I read this article “How to make a survival shotgun”, and honestly thought some of the ideas and concepts are pretty damn neat.
Forgo the fact that the guy is not shooter, i.e. Ka-bar knife on the picatinny. The fact the author is was able to cram a survival kit into a gun quite frankly amazes me. I’m seriously considering about getting a cheap 590 and doing the same thing, albeit minor changes, for a bug out gun or truck gun.
There are some innovative and interesting ideas there (i.e. the sling swivels being used to mount a saw blade), but the guy obviously doesn’t know good accessories. There is a lot of cheap crap on that shotgun.
Even if he used good stuff, however, he’s still got a nearly 10 lbs shotgun to tote around the woods. For a survival situation, I’d rather have a lightweight .22 and a brick of ammo. You can feed yourself fairly well with a .22 in most of North America, and you can do it for a lot longer than with a 12 gauge shotgun.
And lastly, why does all this stuff have to be on the shotgun? Why not in a bug-out bag or small fanny pack? Putting stuff in the stock is one thing, but hanging all that Cheaper Than Dirt crap off the front end just makes for an unwieldy shotgun.
I could agree more with the post above! It looks like a bunch of limited crap that would only weigh down your shotgun and get in the way. Its like those crappy survival knives where you put a bunch of shit in the handle.
“Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.”
Looks like a fun exercise to see how much stuff he can cram onto and into a shotgun. I agree with the above comments that it would be far more useful to have the survival items in a belt pouch or something.
I like having a lighter shotgun for fast swinging, especially if you plan to take game birds in a survival situation. Normally I prefer the 12 ga., but if I was setting up a shotgun to take into the woods for survival I would look at a lighter weight 20 ga model and shotshells. You might be limited in the type of specialty shells like the flare, but I’m not sure how useful those one-use shells are compared to having durable signalling devices like a mirror, fluorescent panels, firestarter, whistle, etc.
And the saw?! Moving a 9.5lb “saw” back and forth would make cutting quite a chore.
He does illustrate though that the buttstock and pistol grip could be used for storage of some lightweight useful items. But I would prefer to keep my guns as fighting/hunting weapons and my survival kit as a survival kit and not try to bastardize the gun for other purposes.
Somebody has way too much unsupervised time on his hands!
I would think if the goal of the author is keep it as one package that a person could grab and go with, a good solution might be a stock pack that would keep items with the weapon but could be detached to keep the weight down when hunting, defending oneself, etc.
Looks like 15 pounds of crap to cart around when you already have it in your bag.
Why isolate it to your arms
Uh, yeah ok. Anyways, aside from the complete sillyness and absurdity of it all, it is completely unnecessary and adding more weight where it isn’t needed.
When I leave the house for the store, bank, etc…I always have a knife, handgun and 50/50 a flashlight. When I go hiking or out of the city I always have at least a pistol (extra mags) many times I have the SBR with a Rhodesian rig and a small Camelbak that has a compass, some water, snacks, etc… I almost always have a cigarette lighter in my pocket as well.
With this I can easily do the basics- make shelter, navigate and make a fire. I used to have a home made survival kit years ago I put together (the key is survive not sustain for long periods) that would easily fit in the cargo pockets of BDU’s. It had all of the basics and would have worked fine if needed.
What I didn’t have was a ton of shit wrapped up into a weapon. Think about this. If he loses his weapon for whatever reason he is screwed. If he has it split up then he has a 50/50 chance or retaining something. That to me is the better bet.
This.
Besides, in a survival situation I don’t want to be shot out of hand because I’m carrying a readily identifiable firearm that is nearly impossible to conceal.
Not to mention that you probably avoid looking like a retard with a 10 dollar dealextreme flashlight fixed with 5 dollar scope rings to a 150 dollar shotgun… that thing looks like it would break if I looked at it too hard.
I read the author’s take on a ‘bug-out bag’. He argues that you need 1 litre of water per person per day to remain ‘adequately hydrated’. If the UTG/CTD shotgun didn’t clue you in to his level of expertise, the above damn well should.
Beyond the above mentioned issues, The posed semi-statue pictures are freakin’ irritating. Plus, I think this dude was working at Whole Foods the last time I went in there for bread. I realize your gun setup should not have any “street-cred” considerations, but if I brought that thing to the range I would be laughed out of the place.
To each his own I suppose…