Zombie Outbreak FAQs #4

A Story by D Allen

This continues my ongoing publis service discussion series of how to prepare for a zombie outbreak. I'm covering some basic zombie outbreak survival FAQs.

More about Guns and Ammo

I recommend you read a few zombie books, watch some movies, play the video games, and watch some YouTube videos, which I will be sure to recommend later in this ongoing public service series.

Q: Why is the 9mm pistol the bread and butter of zombie survival?

A: In my last Zombie Outbreak Survival FAQs, I stated a recommendation for arming yourself with lots of 9mm semiautomatic pistols as the bread and butter of your survival arsenal. I’m basing this on two key factors: 1) the flood of good, affordable 9mm handguns and 9mm ammo in the American marketplace, and 2) the 9mm bullet is really the smallest reliable bullet for cracking through a zombie skull and blowing its infected brain out the other side or damaging it enough at least to incapacitate it. Take out the brain and you kill the zombie�"err, I mean rekill it�"err, I mean…well you know what I mean. If you don't know what I mean, then read the rest of this series.

I like a good 45 caliber pistol as much as the next guy. A 1911 style .45 is a great pistol, but it will not do that much better of a job of eradicating zombies than a 9mm will do. The 45 is heavier, more expensive, and 45 ammo is a little harder to find than 9mm ammo. In a zombie pandemonium you won’t be able to mail order ammo. Knowing that 9mm is the most common ammo you can expect to luckily find all around the outbreak landscape, you can see why I recommend you stockpile several 9mm pistols in your arsenal.

Q: What about shotguns?

A: Every zombie movie ever made loves to highlight shotguns. Regular, standard shotguns in a zombie outbreak are overrated. While shotguns are very affordable and plenty, they are heavy, their ammo is heavy, and even the best standard shotgun can only fire six to eight times before you need to reload (they’re very slow to reload too - deadly slow).

Now, I am a huge fan of automatic shotguns like the ones made by Saiga, USAS, and AA. Oh yeah, and Striker’s Street Sweeper. These guns will make you drool! Some of these can be fitted with drums and magazines allowing you to fire 10-30 times before needing to reload and magazines and drums make reloading a very fast snap. I also love the .410 (smaller and lighter) automatic shotguns, but they are hard as all-get-out to find in the marketplace and the ammo is just as hard to find.

Still, even automatic shotguns have some drawbacks. They are generally heavier�"meaning you can’t carry as much survival stuff as you may need if you are carrying one or more of these guns. Their ammo is bigger and heavier�"meaning you won’t be able to carry as much of this ammo compared to other ammo. There aren’t a lot of these in the American marketplace�"parts and components for automatic shotguns will be more difficult to locate in a zombie apocalypse than for some other guns.

One more thing�"shotguns are not as accurate firing at longer ranges as some pistols and rifles. So you might aim at a zombie’s head from 25-50 yards away and blow off its arm, if you’re lucky. That’s better than missing the zombie altogether and shotguns do make it very hard to completely miss what you aim at.

Keep in mind, shotguns have a loud boom and cycle and a huge kick. Boom shakalacka!!! Boom shakalacka!!! This can work to attract more zombies if you’re not smart about it. This also makes shotguns an uncomfortable gun for small handed and small size people to fire. Also, do a Google search for the different kinds of shotgun ammo�"everything from flame thrower ammo to signal flare ammo to multiple ball bearings…I love the options; I love pulling the trigger just once and making three to five 9mm size holes in a target. i love pulling the trigger and having a flames shoot out like a dragon's breath. Love love love the options...just NOT in a zombie apocalypse.

Keep a few auto-shotguns in your arsenal and carry them for backup in case you come across a zombie horde and need to blast them back away from you. If you hit a zombie with a shotgun in the chest, that won’t kill it, but that will knock it back a few feet and give you some time to keep moving. Also keep a few regular shotguns for your friends who are really bad shooters. They will waste your 9mm and rifle ammo, so give them shotguns to improve their chances of hitting something and helping even a little in a tight situation.

By the way...The M240G (previously described in FAQ #3) is absolutely amazing at cutting through zombie hordes!!!

Outbreak Survival Tips:

The 9mm semiautomatic pistol is your bread and butter. The assault rifle is your meat and potatoes. I’ll talk about assault rifles next time. In the meantime look up the HK MP5 9mm assault rifle. It allows you to fire the same 9mm pistol bullets as a 9mm rifle bullet…brilliant survival strategy! Two different guns, same ammo.

Don’t buy an expensive 9mm pistol. Some 9mm pistols can cost as much as $1200. You need four $300 9mm handguns 10 times more than you need one $1200 9mm handgun.

Don’t buy compact concealable handguns for your zombie outbreak arsenal. Full sized pistols with longer barrels and higher capacity magazines are heavier, but the versatility, offering a shooter greater accuracy and distance is worth the trade-off. Look for full sized guns with large capacity magazines.

Take a gun class! Then practice shooting and changing magazines and reloading all the guns in your arsenal…very carefully. You need to know what they can and cannot do before the zombie pandemonium happens. But if you are lucky, you will get plenty real time practice during the pandemonium to become very good at this or die. Sometimes death is nature’s way of saying you’re a slow learner.