When Zombies Attack...

What should your personal gun vault look like if you want to prepare for a zombie attack?

Glock 9mm

One of two “no brainer” guns in my Zombie gun locker is a Glock 9mm, and it doesn’t really matter what model.  The beauty of the Glock obtains in its modularity and ubiquity.   Any 9mm magazine works  in any 9mm model of a smaller capacity, so a G17 mag will fit in a G19 or G26, but not in reverse.  If a trigger breaks in the G19, I can cannibalize an old and broken G17 for a replacement.  Parts are wildly interchangeable across multiple platforms.  And, virtually any cop has a Glock on his or her hip, so finding Glocks should be as simple as finding a police station in Zombieland.  Stock up on 9mm, grab as many big mags as possible, and shoot for the head.

An alternative would be to find a G37, 38, or 39 in .45 ACP, but those guns are MUCH more rare than the 9mm models.  The G22, 23, 24, 27, and 35 should be in greater supply, and .40 S&W ammo is nearly as plentiful among LEOs in Zombieland, but the 9mm is my first choice.

Remington 870

Shotguns and Zombies go together like coffee and doughnuts, so when the Zombies start knocking on my door, I’ll have my Remington 870 knocking right back at them.  The Remington 870 pump action shares many of the same qualities as the Glock in a great Zombie-gun.  You can feed it anything, it rarely breaks, and if it does, replacements are everywhere. 

Slugs, double ought, or birdshot; the 870 feeds on virtually any shells and keeps on going.  If you hear a click instead of a bang, just pump the 870 and fire again.  With fewer moving parts to fail, and rock solid simple engineering, the Remington 870 performs like Old Faithful.  If you break a stock or bend a barrel defending yourself from a crazy Zombie, a new 870, or at least some replacement parts, are as close as your local Walmart Sporting Goods department.  More than 10 million 870’s have been produced, and it holds the record for the bestselling shotgun in the history of the world.  That kind of availability makes the Remington 870 my choice in Zombieland.

You might be tempted to use a semi-auto bird gun for the extra speed.  Remember, Zombies aren’t usually fast, just plentiful.  Semi-auto is great when you are tracking a brace of fast moving ducks or pigeons, but pump guns are just fine for Zombies.  Also, with semi-auto actions come more moving parts and a higher failure rate of equipment.  I will stick with the unglamorous but eminently reliable 870 pump action.

AK-47

In the real world, I’m a total  AR-fanboy.  I have a terrific Rock River DEA gun that I’ve tricked out with the EOTech holosight, a Surefire LED flashlight, a new Magpul grip and a Magpul CTR adjustable stock.  It’s a pimped out nail driver to 200 yards, and I can score solid hits to over 500 yards any day of the week. 

But, in Zombieland, I need to remember that the AR platform needs cleaning, shoots the intermediate 5.56mm cartridge, and has tight tolerances that don’t always benefit from the rough and tumble fight against the Zombie hordes.  I’ll trade the distance and general accuracy of the far superior AR platform for the looser tolerances and harder hitting cartridge of the AK.

There’s a reason that most certified gun nuts and retired Special Forces guys still put the AK at the top of their list of battle rifles.  It fires the 7.62 x 39mm round, a .30 caliber rifle cartridge with far superior stopping power and terminal ballistics of the intermediate 5.56mm cartridge in the AR.  The AK was built commonly of stamped parts to looser tolerances, and the gas system accepts virtually any ammo.  My AR, as good as it is, still suffers from ammo related issues.  Reports indicate that the piston ARs, which run cooler and cleaner, can be even more finicky with ammo than the direct-impingement gas guns.  Not the AK.  You can feed it any .308 out there, and she’ll run.  Finally, the AK beats even the Glock for ubiquity.   They are literally everywhere, and have become the most immediately recognizable global icon for a rifle.  When the chips are down in Zombieland, I’ll leave my AR in the safe and grab any old AK for comfort.

Scout Rifle

Once the power runs out , the freezers at Walmart run down, and all the meat in the fridge spoils, hunting will become more important for the few of us survivors to keep well fed.  I will channel my inner Jeff Cooper and reach for my Scout Rifle instead of the AK.  Cooper thought that rifles in the late 20^th Century varied only slightly from arms created nearly a century before, and argued that if one could have only one gun, it should be a general purpose bolt action rifle with sufficient capacity and power to work equally well at hunting and fighting.  His rifle musings became the Scout Rifle, the latest generation of which from Ruger holds true to Cooper’s concepts.

The Ruger Gunsite Scout Rifle is chambered in .308, has a bolt action, comes equipped with M1 style fixed sights, but also a rail system mounted ahead of the chamber to accept a scope for more precision shots.  The box magazine holds 5 or 10 rounds giving it sufficient capacity to handle deer or the odd Zombie found in the woods.   With M1 style sights or a mounted optic, the Scout tackles zombies or game out to bolt rifle distances.  Best of all, it shares ammo with the AK, so I won’t need to hoard too many different calibers for my gun safe.

Back Up Gun

If the AK gums up, and the Glock trigger spring fails, and I can’t find a shell for my 870 or the Scout rifle, I’ll want to have a drop dead reliable wheel gun as a back up.  I’d pick the Ruger LCR in .357.  It’s light, dependable, and can fire the .357 or .38+P rounds.  I can put it in an ankle holster, hide it in my pocket, or tuck it in a backpack for safekeeping.  In the end, with just 5 rounds in the chamber, it won’t keep me safe against a Zombie horde, but I will have enough capacity to take out at least 4 of the monsters before using the last round to avoid becoming a Zombie’s Happy Meal.

Forget all of your exotic calibers, your expensive rifles, your Hollywood handguns.  In Zombieland, only the toughest, most reliable, and most available guns make sense.  Remember, when the Zombies come stalking, the lights dim, and the factories close, you have only what you can build or scavenge to survive.  Choose well.