The 22LR cartridge is one of the cheapest and most plentiful types of ammunition on the market today, but can it kill at distance? Can it be an effective round for a primary and secondary weapon? We’ll take a look at the pros and cons of the round and see.

So many brands and types of rifle fire the 22LR that its almost ridiculous. The round of choice for plinkers, and people looking to have fun shooting on the cheap. In this article we’re going to take a look at the round as well as some of the most popular types of rifles and pistosl that fire this round.

The Round:
22LR is deadly at close range and far away. If you ever read the box, it will tell you the lethal range is over 1/2 mile, but just how far away can you accurately kill something with it? 100 yards, 200 yards? The answer is, as far as your optics will allow. If you have a really good scope, you can get a kill shot as far away as 500 yards. Don’t believe me? Here’s PROOF!

Rifles
Ruger 10/22:
Arguably the most popular 22LR rifle on the market. There are so many stock, barrel and trigger kits for these rifles, its insane. Infinitely customizable, you can make it look like a standard ranch rifle, or an HK G36 if you want. They have magazines with capacities anywhere between 10 and 50, from various manufacturers. They’re accurate, and have high ammo capacity. Definately should be on anyone’s ZDay weapons list.

Kel-Tec SU-22:
Adaptable for many types of optics, accurate, and takes hi-cap mags. A little more espensive than a 10/22, but its already fitted for optics and foregrip accessories.

Sig Sauer 522:
The commando version comes with a quad rail and threaded barrel. Similar in size and weight to the real deal, so its a great training tool for kids and adults alike. Also takes many aftermarket hi-cap mags.

AR-15?
Yes, the AR-15 is an EXCELLENT 22LR. All you need is a .22LR adapter, and a few mags, and you can shoot 22LR from your AR-15 and shoot cheap ammo for training, or carry a lot more than you could in .223/5.56.

Pistols

Ruger 22/45:
A popular pistol, comes in styles suitable for combat, including a model with a threaded barrel and rail ready for optics of your choosing.

Ruger Mark I/II/III:
Obviously, by its many incarnations, its an incredibly popular pistol. The target model has an optics rail and backup iron sights.

Walther P22 and Sig Mosquito:
Popular little pistols, both come with threaded barrels for attaching a suppressor.

So, as far as the round and the firearm are concerned, you CAN kill Zombies at an incredible range with a 22LR. The round is light enough to carry 1,000 rounds with ease, its cheap as hell, and if you have a suppressor, it can be a silent killer. The only question now is which one will you buy?

Undoubtedly some of you have fantasized about who would be in your survival group, and what rolls they would fill. If you haven’t, then its time to. ZAC wants to know, who would be in your squad, what roles and what weapons would everyone use?

ZAC wants to know who would be in your 4-8 person assault squad.

Who would be in your survival group? (Who and why)
What Combat/Support roles would they fill? (Medic, heavy gunner, berzerker,etc)
What weapons and accessories would you carry? (Primary, secondary, backup, and blades)
What kind of vehicle would you drive? (Assuming you could find a steady supply of fuel)

The only stipulation is that you have to limit yourself to what you can find within 75 miles of your base/home, and the people, weapons, and etc. in your squad have to also fit into that category.

Yes, thats a picture of Me, Iain Harrison, and Chris Cheng. Winners of Top Shot Season 1 and 4 respectively. How did I get this picture? Well let me tell you…

Yesterday, my friend Ghostwarrior and I attended an invitation only shoot put on by a man by the name of Glen Bellamy. There were industry reps there from:
Faxon Firearms Makers of a revolutionary new AR-15 upper that combines the best of 3 different weapons systems. (It blew my mind)
Crimson Trace Iain Harrison, the winner of Top Shot season 1 was their spokesman. Nice guy. He owns an SP-01.
BassPro Shop Chris Cheng, Winner of Top Shot season 4 was their spokesman. We spent a lot of time with Chris. He loved the CTS .40
NightForce Optics Exceptional optics on some exceptional guns. The .338 Lapua….. Drool….
Spartan Blades Makers of Knives with Intent. Some seriously wicked knives. If you like knives, you’ll love these.
Voodoo Tactical Gear bags, assault rigs, and all manner of other tactical gear. Good stuff, I have some and use it A LOT.
Vertx Makers of some very nice, if expensive, tactical clothing.
Coonan Inc Makers of the 1911 in .357/.38 special. Nice guns, hell of a shockwave/loud. Check out their Zombie/WereWolf/Vampire defense weapon.
Surgeon Rifles Makers of long range rifles for people who like to have to only use 1 bullet. Lol! Seriously nice rifles.
Oleg Volk Photographer extraordinaire, gun enthusiast, and a really nice guy.
Glenn Bellamy The exceptional fellow who put this whole thing together. We would like to thank him for doing this and inviting us to attend. He is a lawyer, but a good one. (All jokes aside, seriously nice guy.)
About what we did:
Our mission there was to show off CZ’s exceptional product line, and educate all of the people who asked about the company. Even some of the industry people had never heard of CZ, so we enlightened them. Chris Cheng and Iain Harrison even did some side by side competition with some of the pistols we brought. Both of them shot my SP-01. Chris especially liked Ghostwarrior’s CTS .40 and spent quite a lot of time behind the trigger of that single action beauty. (I’m not a .40 fan, but I would be with that CTS, OMG!) We weren’t really there to put our faces on the company, but somehow we ended up with our own table covered in CZ pistols and rifles. I have a lot of video of people shooting the CZ pistols we brought and some photos that I will share later.

Now, how does this pretain to this site, and the world of zombie kiling in general? Glad you asked! I have to stay on top of news, and other things from the firearms industry so that I can bring you guys good information about gear and innovations that could save your life. That being said, Coonan Inc even sells a Triple Threat Apocalyptic Kit I loved it, and yes, I have one now. Those guys took the time to make a weapon to save us from 3 different monsters, not just zombies. Like I said, I’ll update this topic with pictures and videos once I get them all processed.

UPDATED! Links Below!
Our table at the event
Chris Cheng shooting the CTS .40 and the SP-07 (1 of 6 ever made)
Chris Cheng Shooting the CTS .40
Iain Harrison and Chris Cheng shooting steel plates Round 1
Iain Harrison and Chris Cheng shooting steel plates Round 2
Faxon Firearms ARAK AR-15 uppers
The Faxon Firearms uppers really, really impressed me. I seriously hope that they do well and sell a lot of that design.

For all of you who saw the season 2 finale of “The Walking Dead” you saw a large prison facility. For those of you who’ve read the comic books, you know that they end up in the prison. Now, this begs the question, is a prison a good place to hold out and use as a base after Z-day?

Since I actually work in a Maximum Security Prison, I’m uniquely qualified to weigh the pros and cons of a prison as a fortress/base of operations. Everyone knows that prisons are designed to keep people in, but they also have features to keep people out. Lets examine Prison defenses, starting with the largest, and most notable.

The Fence
Prisons usually have a few fences, and then inside those, there are even more fences. The chainlink and razor wire would definately keep zombies out. The fence at my prison actually stopped a large box truck full of inmates from escaping once upon a time. All it really takes though, is one person with some wire cutters to throw a serious monkey wrench in your defenses. A constant watch of the fence line 24 hours a day is essential for security.

The Facility
Modern prisons don’t really rely on bars for doors anymore. They have been replaced by large steel doors with polycarbinate windows that can stop a bullet. Sometimes bars are still used. For instance, inside my prison, the Max units have a gate of steel bars surrounding every door, which has to be opened and then shut behind you before you can open the steel door. These setups are called “trap gates” or “sally ports”. Every entrance to the building has at least one, and once inside that, there are even more doors. Sometimes up to five steel doors stand between you and the inside of the unit. Once inside, you’d stand a very good chance of withstanding an onslaught of zombies. If you want out, then thats another story all together. The unit control center, sits on top of the main unit where you can look out into every pod inside the unit. (there are 4 pods per unit) The Unit Control has its own trap gate, and also contains an escape door so that you can get out onto the roof. This would also be useful for your snipers. Each unit has two enclosed yard areas with 4-8 lockable recreation cages. These are useful for quarantine of new survivors so that you can observe them. After which, you can lock them inside a cell for more observation for as long as necessary. Each unit(in my prison) can house 96 inmates, so you can have a substantial amount of people living in one area.

The Armory
The Prison Armory isn’t a huge one, but it has lots of ammo. I can’t divulge much more than that, but I can say that people have to qualify with the weapons all the time, so there is enough ammo for that and to stop a full scale riot. There are rifles, pistols, and shotguns for at least 20 people, as well as specialty impact munitions, and smoke/gas grenades.

The Chow Hall
The prison keeps a good amount of food on hand. At least a months worth for the whole prison for inmates as well as officers. When there are only about 100 people, that can translate into close to a year of food in some instances. Water can be gotten through gathering techniques. Other foods can be grown on the exercise yards on the lower security units, because each low security yard is several acres. Just be sure to bring seeds, or gather them up. Make sure they are “legacy” seeds though, these seeds grow plants that also leave seeds. Some of the engineered plant species don’t make seeds.

All in all, a prison can make one hell of a Zombie Fortress. You just have to be sure that you clear it properly, and that you don’t become a victim of the security features and get trapped inside with a horde of zombies.

So you think that grandpa’s old double barrel will save you against a small group of zombies, much less a large hoarde? THINK AGAIN!! You’re going to need a real COMBAT SHOTGUN to do the job. In this article, we’ll examine a few different types of combat shotguns that are available to the civilian market, and some aftermarket accessories that will push them to the NTH degree of zombie splattering scatter guns.

Combat shotguns are a class of weapons that are often underrated. Yes, some do have limited ammo capacity, and can be slower to reload, but that does not negate their effectiveness for certain situations.

The SAIGA 12:
The Saiga-12 is a 12-gauge combat shotgun available in a wide range of configurations, visually patterned after the Kalashnikov series of assault rifles. Like the Kalashnikov rifle variants, it is a rotating bolt, gas-operated gun that feeds from a box magazine. All Saiga-12 configurations are recognizable as Kalashnikov-pattern guns by the large lever-safety on the right side of the receiver, the optic mounting rail on the left side of the receiver and the large top-mounted dust cover held in place by the rear of the recoil spring assembly. The looser clearances offered in an AK style design result in high reliability—an enormous boon on a semi-automatic shotgun, as this class of weapon had previously tended towards unreliability. The Saiga-12 is manufactured by the arms division of Izhmash, in Russia.
Here are some videos of the Saiga 12 in action: Video 1 Video 2 Video 3 (Video 3 is 45 min long and compares the Saiga 12 to the KSG and Remington 870.) The Saiga 12 has magazines from 5-30 rounds. The Saiga 12 is the top choice of ZAC for its raw destructive power, speed in reloading, and volume of fire.

Semi Auto Shotguns (Non magazine fed, Any maker)

Auto loaders, powered by recoil or gas are popular in hunting and competition shooting the world over. Ranging in capacity from 5-12 rounds(with tube extensions). Available in almost all sporting goods stores, pawn shops, and gun stores, these weapons can be a lethal and effective weapon. The downside to this class of shotgun is that they often malfunction during feeding/ejection. Capable of the destruction of the Saiga, just not as quickly. You can buy speed loaders, but you must be very practiced with them. (No videos, everyone has seen these in action on TV)
Popular models include:
FN SLP Mark 1
Remington Model 1100 Tac 4
Mossberg Model 930 SPX

Pump Shotguns (any maker)

Powered by physically actuating a pump mechanism, these shotguns rarely malfunction unless there is a problem with the brass on the cartridge. With a capacity usually in the 8+1 range, they’re capable of being fired almost as fast as a semi-auto in the right hands. This class of shotgun has been popular in combat for over 100 years due to its rugged reliability and versatility.
Popular models include:
Remington 870
Mossberg 500

Double Barrel Shotguns

No… just… No…
Considering the reload time between every two rounds, this is next to useless unless you have no other options. The first time you see any other type of shotgun, check that it functions, and ditch the relic.

There is a legitimate use for a shotgun, and generally its for some secondary purpose. For small groups of zombies, a shotgun in the right hands can be as effective as any rifle or pistol.

Recommended accessories:
Some sort of sights other than a normal bead sight (ghost ring, red dot, etc.)
Speed loaders (practice, practice, practice)
Large capaciity magazines (12+)

YOU’RE NOT EVER, EVER, EVER GOING TO GET YOUR HANDS ON AN AA-12, SO DON’T EVEN MENTION IT IN THE COMMENTS. IF I EVEN SEE IT, YOUR COMMENT WILL BE DELETED. IF YOU WANT A FULL AUTO SHOTGUN, BUY A SLIDEFIRE STOCK FOR A SAIGA-12.

Zombies Are Coming wants to wish everyone a safe and happy 4th of July! Remember what this day is all about, and celebrate your nation’s independence from tyranny with gusto! Also, remember to carry protection with you (unless you’re drinking, then have someone else carry it).

Angryvikingman out.

Gun enthusiasts Eric and Barry of Moss Pawn in Georgia built an “Ultimate AR-15″ rifle especially designed for fighting zombies. The 23 pound gun carries 3 lasers, 4 flashlights, and 9 30 round magazines.

Source: The Laughing Squid

So everyone has their favorite type and brand of rifle, but here are a few for you to consider adding to your Z-day arsenal.

Long Range
Of course everyone fantasizes about popping one in a zombie’s melon from 1,000 yards, but whats your best bet as far as accuracy and BANG for your buck? (Assuming you acquire it before z-day, because after that, everythings free. ;) )
The Remington Model 700 SPS Tactical – Under $800. Comes in .308 and .223. Accurate to 1,000 yards depending on the ammo you use.

The CZ 750 Sniper – $1,999. A little pricey, but CZ is a world leader in firearms and this particular rifle is capable of Sub MOA groups. Comes only in .308, and is also accurate to 1,000 yards.

And of course, for those of you who love semi-auto rifles:
The HK SR9TC The germans make some of the best weapons in the world, and the price tag for this baby can be up to $7000. ( I paid $3,500 for mine) Chambered in .308, and accurate up to 1,000 yards, this baby has the ability for fast follow up shots in case you have multiple targets. Capable of raining lead with 20 round magazines. Only 125 were ever imported into the United States. (But, you can find them from time to time on gunsamerica and gun broker.)

Medium/Close Range
So you want to drop a zombie at less than 1000 yards? Most of us aren’t going to be taking 1,000 yard shots anyway. Here are some rifles that cover a medium range of up to about 500 yards.

The FN FAL $1200-$1700 Replace the top cover with a picatinny rail and you can mount all kinds of optics on it, and these rifles fire .308. A good heavy hitting round.

The PTR 91 $1,000. A clone of famed HK G3 series of rifles, this is also chambered .308. Iron sights are accurate out to 400 yards, but 1200 yard iron sights are available. You can also mount any manner of optics on this rifle as well.

And now, the AR platform. AR platform weapons are available in a wide range of calibers, and range in price from $700-$2,000. Some of the most popular calibers for this platform are .223/5.56 and .308, but it also is available in .22LR, ,FN 5.7, 6.8 SPC, 7.62×39, .300 blackout, .458 SOCOM, .50 Beowulf, and even .50 BMG. Also, its one of the most customizable rifles out there.

Optics Choices
Depending on your preference, there are so many kinds of optics out there its ridiculous. You can get red dots that are accurate out to 300-500 yards, and some can extend their range by using a 4x magnifier. There are also optics such as the ACOG that reportedly can hit out to 800 yards. Scopes can also be used that have magnification factors from 4x-50x. Make a choice that suits your needs and ability with the rifle, but remember…. You need back up sights just in case.

In the days following the Zombie Apocalypse, you’re going to have to make some harrowing life and death choices. Be it shooting a friend or family member who has turned, or one who has yet to turn. If faced with some of these decisions, how would you react?

In this article we’ll look at some of the moral decisions you’ll have to make to survive in a world that has literally turned in to “Kill or be killed.”

Scenario 1

You’re in the basement of a house, hiding from a hoard of 10,000 zombies that are taking their sweet-ass time shambling by. They completely surround the house, but they’re moving away. You’re in the basement with 10 people you know, but you happened to find a baby that survived inside the house on your way down. The zombie hoard is about halfway past the house and the baby starts to cry from hunger and you have no food or anything to keep it quiet. You know the cries will draw the zombies into the house eventually. Your survival depends on keeping the child quiet. What do you do? Fight your way out, or try to quiet the child with your hand which would result in possible suffocation?

Scenario 2

You and 2 members of your family have managed to survive for over a month on what little food you had in your house. You’re now completely out of food, low on water, and haven’t eaten for about a week. While out scavenging, you saw some kids and followed them back to their hideout where they had enough food to feed you and your family for a week. You have enough room in your pack for all of the food, and some of their water. Do you take it all and justify it by thinking “If they found all this, they’ll find more.” or do you go on and try to find food somewhere else?

Scenario 3

After a recent scavenging trip, your kid sister was scratched by a zombie. You don’t know for sure if the virus is transmitted by scratches, she is starting to feel sick, is running a fever, and is acting erraticly. What would you do? Go ahead and shoot her before she turns? Try the few antibiotics you have found to try and fight off a possible infection, which is potentially wasteful if it turns out that she was in fact infected?

Answer all 3 Scenarios, and justify your answers.

After a call for some updated versions of articles, I give you this one.

Here are some things that Z.A.C. suggests you consider carrying and wearing if you’re on a mission to purely kick some zombie ass:

Base Layer:
Denim shirt/Jacket, denim pants or Army Battle Dress Uniforms (B.D.U.s Top and bottom): These provide tear resistance and are unlikely to allow a bite to penetrate the skin
Baseball cap: Protects your head from the sun and minor bumps and bruises.

Layer 2:
Knee and Elbow pads: In case you fall, they protect your joints. In all likelyhood, you will need them at some point.
Face Mask: Choose your own, just make sure it won’t allow contact of infected blood to your eyes, ears, nose, or mouth.
Gloves: A pair of latex gloves covered by a pair of Mechanix gloves. Not really a choice, more of a necessity.
Anti-bite Neck guard: A Shemagh, scarf, or even a chainmail gorget will work, choose your level of protection.

Layer 3:
Load Bearing Equipment: Y or H style harness, fanny bag for food and med kit, 2 canteens of water, 2 SAW gunner Mag pouches for your Military style rifles, a Large fighting knife, a LARGE machete, your rifle, and a pistol.

Weaponry:
Rifle: Military Style Rifle with a CQC Reflex or Holo Sight. Of course, you need backup iron sights. Accurate to 300 yards. Headshots at 100-150 yards. (if you practice) Minimum of 300 rounds in preloaded mags.

Pistol: Small caliber, .22lr-9mm. You want at least 10 rounds per mag, and a minimum of 50 rounds in preloaded mags.

Machete: Players choice, just make sure its long enough to keep you from getting in biting distance. Try to either incapacitate the zombie, or get a head shot. Don’t get fancy. Fancy gets you dead.

Fighting knife: Backup for your machete, if you get down to just this, consider falling on it if you don’t want turn. It can be used as an offhand weapon while weilding your machete.

Optional Weapons:
Shotgun: Always a valid zombie defense weapon, and able to possibly score multiple kills per shot, its better as a fortress gun or backup rather than a main weapon. Consider a mag fed Saiga for faster reload times.

Sword: Good if you know how to use it, but it requires some space and skill to use it.

Remember, these are suggestions, but they are made from a standpoint of experience with all of the mentioned items.