By Jerry Ahern, Photos by Sharon AhernSharon and I have just finished a book for

Krause/FW Publications (krausebooks.com). It’sentitled Get Ready! A Survivor’s Guide to DisasterPreparedness and it will be out in March of 2010.Although it’s not a gun book at all – it deals withpractical steps to take in order to make it throughmanmade and natural disasters – there is one chap-ter that deals with firearms. I wanted to share somethoughts and observations concerning the subject offirearms in the context of preparedness.

The government (ready.gov) disseminates a lot ofextremely helpful, well-intended information con-cerning disaster preparedness, but none of it reallytouches on firearms for security. As we all know, thegovernment doesn’t really want us to take care ofourselves THAT WAY and the last thing in the worldthe government wants is for more people to bearmed. Well, that’s their problem and they’ll justhave to live with it. Smart people, barring religiousor moral prohibitions against self defense, will bearmed for their protection at all times when legal.During a disaster, manmade or natural, is no time torelinquish that right.

So, what should you be armed with? Obviously,any weapon is better than no weapon. A bolt-actiondeer rifle or a compound bow is better than barehands and attitude – but, attitude is necessary andcan do a lot.

Given the option, there are three centerfire riflecalibers I would suggest as optimal for the typicalperson interested in preparing to survive a manmadeor natural disaster. You’re going to want a weapon ina caliber that is easily and readily found, and a cal-iber for which removable box magazine fed rifles aremade and (usually) readily available at various pricepoints. The three top choices – like it or not – are.223, 7.62x39 Russian and .308 Winchester. You canspend a lot of money on rifles in these calibers; or, ifyou are a wise shopper, you can find gently used sur-plus firearms that are more or less just as good for theintended purpose. Remember, you’re not taking atrophy at 300 yards or trying to win a match at CampPerry. You want something you’ll hopefully neverhave to use, except for periodic practice or plinking.Bad guys trying to hurt your family will make prettygood-sized targets, anyway.

More traditional sporting rifles in these caliberswill have two problems. First, a high volume of fire

will likely heat them up beyond what would happenwith a military sporter. Secondly, you can’t get high-capacity magazines for traditional sporting rifles,because nobody makes them. A five-round magazineis fine for deer hunting; deer aren’t shooting back atyou. You’ll want 20- or 30-rounders, generally speak-ing. Either is more than adequate. That’s another con-sideration, too. You’ll want to be able to equip your-self with plenty of spare magazines. After all, Godforbid you need to use this rifle to defend hearth andhome, you can’t count on the fact that one magazinewill get you through. If you shop right, you can findquality used magazines for certain of these rifles foras little as three dollars each!

There are three rifles I really like for this situa-tion. In .308, it’s the CETME from Century Interna-tional Arms (centuryarms.com). Immediately follow-ing World War II, as the story goes, German engi-neers who had been developing a new stur-mgewehr for the German Army fled to Spain. Theycontinued their work, developing the CETME, therifle a serious technological leap forward. Thosearms inventors went on to develop even morefamous rifles, but the Century International Armsversion of the original CETME, as rebuilt in theUnited States using both overseas-origin CETMEparts and parts manufactured here in the USA, is anoutstanding firearm. It will take CETME magazines,of course, but also does perfectly well – if not better– with the more widely available G3 magazines.The G3 is a venerable service rifle that has seen agreat deal of use throughout the world.

If you buy a CETME, the one thing with whichyou must contend is the absence of a sling swivel onthe butt of the weapon. I’ve been told – and I intendto try it – that you remove the butt plate and there’senough meat there to drill for a sling swivel stud. MyCETME is a pleasant gun to shoot and handles BlackHills, Winchester Super X and Hornady loads, bothFMC and soft points, with perfect aplomb.

The second rifle is in 7.62x39 Russian. It’s thesemi-automatic-only WASR version of the AK-47,also from Century, but seriously modified. My son-in-law, Danny Akers, and I got together and didsome major surgery on the AK-47. We left the fold-ing Tapco butt stock. We removed the fore-end andreplaced it with one from Command Arms, featur-ing upper and lower Picatinny rails. We added aCrimson Trace LaserGrips vertical fore-end grip, the

20 Ahern Under the Gun: How to Feel Fine When it’s TEOTWAWKI*

Above: A Remington 870 with 20-inch barrel, rifle sights,extended magazine tube, spare shotshells on the butt-stock and Brenneke slugs looped on the sling. Left: Fromtop, the CETME in .308, the WASR AK-47 in .30 Russianand the Mini-14 in .223.

Ahern Under the Gun: How to Feel Fine When it’s TEOTWAWKI*

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