DISCLAIMER OF LIABILITY AND WARRANTY

This publication describes the authors opinions regarding the subject matter herein. The author and publisher are not
rendering advice or services pertaining to specific individuals or situations. For specific advice, or if expert assistance is
required, the services of a qualified professional should be obtained.

The author and publisher assume no responsibility whatsoever for the use of the information in this publication or for
decisions made or actions taken based, in whole or in part, on the information in this publication. The author and
publisher make no warranties, express or implied, regarding the information. Without limiting the foregoing, the author
and publisher specifically disclaim and will not be responsible for any liability, loss, or risk incurred directly, indirectly
or incidentally as a consequence of the use or misuse of any advice or information presented herein. Use this
publication and information with good judgment and do the best you can in your particular situation.

You agree to indemnify and hold the author and publisher, and their respective officers, directors, agents, employees,
contractors and suppliers, harmless from any claim or demand, including reasonable attorneys fees, related to your use
or misuse of this publication or the information contained therein. You further agree that you will cooperate fully in the
defense of any such claims.

Notice: As the purchaser of this electronic document you are permitted to store it and print it for your own personal use
only.

Otherwise, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by
any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the
copyright owner and publisher. It is illegal to make a copy of all or part of this publication for someone else, even if you
do not charge for the copy. If you have purchased this book from anywhere other than FamilySurvivalSociety.com,
including eBay, please report it to admin@FamilySurvivalSociety.com immediately.

COPYRIGHT
Those who have received or purchased the guide are neither authorized nor permitted to transmit copies of this guide to
anyone without written permission. Giving away copies to people who havent paid for them is illegal under
international copyright laws and will submit you to possible legal action. Therefore, the utilization of this file is limited
to personal use only.

TERMS AND DISCLAIMER

By using, viewing, and interacting with this guide or the FamilySurvivalSociety.com website, you agree to all terms of
engagement, thus assuming complete responsibility for your own actions.

The authors and publishers will not be held liable or claim accountability for any loss or injuries. Use, view, and interact
with these resources at your own risk.

All products from FamilySurvivalSociety.com and its related companies are strictly for informational purposes only.
While all attempts have been made to verify the accuracy of information provided on our website and within the
publications, neither the authors nor the publishers are responsible for assuming liability for possible inaccuracies.


In part one of the home defense rifle guide, were going to do something a little
different and spend some time telling you what not to buy rather than what to buy.
There is a good reason for this: most people will use the rifle they already have on
hand for home defense, and in a sense, thats better than nothing at all. In the end,
the rifle you have will be the one you use but many people dont realize that there
are better choices out there. Unlike the home defense handgun, where most any
handgun is suitable for home defense, rifles are different and more diverse; you have
bolt actions, semi automatics, and lever actions. Then youve got hybrids of each
category; some are overly tactical, some are purely sporting. There are a lot more
choices in the realm of rifles than in pistols, where it overwhelmingly boils down to
revolvers or semi automatics.

WHY DO I NEED A HOME DEFENSE RIFLE?

Before we get into what to buy, we need to look at

why we need to buy it in the first place. Our
mandate on why you need a home defense rifle is
simple: to engage medium range threats that occur
outside the home. Wait are you suggesting that
we shoot from inside the home at threats that occur outside the home? In a word, yes.
We are not looking for a home defense rifle that you will use to shoot at intruders
within the home thats what your home defense pistol is for. We dont like rifles for
interior use because:


3

Your average rifle round tends to over penetrate. This means that you could
shoot at an attacker, have the round go right through him, and still possess
enough energy to injure a family member or pass though a wall.
Rifles are harder to use in close quarters work than handguns; they are longer
and bulkier.
You are more likely to have a handgun ready in a holster or nightstand, while
your rifle is most likely sitting unloaded in the safe.

Okay, fair enough. In that case, what situations might we decide to use a home
defense rifle in? What would prompt us to holster that pistol and yank the rifle out of
its safe? Here are some scenarios:

You need to engage an attacker or intruder who is on your property or

attempting to gain access to the property line.
You need to engage an attacker or intruder who is in a vehicle on your street.
You need to engage multiple intruders who are on your property but not yet in
your house.

While these sound like questionable and even illegal scenarios, we are not
necessarily considering having to do any of these things while society is up and
running; currently, there are police for that sort of thing. Still, even while society is
up and running, you may find that some scenarios might play out today for example,
if you own a remote acreage and see a strange car pull up to your gate with four
males in it who look hostile, you will most likely want to grab a rifle, even if you dont
actually discharge it. The mere sight of a rifle might totally deter a crime.

4


The key to the usage of your home defense rifle will range, in this case, medium
range. We want a rifle that is good from about 40 yards - about the realistic range of
a handgun to about 300 yards, the point at which you would switch to a rifle with a
scope. Our ideal home defense rifle is one that hits hard within this range, a rifle that
owns that protective zone of space around your house.

RIFLES THAT ARE UNSUITABLE FOR HOME DEFENSE IN OUR OPINION

Before we get into the best qualities for a home defense rifle, lets look into the rifles
we feel are unsuitable for home defense. The reason why we want to take this tack
with this guide is that Americans overwhelmingly love their guns, and chances are,
you already own a rifle or two of the type we are saying is unsuitable. You probably
want to know why such a rifle doesnt make sense, and were going to tell you. Let us
state unequivocally that most any rifle is capable of killing an adult male from the
lowly .22 to a big bore elephant gun, most any firearm can be lethal. Still, more
Americans are killed by cars than by guns every year; that doesnt mean we want to
use a car as our home defense tool. Its all about using the right tool for the job.

Bolt Action Rifles

Sure, grandpas deer gun has

taken all kinds of game for nigh
on fifty years, but that doesnt make it suitable for home defense. While it is


5

technically capable of that function in fact, the overwhelming majority of infantry
rifles in World War I and World War II were bolt actions there are better choices out
there today. On that note, the

rifles that caused the most deaths during the Civil War were muzzleloaders, but that
doesnt mean they make sense today. Remember merely capable of killing doesnt
make it the best choice.

So why dont bolt actions make sense for medium range home defense?

They suffer from a slow rate of fire

After a shot, you must usually take your eye off the optic, break your cheek
weld, work the bolt, and then reposition yourself and get your sight picture
again before you can shoot. Expert shooters can work the bolt without doing
this, but novices rarely can. Also, this cycle doesnt much matter at 700+
yards you have time to do this at that distance. At 65-100 yards not so
much.
Bolt action rifles are slow to reload; very few feature magazines, and most
are loaded from the top using an internal magazine, which is a slow process.
Additionally, most internal magazines are three or four rounds.
Most bolt action rifles are chambered in heavy recoil calibers such as .308,
.30-06, .338 Winchester magnum, and other such beasts. Recoil is the enemy
of close range follow up shots.
Most bolt guns have longish barrels that work against you if the fight
suddenly gets close quarters and nasty.

If you own a bolt gun, dont despair. We love bolt guns, and they have a place in
home defense, but normally that place is 300 yards and beyond, where they really
shine. Well be covering this segment of firearms in a future buyers guide.

Lever Action Rifles

Here we go again, picking on grandpas deer gun. There are few things in the firearms
world more American than the lever action rifle; it is the symbol of the Wild West and
part of our heritage, and lever action rifles have slain countless men in the century
and a half theyve been around. On the plus side, lever action rifles are relatively fast
shooting and allow rapid follow up shots without taking your eye of the target. Were
not knocking the stalwart lever action at all its just that there are better home
defense choices out there. Heres why they dont make the best choices:

Lever action rifles cant be effectively fired from the prone position, because
you need room to crank the lever down.
Lever action rifles use tubular magazines which are slow to reload. After
youve fired off the contents of the tubular magazine, expect to spend 15-20
seconds refilling that same magazine more if you are not well practiced at
it.
Lever action rifles, while having more magazine capacity than bolt actions,
are still limited to not more than 15 rounds on board; some calibers have
half as many rounds.

7

Lever action calibers nowadays are predominantly limited to pistol calibers
and low to medium power rifle cartridges like .30-30 Winchester, which is a
200 yard cartridge in the best case. Few lever action calibers are what you
would call ballistically effective.
Limited choice of optics available. Typically, lever action rifles use iron
sights, with the occasional rifle having a scope. What we want is a rifle that
can mount an easy to use red dot or similar style sight, and these sights are
not easily adaptable to lever actions.

Again, a lever action rifle is better than no rifle, but there are lots of better rifles for
home defense than the lever action, regardless of the caliber your lever action is
chambered in.

SO WHAT ARE WE LOOKING FOR?

When choosing a home defense rifle, you need to more or less choose what you feel
your adversaries or potential adversaries will choose, and overwhelmingly, this is a
semiautomatic rifle. A semiautomatic rifle is simply one in which fired gas from the
cartridge causes the rifle to automatically chamber another round. Usually, these
rifles are magazine fed, which makes reloads super fast. Heres how to choose a good
semiautomatic rifle:

8

Step 1: Start by choosing a current
military or law enforcement caliber: If
you thought we were going to start giving
you model numbers of rifles first, then you
need to take a step back and focus on
caliber first. Choosing a rifle chambered in
a military caliber is extremely important
for a number of reasons:

First off, military caliber ammunition is produced in such vast quantities that
it is unlikely the supply will ever be exhausted; sure, there is an ammunition
shortage currently in effect as of the writing of this guide, but its not
because people are shooting the ammunition, it is because they are hoarding
it. The overwhelming calibers people are hoarding happen to be military
calibers.
Military calibers also represent excellent performance for self defense
because they were designed for killing people in the most efficient way
possible. Sure, there are hotter and better performing calibers in the civilian
world, but overwhelmingly, military calibers are repeatable, reliable,
plentiful, and effective.
Your local law enforcement agency as well as the military will be using these
same calibers; what that means from a practical perspective is that during
the apocalypse, ammunition of this type will be plentiful, if nothing else, on
the corpses of these individuals.

9

Military calibers for your home defense rifle should be limited to three choices, and
three choices only:

.223 Remington: The military version of this is 5.56 NATO (5.56 x 45). This is the
current cartridge used in the M4 and M16 series rifles as well as civilian ARs. .223
Remington is dimensionally similar and can be fired in all 5.56 chambered weapons,
but not the other way around.

7.62 x 39: This is a military caliber, albeit from a foreign military; 7.62 x 39 is the
most popular chambering for AK series rifles and their countless clones. Its a hard
hitting round thats not the most accurate cartridge, but it does the job inside of 300
yards.

.308 Winchester: The military version of this cartridge is 7.62 x 51 NATO, and it is
dimensionally similar to the .308 Winchester as to be interchangeable. .308
Winchester is a powerful round that can reach out to 1000 yards in a bolt gun, and
thus it has plenty of short range punch.

Yes, there are other military calibers out there, but these are the three you need to
focus your attentions on when it comes to home defense rifles.

Step 2: Choose a rifle with plentiful and common detachable magazines: Detachable
magazines are a prime consideration in a home defense rifle; its what makes a rifle
so versatile and fast shooting. After youve chosen a military caliber, you need to
choose a rifle that has 30 round (or greater) magazines available in quantity. It
doesnt matter if your state restricts magazine capacities right now; all you want is

10

commonality between your rifle and what the military and police will be shooting.
And magazine commonality is everything in this segment; there are many
semiautomatic rifles chambered in military calibers that use proprietary magazines.
Stay away from these!

Step 3: Choose an operating system that is prolific: You want an operating system
(the basic platform or design of the rifle) that has millions of examples of produced
rifles. You dont want a one off custom job for a home defense rifle; you want a rifle
that has had time to evolve. Specifically, you want:

A rifle that is still in use by a military force.

A rifle that has had so many examples produced that repair parts are available
in vast quantities.
A rifle that has a massive aftermarket of upgrades and parts available.

Again, there are lots of rifles out there that are chambered in military calibers and
that use military magazines, but that have not been produced in big numbers and
have virtually no aftermarket. Innovation is not what you want here. You want a track
record and proven performance.

Step 4: Choose a rifle that has features that are conducive to easy handling in close
quarters. What this means is that you want a rifle that has a pistol grip, for starters.
Pistol grips are used in weapons carried by policemen, SWAT teams, and soldiers

11

everywhere. While politicians are scared of them, pistol grips are the first choice for
professionals and they should be the first choice for you. Additionally, you want a
rifle that is carbine length; this usually means a compact rifle with a shortened barrel.
Carbine length rifles are shorter, lighter, more easily handled in close quarters, and
once again, used overwhelmingly by militaries and police. Essentially, you want all
the easy handling features that make an assault rifle.well, an assault rifle. These
features were put there by firearms manufacturers for a reason lets say it to kill
more effectively. And thats precisely why you want them.

THE SHORT LIST

If we consider the sum total of these four steps, we will arrive at a short list of
acceptable firearms that we should be looking at. While we wont be looking at these
firearms in detail for this buyers guide they will be in part 2 of this guide next
month - here is the list of firearms that meet our requirements to be a home defense
rifle:

AR-15 series rifles: encompasses

literally thousands of variants
chambered in .223 Remington and
5.56 NATO

AK series rifles: encompasses thousands of variants both with stamped and milled
receivers, and we are most interested in rifles that are chambered in 7.62 x 39.

12

AR-10 series rifles: encompasses hundreds of variants; market segment is not as big
as AR-15 series rifles, but there are still many offerings. These are essentially AR
series rifles chambered in .308 Winchester and 7.62x 51 NATO.

FN-FAL series rifles: encompasses hundreds of variants of the British and Belgian FN
series rifles, chambered in .308 Winchester and 7.62x 51 NATO.

Heckler and Koch 91 series rifles: encompasses hundreds of variants of the German
built Heckler and Koch rifles chambered in .308 Winchester and 7.62x 51 NATO.

Ruger Mini 14 Rifles: Civilian sporting rifles chambered in .223 Remington and using
detachable AR type magazines.

Ruger Mini 30 Rifles: Civilian sporting rifles chambered in 7.62 x 39 and using
detachable AK type magazines.

Keep in mind that the above list doesnt mean that we are recommending the actual
rifle thats named; for example, the HK 91 is a fully automatic military rifle that would
be illegal to own. What we are speaking of is the series of semiautomatic clones that
have been derived from these rifles.

In the next guide, we will look at each series in detail, and describe the pros and cons
of each one. Stay tuned!

13