long term gun(s)

not exactly sure of a good way to say it for the title

a gun that will out last you easily and can be easily maintained and fixed as needed that you could keep it going generations with what you could afford to buy today.

I tend to think the lever guns do have a lot going for them 30-30 is going to take a couple life times to wear out the barrel from shooting it
a set of springs for 25 dollars and it runs a few more decades
a lot of them around and available

years ago mauser k98 sporterized would have been very high on the list , the supply of them has dried up some

the Rem 700 not because of Remington exactly but because people recognized the action was good and made licensed copies of it and a lot of upgrade parts for it

the 10/22 falls into this class for a 22lr gun , you can buy up some parts and make one run a long long time.

glock has got to be the easiest handgun to work on parts all over prescribed maintenance times new recoil spring at 3K

AR15 has parts and is easy to work on

so here is the thought you want to buy a gun to last and last you can't take it to a smith , you need to work on it yourself , you need to be able to basically get all the tools you need to work on it in a tool box lets say a basic foot locker or smaller for parts and tools

if you want to think of it as a 4-5 gun battery
rifle you can hunt
shotgun
pistol
gun 4&5 can be what every fits your needs

if your answer is buy more of one gun model and keep spares that is valid also
no limit on how many guns you can own just a limit for this academic discussion that it would have to fit in your current budget and get all the parts and tools in a foot locker
meaning not a lathe , a mill , big hydraulic presses

goal is to still be having useful guns 150 years from now that get used not just squirreled away in cosmoline.

for use to make it simple the gun will need to fire a minimum of 100 rounds a year so a 150 year life and 15,000 round life

feeding it we will assume you have the supplies to reload for it to 15,000 rounds or more although feel free to discuss that also.

I would think a firearm that was dec ent quality and mass produced. That way there will be lots of parts. Single shots would be up on the list, for not as much to tear up. It would be like if you had an old Winchester 94 30-30 and an internal part broke, it could well be a paper weight. But there are a lot of the old 94's.

Winchester model 21 SxS double shotgun

Winchester purchased a selection of top brand double guns, which included all of the other famous American brands, for a "test to destruction." The technicians at Winchester fired violent proof ("blue pill") loads in all of the guns until they broke or blew up. None of the guns survived more than 305 of these "blue pill" proof loads, except the Model 21. It successfully fired 2,000 of these 150% pressure proof loads without any kind of failure, at which point the test was stopped and the gun torn down. Absolutely no discernible wear or change of dimension had occurred. This gun was featured in Winchester advertisements, photographed with the pile of 2,000 fired proof load hulls behind it.

I feel like I could make a good argument for the Marlin Model 336 in 30-30 or 32 spl

many production guns could be a long term gun , unfortunately so many die as a result of some small part availability

neither cartridge is hard on barrels , both can run cast bullets well that are even easier on barrels I was talking to a gun smith that shot silhouettes league with a 30-30 he said he was over 10K rounds on his current 30-30 barrel and it was showing no signs of wearing out.

both are effective at reasonable range of taking most any game you could run into

9 dollar extractors not to hard to put a few of those away
14 dollar ejectors put a few of those away
spring kit 22 dollars
9 dollar magazine spring
20 dollar firing pin
30 for an assortment of screws

about a hundred dollars to put away a set of parts

ruger single six
a spring kit or two and it will be shooting a long time
one more vote for the win 94

Hard to beat a controlled round feed bolt gun like a Ruger/Winchester for durability. So few moving parts they are unlikely to ever need anything.

if Cowboy action shooting hadn't gotten popular I am not sure we would see the avialiability of small parts , screw sets and spring kits for these guns , but I am certainly gals we are.

firing pin availability might be the only hold up on the ruger

but definitely if there was a way to get a spare

the 70 definitely has them available

I have a Ruger Single Six that has fired 25,000+ rounds without needing a new spring. Bought it when I was eighteen (actually my dad bought it for me, with my money), and it's still in use.

In contrast, a recent model Sig Hammerli Trailside .22 semi-auto broke the retaining clip on the front barrel counter-weight after less than a hundred rounds.

The Ruger is one I'll hand down to my son. The Sig Hammerli is not.

Jim

Colt 1873 easy to work on and even with half the parts broken can still be made to work, but the parts can be easily made if and when you need to

Have a marlin 93 that was made in 1905 and except for a repair man on the stock it has gone without any work except for cleaning ect since the day it came home with my grandpa in 05

No telling how many deer not to mention small game it has put on the table and it was even used a few times to save grandpas life that’s how the stock was damaged

Also have a couple Winchester 94s about the same vintage and their still going strong

MY Remington Mohawk chambered in a .243 will be that Rifle for me

looks like new production extractors have been made

firing pin assembly is out of stock at numrich



I guess that gets the question how robust and long lasting are the firing pins and springs on bolt action rifles ?

the only firing pin I have broken was on a shotgun I was sure glad when I could order up a new one and put it in and have a working gun again.

It seems to me a Marlin lever gun in .45-70 would be hard to beat. Accurate and dependable. I can't guess how many life times of shooting it would take to shoot out the barrel. Terrific brass life. Readily available ammo. Load down or up depending on the game. Will drop anything in NA including the big bears with the right load. I don't have one but I do have a .444 that I bought new in the late 70's.

I wouldn't be so quick to take the kar98 off the list. The m98 action has been in continuous production somewhere in the world since its inception with the only interruptions being wartime factory destruction with resurrection of production being almost immediate.

I can think of at least half a dozen makers in production now including the original mauser werke.

Now that said, I wouldn't exactly recommend a m98 as a do all SHTF one rifle for all time tool. That would be an AR15 with the caveat that one should have a full parts kit and and at least two of every component as spares.
A m98 is a good choice though for the outdoorsman/hunter as solid working rifle.

Id buy 2 or 3 Mossberg 500s in 12 gauge. Pre- Corona you could buy good used ones for under $200. Not the crappy feeling new ones. Easy enough to work on. Original and aftermarket parts galore. Ive got 4 different barrels. Squirrels? CHECK! Waterfowl? CHECK! Deer? CHECK! Moose? CHECK! Home defense? CHECK!

if we stick up for ourselves and keep our right tp be armed, any gun you have could last 150 years with modern machining. the more moving parts it has the more repair it will require. kiss

1. Remington 870 12ga- dependable, easy to break down and parts are easy to find and modify
2. Name your proven rifle action in 30-06- Rem700,Savage110,win m70, Ruger 77
3. Same actions in an intermediate cartridge- .243,22-250....
4. AR15 in 223
5. Some kind of proven metal pistol. No plastic. 1911, sig220/226, cz75, beretta 92,browning hipower

6. A proven 22lr. This could even replace #3, but more guns are a good thing.

i would say any gun that is pump,lever,bolt and single action is going to outlast any semi auto as for the barrel wearing out thats totally up to the owner on loads being fired to how much it is fired a gun fired on the range ever day for a couple of hours isnt going to last as long as your favorite hunting gun

I have no intention of giving up the fight.

this was more a discussion into what makes a long lasting gun and the unfortunate short falls of some parts availability.

some manufacturers have abandoned designs in favor of their new models and when the parts run out , it is done unless you can scavenge and then if it was a part that broke often thos dry up very quickly

I agree few moving parts and good maintenance will make many last a long time

it would be high on my list for shotgun very good parts availability the safety detent spring weakens and they go on safe from the recoil , that and spare firing pin and a few springs could keep the fleet of 500s running.

barrel wear has a lot to do with the cartridge as well as the shooter

there was some interesting research done by the Army/Remington in 1942 when they were looking at 2 groove barrels for the 1903A3 they had life expectancy of more than 16,000 rounds in the torture test

http://www.smallarmsreview.com/display.article.cfm?idarticles=1434


I wonder how the 5R or micro groove rifling compares.

started looking more at the Mausers

Zastiva makes a nice looking mauser 98 and a model 70 clone

My grandpas model 94 still works perfectly. He bought it in 1954. Paid $100 for the gun and 2 boxes of shells and got change back. It’s killed thousands of big game animals.

some that may have merit although not repeaters. Those single shot break action shotguns. Not much to go wrong with those. I have a old stevens tip up in 22 lr, not much to wrong with it either.

For a repeater my choice would probably be a mauser or a SMLE.