back to pulling my little red wagon behind me, with all my contingency equipment.......!

A Contender as a briefcase gun. Now, there's a concept! I don't think I have ever considered the Contender to be a proper CCW gun, but in a way, I kind of like it. It depends on exactly what the need would be - what type of "game" one needs to look out for. The Encore is available in unGodly recoiling rounds. I shoot my old style TC Contender in very modest calibers - the heaviest is the .357 Max (from a ten inch barrel which was re chambered from .357 magnum by Mike Bellm) and the lightest is the .221 Rem Fireball. These things can be very accurate from a properly set up Contender shooting under ideal conditions.

I have limited my Contender calibers to these rather light rounds after I shot a friend's Contender on which he had a J.D. Jones top end in .45-70. That thing was the worst recoiling handgun I ever fired. I felt it was absolutely out of control for the 2nd shot!

Over the years I have more or less educated myself about these matters by buying a host of firearms and shooting a host of calibers, both in long guns and revolvers/pistols. I consider the money spent to be the same as if I was paying tuition at a good graduate school. I don't have any experience with the 10mm, but a few years ago I was in the process of building up a 1911A1 in .45 Super. I got sidetracked and never finished that project. I might eventually seek out a used Glock Model 20 and experiment a bit with the 10mm.