I am 36 years of age, heading for 40 and I too have reevaluated my gun collection. In my 20′s and up until recently I took solace and a touch of pride in owning all the cool tactical weapons. .223 .308 7.62×39/54R(all the weaver/picatinny add-on’s that catalog’s have to offer except night vision scopes). I’ve owned all the A’s– AK47, AK74, AR, u know the shtick.

I’ve recently decided to take stock in the practical side of all this ‘gun’ prepping science. I too like redundancy, but after laying out my collection on the couch, bed, floor, and table I realized that I have more than enough to arm the village. That’s a lot of redundancy.

So I’ve decided that my collection of .22 pistols and rifles are practical and are staying. I have a passionate liking for my American made AR-15. And the stack of ammo that would take three men to carry.(spare spring kits for upper and lower, spare bolt, handful of firing titanium firing pins and those nifty DPMS repair kits) So after some thought I parted with one of my 7.62×39 rifles, *hint: ‘it’s mass produced, popular in movies and third world countries and is actually disappointing in it’s accuracy. Even though I’m prior military and a ARMY sharpshooter, I don’t have extreme standards on accuracy within the weapons respective category: ie short range, mid range, long range. But this gun, as much as I have enjoyed shooting it, wasn’t the gun that I wanted to dedicate any significant portion of my 7.62 supply.

A couple of SKS rifles with over under scope mounts and a medium power scope puts me in more of a practical satisfactory setup. Some of my siblings who are also preppers gave me odd looks when I told them I parted with my macho assault 7.62 rifle. But I explained that it’s accuracy disappointed me and a tactical home defense shotgun was now my preference in it’s stead.

Twin Glocks model 23 and between 500-1000 rounds and the previously mentioned .22 revolvers have my short range and everyday carry needs covered.

A $120.00 Mosan Nagant with a Monte Carlo stock upgrade and scope is an impressive deer rifle and long range multitasking weapon. Ammo isn’t cheap for it, but having already acquired some for the AK74 it was a practical and easy switch.

The shotguns I have do not fit my new practical perspective, but I am working on remedying that. I agree that a Moss 500 is a great shotgun, but I’m looking at a cheaper solution–an Emperor semi-auto 12gauge tactical. Money saved on the shotgun will go directly to ammo.

I sold my 9mm pistols not only because I have always neglected to stock ammo for them but they lost their appeal after I upgraded to GLOCK .40′s.

So, I’ve parted with 4, and am preparing to add the tactical shotgun. I think I’ve made some practical changes that fit with your blog concepts and the change in my own views on the prepper’s gun/ammo inventory.

Home defense has become more of a concern to me at my advanced age(LoL), but it also fits with your opinion that I do not expect my neighbors to run out and stand up for much of anything. Some of them may lose their cool if their beloved pet dog were harmed by an invading army or mercenary group, but outside of that, I am not even looking to a future collapse in which the village locals come together to fight off city escaping hoards and zombies. So helping out the villagers and all that it implies is cancelled until further notice. I don’t expect many of them to even help themselves so why should we?

Long post, but I was enthused to find your topic and your quality writing. So a good reply seemed appropriate.

Thank You