Waldo Jaquith (JAKE-with) is an open government technologist who lives near Charlottesville, VA, USA. more »
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13 replies on “It’s all about the 7.62×39 cartridge.”
Man, I know, like, nothing about guns and stuff. But Shaun sure could have used you guys a few years ago in England. (Again, I have no linking skills – Shaun of the Dead reference – a recent but Top 10 flick in my book)
Best quote is the closer: “But one of the semiautomatic rifles that I have described here should be the most basic weapon that every serious zombie killer will use.”
Jack is one of those book learned zombie hunters. All the REAL zombie hunters know the proper round is the 22mag. You can pocket 1000 rounds, the weapon is light, and the muzzle blast is low – so as not to alert the other zombies. :)
Bubby,
You’re only halfway there. A cartridge is just a cartridge. What *rifle* are you suggesting be used? .22 Mags are mostly all sporting rifles that lack the features and durability you’d really need in a prolonged engagement against the undead.
I mean, 20mm Vulcan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:50BMG_size_comparison.JPG) might be be the way to go for assaulting a horde of rampaging Tyrannosaurs as they thunder their way down Park Avenue. But where you gonna find the right rifle chambered for it?
And I’ve never been disappointed by the Ruger Arms offerings. That 10/22 mag they’ve been making for a few years is on my wish list, coupled with a Hogue rubberized stock. I’m pleased by the reliable rapid action of the Ruger semi-auto. It should serve my needs in close action with the un-dead, where a quick three-round burst should settle the issue. http://hunting.about.com/od/guns/l/aast1022magnum.htm
The key seems to be finding quality ammo, and keeping your gun cleaned and oiled.
Bubby,
I have the non-stainless .22 version of that Marlin. It’s my primary .22 bolt gun for target practice and I’ve put easily 3,000 rounds through it in the last 18 months. Nice rifle. My parents have one, too. But the magazines are 7 round only and after shooting 100 rounds at the most, the chamber gets gummed up and shells stop extracting properly. Also, accuracy goes all to hell once the barrel heats up. Believe me, I have spent many a summer’s afternoon after work sitting on the back porch plinking with that very action. It’s great for small game but seriously not what you want for zombies.
The Henry .22 lever guns are handsome rifles indeed. I darn near bought one last year after lusting over them in catalogs. Then I saw that they all have those stupid tubular magazines that have to be fed from the muzzle end of the rifle by pulling out that long rod and loading the cartridges in one at a time. Um, no thank you. My Marlin Model 60 (Which Waldo is indefinitely borrowing until such time as he can get his Mossberg working again) has that same system and it’s incredibly annoying. Fine for sitting around and plinking or for hunting small game but any rifle that takes you close to a full minute to reload would be a death sentence once you find yourself surrounded by a moaning phalanx of undead ghouls.
The Ruger 10/22 would be the best of your 3 suggestions. I went into the pros and cons of that rifle for zombies earlier today in the comments section of my own blog.
The parameters we are dealing with here just do not lend themselves to many sporting rifles. The only rifles designed for shooting many, many rounds without jamming up or losing accuracy to an unacceptable degree are specialized varmint rifles and military rifles. The varmint guns are all low-capacity bolt actions without open sights. Leaving us with military surplus rifles, which tend to only come in military calibers. Until a major army adopts .22 magnum as their standard chambering and then declares the rifles all surplus so they can wind up in American gun stores, .22 magnum ain’t gonna solve your zombie troubles.
Well Jack, you’ve convinced me. In addition to my 7.65 NATO sport rifle, sidearm, smoothbore, and .22WMG…I’ll need to add a mil spec open sight rifle if I am to have half a chance against the massed Zombie. What are your thoughts on the Enfields chambered for my 7.65 NATO round? I’d really like to find a carbine, but am concerned about finding a good shortened rifle.
I’m going to laugh at all of you when it’s the vampires that come, and not the zombies.
MB,
Don’t be ridiculous. There’s no such thing as vampires.
Bubby,
You mean the 1960’s Enfield 2A with the box magazine that just came on the market in the last year or so? Made in Ishapore, as I recall. Bolt action. Basically just an SMLE with a bigger magazine and stronger steel.
Great cartridge, great rifle. However, contrary to popular belief, 7.62 NATO is not always interchangable with .308 Winchester, which I presume is what your sport rifle is actually labeled as. We all like to use the 2 cartridge names interchangably and I do it all the time but this does not reflect reality. So here’s my safety pitch on the issue.
They look the same to the naked eye and will chamber in each other’s actions, but 7.62 has much thicker brass (not designed made to be reloaded) and is loaded to much higher pressures than .308 is. A civilian rifle proofed for .308 Winchester is typically not designed to withstand the higher pressures of the 7.62 NATO. You’ll get away with shooting it for a while, but eventually the action could shatter when you fire it. This has actually happened to people and it could easily kill you.
The other way around can be dangerous, too. Headspace requirements are different for each cartridge and shooting .308 in a 7.62 rifle could also eventually result in spiked pressures that cause the action to explode in your face. Maybe the headspace in a 7.62 NATO rifle could be adjusted by a gunsmith to safely fire .308? I don’t know. Find out before you buy one because any ammo you find in gun stores or Walmart or whatever will be .308 rather than NATO spec.
My point is that I wouldn’t pick up one of those Enfields on the assumption that you will be able to share the same ammo with your sporting rifle. Real military spec 7.62 ammo is scarce as hens teeth right now because our troops in Iraq require so much of it to feed to their M-14s. You might find that it’s pretty hard to stock up on that particular ammo at the moment. On the other hand, ammo shortages come and go while the rifle is forever. You could buy the Enfield and then wait until we get the hell out of Iraq, at which time there will be a glut of surplus 7.62 NATO on the market and you can stock up without spending a fortune.
Yeah, a carbine would be ideal for this particular application. But I can’t think of anything common that would do the trick. In the case of the SKS, you could cut off the grenade launcher doo-dad on the end of the barrel to make the overall length about 2 inches shorter. Still not what I’d call carbine length, though.
Thanks to Jack’s devotion to informing the public, I now feel completely comfortable with the prospect of a zombie attack. Any tips on fighting back against the super androids that the government is building?
Jack, thanks for that heads up on 7.62×51 vs. .308 ammo. I have a brick of the the NATO rounds but had never fired any…boy am I glad I didn’t.
You are correct, my sporter is a .308 Winchester mod88 – an exceptionally accurate rifle. It will drop a deer at 400 yds.
I’ve never laughed so hard as the time me and another hillbilly took a Walker Streetsweeper 12ga. out and blew up a bunch of junk in a vacant lot. That gun is evil.
cargosquid makes a good point. A scattergun could just as easily disassemble the undead. I like that Russian Saiga semi-auto. It looks like a 12ga version of the Kalashnikov rifle – even has a clip. I think they are less than $500, even less if you can use the .410.
P.S. I really dislike Google Blogger, can’t seem to get the login to work, and there is no decent support…so I don’t often post on sites that use it.
Johnny, I’d not worry about the super androids. DOD contracts never deliver on time, and when they do deliver, it never achieves half of what was promised. You can probably take ’em down with a Nintendo Duck Hunt gun.
~
Ah, the Street Sweeper. Somehow, someone in my high school got a hold of one of those. It was probably sold a dozen times, before it finally moved out of circulation. Good times.
Man, I know, like, nothing about guns and stuff. But Shaun sure could have used you guys a few years ago in England. (Again, I have no linking skills – Shaun of the Dead reference – a recent but Top 10 flick in my book)
Best quote is the closer: “But one of the semiautomatic rifles that I have described here should be the most basic weapon that every serious zombie killer will use.”
Jack is one of those book learned zombie hunters. All the REAL zombie hunters know the proper round is the 22mag. You can pocket 1000 rounds, the weapon is light, and the muzzle blast is low – so as not to alert the other zombies. :)
Bubby,
You’re only halfway there. A cartridge is just a cartridge. What *rifle* are you suggesting be used? .22 Mags are mostly all sporting rifles that lack the features and durability you’d really need in a prolonged engagement against the undead.
I mean, 20mm Vulcan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:50BMG_size_comparison.JPG) might be be the way to go for assaulting a horde of rampaging Tyrannosaurs as they thunder their way down Park Avenue. But where you gonna find the right rifle chambered for it?
Well I’ve been pleased with the Stainless Marlin bolt action:
http://www.dealerease.net/catalog/product.asp?pid=58332
There is a fiber stock version that sells for less than $200.
I’ve always admired the Henry lever action .22WMG. – less than 6lbs! However, I’m sure it busts my budget.
http://www.gunshopfinder.com/Henry/henrylever22magnum.asp
And I’ve never been disappointed by the Ruger Arms offerings. That 10/22 mag they’ve been making for a few years is on my wish list, coupled with a Hogue rubberized stock. I’m pleased by the reliable rapid action of the Ruger semi-auto. It should serve my needs in close action with the un-dead, where a quick three-round burst should settle the issue.
http://hunting.about.com/od/guns/l/aast1022magnum.htm
The key seems to be finding quality ammo, and keeping your gun cleaned and oiled.
Bubby,
I have the non-stainless .22 version of that Marlin. It’s my primary .22 bolt gun for target practice and I’ve put easily 3,000 rounds through it in the last 18 months. Nice rifle. My parents have one, too. But the magazines are 7 round only and after shooting 100 rounds at the most, the chamber gets gummed up and shells stop extracting properly. Also, accuracy goes all to hell once the barrel heats up. Believe me, I have spent many a summer’s afternoon after work sitting on the back porch plinking with that very action. It’s great for small game but seriously not what you want for zombies.
The Henry .22 lever guns are handsome rifles indeed. I darn near bought one last year after lusting over them in catalogs. Then I saw that they all have those stupid tubular magazines that have to be fed from the muzzle end of the rifle by pulling out that long rod and loading the cartridges in one at a time. Um, no thank you. My Marlin Model 60 (Which Waldo is indefinitely borrowing until such time as he can get his Mossberg working again) has that same system and it’s incredibly annoying. Fine for sitting around and plinking or for hunting small game but any rifle that takes you close to a full minute to reload would be a death sentence once you find yourself surrounded by a moaning phalanx of undead ghouls.
The Ruger 10/22 would be the best of your 3 suggestions. I went into the pros and cons of that rifle for zombies earlier today in the comments section of my own blog.
The parameters we are dealing with here just do not lend themselves to many sporting rifles. The only rifles designed for shooting many, many rounds without jamming up or losing accuracy to an unacceptable degree are specialized varmint rifles and military rifles. The varmint guns are all low-capacity bolt actions without open sights. Leaving us with military surplus rifles, which tend to only come in military calibers. Until a major army adopts .22 magnum as their standard chambering and then declares the rifles all surplus so they can wind up in American gun stores, .22 magnum ain’t gonna solve your zombie troubles.
Well Jack, you’ve convinced me. In addition to my 7.65 NATO sport rifle, sidearm, smoothbore, and .22WMG…I’ll need to add a mil spec open sight rifle if I am to have half a chance against the massed Zombie. What are your thoughts on the Enfields chambered for my 7.65 NATO round? I’d really like to find a carbine, but am concerned about finding a good shortened rifle.
I’m going to laugh at all of you when it’s the vampires that come, and not the zombies.
MB,
Don’t be ridiculous. There’s no such thing as vampires.
Bubby,
You mean the 1960’s Enfield 2A with the box magazine that just came on the market in the last year or so? Made in Ishapore, as I recall. Bolt action. Basically just an SMLE with a bigger magazine and stronger steel.
Great cartridge, great rifle. However, contrary to popular belief, 7.62 NATO is not always interchangable with .308 Winchester, which I presume is what your sport rifle is actually labeled as. We all like to use the 2 cartridge names interchangably and I do it all the time but this does not reflect reality. So here’s my safety pitch on the issue.
They look the same to the naked eye and will chamber in each other’s actions, but 7.62 has much thicker brass (not designed made to be reloaded) and is loaded to much higher pressures than .308 is. A civilian rifle proofed for .308 Winchester is typically not designed to withstand the higher pressures of the 7.62 NATO. You’ll get away with shooting it for a while, but eventually the action could shatter when you fire it. This has actually happened to people and it could easily kill you.
The other way around can be dangerous, too. Headspace requirements are different for each cartridge and shooting .308 in a 7.62 rifle could also eventually result in spiked pressures that cause the action to explode in your face. Maybe the headspace in a 7.62 NATO rifle could be adjusted by a gunsmith to safely fire .308? I don’t know. Find out before you buy one because any ammo you find in gun stores or Walmart or whatever will be .308 rather than NATO spec.
My point is that I wouldn’t pick up one of those Enfields on the assumption that you will be able to share the same ammo with your sporting rifle. Real military spec 7.62 ammo is scarce as hens teeth right now because our troops in Iraq require so much of it to feed to their M-14s. You might find that it’s pretty hard to stock up on that particular ammo at the moment. On the other hand, ammo shortages come and go while the rifle is forever. You could buy the Enfield and then wait until we get the hell out of Iraq, at which time there will be a glut of surplus 7.62 NATO on the market and you can stock up without spending a fortune.
Yeah, a carbine would be ideal for this particular application. But I can’t think of anything common that would do the trick. In the case of the SKS, you could cut off the grenade launcher doo-dad on the end of the barrel to make the overall length about 2 inches shorter. Still not what I’d call carbine length, though.
Thanks to Jack’s devotion to informing the public, I now feel completely comfortable with the prospect of a zombie attack. Any tips on fighting back against the super androids that the government is building?
Jack, thanks for that heads up on 7.62×51 vs. .308 ammo. I have a brick of the the NATO rounds but had never fired any…boy am I glad I didn’t.
You are correct, my sporter is a .308 Winchester mod88 – an exceptionally accurate rifle. It will drop a deer at 400 yds.
I’ve never laughed so hard as the time me and another hillbilly took a Walker Streetsweeper 12ga. out and blew up a bunch of junk in a vacant lot. That gun is evil.
cargosquid makes a good point. A scattergun could just as easily disassemble the undead. I like that Russian Saiga semi-auto. It looks like a 12ga version of the Kalashnikov rifle – even has a clip. I think they are less than $500, even less if you can use the .410.
P.S. I really dislike Google Blogger, can’t seem to get the login to work, and there is no decent support…so I don’t often post on sites that use it.
Johnny, I’d not worry about the super androids. DOD contracts never deliver on time, and when they do deliver, it never achieves half of what was promised. You can probably take ’em down with a Nintendo Duck Hunt gun.
~
Ah, the Street Sweeper. Somehow, someone in my high school got a hold of one of those. It was probably sold a dozen times, before it finally moved out of circulation. Good times.
I don’t want to alarm anyone, but there’s archaeological evidence of an ancient zombie invasion at Hierakonpolis.
If only this threat were in our rear-view mirror Waldo. The undead shuffle amongst us my friend. Our President understands.