“Only two”
Over on the Leverguns.com Community Forum the old game of “pick one” came up again recently. Only this time it was “pick two”. Here’s part of the original post to give context to my answer as outlined below.
You can only pick one rifle – hunting, self protection, plinking, fondling, drooling over… etc. You won’t have any others at home, at camp, in the car, at some member of your families home. You have to choose only one. It has to be one you have or one you are working to own/build etc. I would like to know which one it is, and why. I am leaving a little room to wiggle with the second part of the question.
With that one rifle, you get to have one pistol, same rules, no others anywhere else.
I ain’t played one of these games in a while -but always find them interesting. Shucks, right now I’ve only GOT one handgun and no funds to pick up a rifle. A lot of it has to do with your surroundings and where you live in the first place. Here? Well, here, south of the Rio Grande by a considerable distance, a 38 revolver and a 22 rifle are hard to beat. Ammo’s fairly easy to come up with (“fairly” being a relative term) since those are probably the two most common calibers.
Now, if I were up in the US – it’d be a different story. There??? Well, he threw a monkey wrench into the system with his “only two” with no wiggle room for an “omnipresent” 22 LR. How can you get along without a 22 in the US of A? Skeeter Skelton’s character, Dobie Grant, picked the good ol’ 22 LR as a “one rifle” in a similar exercise. There’s a lot to be said for a 22 rifle – it can take game up to and including black bear and elk – if you pick your shots CAREFULLY. We’re not talking about HUNTING, we’re talking about KILLING – probably with the aid of “non-sporting” methods. The object being to simply fill the pot. A 22 LR will also give you the means to obtain a more potent weapon in a “Red Dawn” type scenario in which the country’s over run by foreign “liberators” and the good ol’ boys have taken to the hills.
So, a 22 rifle and a centerfire hand gun. Picking the handgun is tough too. 38 spl/357 ammo’s almost everywhere, even in this day and age of the WonderNine bottom feeders. But there’s a lot to be said for the power of a 45 Colt in a modern sixgun like a Blackhawk or Vaquero. In fact, it would be easier to download the 45 to “cat sneeze’ levels for plinking/smallgame/etc than it is to hotrod the 38/357 to the level of power which a hot loaded 45 is capable of. In fact, you CAN’T get a 357 up to the level of power the 45 Colt is capable of in a MODERN large framed revolver.
So, choice one - 22 LR rifle and 45 Colt Ruger large frame sixgun.
On the other hand, a good centerfire rifle can be a handy thing to have. You’ve got a HUGE selection up there – I’d seriously consider the 30 WCF – probably in a 94 Winchester configuration. (Grandpa’s ol’ rifle) The 30-30 has taken every game animal on the North American continent – multiple times. It’s not “the end all” of calibers but is still capable of doing everything it ever did do – and better today than 100 years ago since we’ve more advanced choices in bullet design than folks had when it first came out. Ammo’s EVERYWHERE. No self respecting gun shop can consider itself well stocked without a good selection of 30-30 ammo and components are also easy to find and loading tools are common.
And a 22 handgun is a great game getter. You can take small game and even deer size game with carefully placed 22 LR out of a good sixgun. And with a Single Six or other switch cylinder gun you can bend the rules a bit and have two calibers in one sixgun – the 22 WRM allowing you more power for larger animals – even for defensive use against two legged varmints should the need arise. Alan Taylor’s old Single Six with one reamed chamber is another style that has merit. Carry it with one empty chamber which can then have a Mag round slipped in for targets of opportunity.
So, choice two -30-30 rifle and a 22 LR/WRM sixgun.
And then, there’s the good ol’ “common ammo” argument that’s got some good points to it. This third setup is purely hypothetical as I’ve never owned such a rifle – but the theory’s sound.
The 357 Mag out of a carbine length barrel is a fairly powerful round. It ups the ante from sixgun level power to near 30-30 levels of power. Plus, the same rifle can be used to shoot “cat sneeze loads” for small game and other low noise applications. Likewise, a good sixgun in 38/357 makes for a nifty packin’ piece for protection against most threats in the lower 48 as well as offering more “oomph” for small game shooting. So a Winchester, Browning or Rossi 38/357 caliber rifle with a good single or double action small/medium framed revolver could offer excellent service for a wide variety of applications. I’ve loaded more 38 spl than probably all other calibers combined over the years and it’s given me good service over the years. I’ve loaded less 357 (and shot even less of it) but know that it’s been used to take everything on the continent at one time or another.
So, purely hypothetical (since I don’t have them even in storage) would be a 357 rifle/sixgun combo – preferably a small frame Ruger sixgun or a Model 19 or similar S$W along with the handy Model 92 frame carbine.
Choice three – 38 spl/357 mag carbine and sixgun
Of the three? Well, the first combo is my most likely scenario for such a choice as I grew up with a 22 in hand and the 45 Colt would cover the few niches I couldn’t fill with the 22 LR. Probable choice of rifle would be the Winchester 67 as it’s accurate and the one shot capability it has makes you think before pulling the trigger. But there’s some to be said for the stock factory Ruger 10-22, albeit the magazines can be problematic over time. So I guess I named the “only two” combos in order of probability/preference should such a choice ever be made.
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