Weight of the world (or at least ammo) on your shoulders...

In the wake of the Colorado shootings and all the hype about ordering bulk amounts of ammo on the internet to be delivered to ones house I had a thought, "how much of that 6,000 round stockpile that guy supposedly had could he of actually carried at once?"  I am sure I am not the only person that has thought about this, the entire web is filled with dialogues about how much ammo to carry without weighing yourself down versus how much you "realistically" need.  I was doing some searching on the web to find out if there was anything about the weight of ammo and I found this page  from a Zombie site almost right away... 

The author had taken the time already to come up with the answers I was looking for...

Lightest
138rds/lb 22LR
38.25 rd/lb .223
38.25 rd/lb 9mm
28rds/lb 7.62×39
28 rds/lb .40 S&W
21rds/lb 45 ACP
21 rds/lb .308
11 rd/lb 12 Ga OO Buckshot
Heaviest

So to answer my initial question, 1,000 rounds of ammo for a 5.56mm AR would weigh around 26.3 lbs, so all 6,000 rounds would weigh about 158 lbs.  Not really an issue as I don't think anybody is going to be hauling that much ammo at once and still be mobile.  

But lets go just a step farther here.  Let's take a look at what we may carry in our "battle load".  Yes, I know that term is going to shock many anti-gunners that may stumble across this page, but if I have an AR rifle to defend myself and my family just in case a SHTF situation pops up on my doorstep (riots, natural disasters with looting, 1,000 zombies rolling in my 'hood....or whatever) I am going to make damn sure I have enough ammo on hand to do the job.  Let's take a look at my own SHTF setup that I have posted before....

As you can see I would be carrying 4+1 pmags with 5.56 (150 rounds / 38 = rougly 4 lbs) plus 68 rounds of 9mm (2 mags on the vest, 1 in the G34 and another single mag on my belt..... 68 / 38 = 1.8 lbs) for at total of about 5.8 lbs of ammo.  Wow.  And the kicker is that according to that list above the 5.56/9mm rounds seem to (me) hit the sweet spot on the entire effectiveness vs. weight ratio.   Say I had an AK and carried a 1911 instead of a G34 out the door my weight difference would be an additional 1.1 lbs (figuring 6.9 pounds  of 150 7.62x39 ammo and 32 rounds of .45 (4 x 8 round mags) ).   Now a .308 M1A with 5 mags and a 1911 would be actually lighter than the AK/1911 loadout at 6.2 lbs, but you are giving up 50 rounds for your MBR there.  I think its an odd coincidence that each caliber in terms of both rifle and pistol rounds lines up with the "equivalent" power round of its counterpart in terms of weight. 

Often you see internet commandos going off about how many rounds that they have on their battle rattle or setup.  For me, if the balloon does go up while a civilian and a state of existence WTROL does break out, I still do not see myself being loaded down like I might be if I was living in Damascus, Syria at the moment or Baghdad a few years ago.  Just a basic load is all I need, more ammo means more weight; and more weight means a quicker fatigue curve to battle against in my "advanced age" and not-so-conditioned body.  Some guys want to walk around weighed down like they are taking out a bank in North Hollywood. I want to walk around weighed down like I want to be a visible deterrent until local government can be restored.   

I'm counting about 8 pounds of 5.56 there...

Same thing goes with "go bags" and the like in terms of weight.  Plenty of guys have bags by the door or on a shelf that contain spare ammo and stuff to throw in the car on their way out of Dodge City.  Sure enough this stuff weighs as much also.  Plus, if you are like most folks and put this ammo in your bag in the box you got it with you are adding additional bulk as the boxes you get off of the shelf of your LGS or Wallymart are designed to ship the ammo safely without damage and not as compactly as it might be possible.  This is particularly true with those styrofoam inserts in the WWB ammo boxes. 

Now you could go with a .22 setup for SHTF.  There are plenty that include a good .22 rifle and or pistol in their contingency plan, and for good reasons too.  The .22 is cheap, plentiful and at 138 rounds to a pound you can carry a crap load of it.  Its ability to take small game is well known and up close its nothing to sneeze at as a defensive round if loaded correctly.  However, unless a CNS shot is made its not exactly the "one shot stop" solution you are looking for when danger knocks on your front door.  Then again the mere presence of a firearm may be more than enough to dissuade some unwanted guests from your presence.   Still, for the price of a decent 10/22 anyone in your family can be taught to shoot and the price of ammo, I would encourage most of you to get one regardless just to have and enjoy. 

And because I haven't posted any semi-random music videos to go along with any posts recently, here is a fan video for the Saliva song "Weight Of The World" done to the move Hancock.   Saliva was one of my favorite bands while I was deployed and I still like them a lot.  Often miscategorized as a Christian band because of some of their lyrics and professions on their CD sleeves, they are better describes as a band with Christians in it, they drop a few curse words in their lyrics to be a Christian band.  Still, they had a good sound with front man Josey Scott (who did leave to pursue a solo Christian career though), I have not really listened to them since they changed singers though.  Still I like this song, not really uplifting if you listen to it but it at least sounds good.