Another month, another post wherein Art of Manliness brings the awesome.
I cannot say as though I agree with all of the author’s choices (most notably toting around a survival kit in his survival shotgun*, as well as relying exclusively on an anchor-like shotgun during the impending zombie apocalypse), but I also cannot say as though I ever thought about just how much space there is in those hollow-plastic buttstocks.
The odds of me building a shotgun quite like that are remarkably small (especially with that not-really-"bayonet" nonsense – just carry a gorramed knife in your pocket!), but it does make you think about what kinds of things you can shove in other similarly-small spaces…
* – What about weight, recoil, the possibility of losing said shotgun, etc. etc. etc.?
His compass isn’t in the stock…
Where’s the QuikClot? He’s gonna need it.
If it is Zombies I’m after, I’ll use my clone 1897 trench gun with the 17″ Enfield bayonet, thank you very much!
Forget about the mounted knife and flashlight, and you have a fairly good survival kit. The shotgun is for signalling, food procurement, and defense, and the rest of the kit is useful as well. It would be good if you were stuck in a wilderness. The weight in the stock would help tame the recoil a bit. As to loosing the shotgun, if something happens that makes you lose it, you’re in worse trouble than you thought.
@ bluesun: Gotta be amused by his sticking it on the back of the flashlight, though
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@ DirtCrashr: I am pretty sure the saw is removable. I hope.
@ John Richardson: Ahh, if only shotgun trigger disconnects were more common.
@ BobG: Eh, I dig having flashlights on my shotgun, but that is only because I like knowing what I am shooting at in dark situations
. As for the point of sticking your survival kit in your firearm, if you were to lose one or the other, you would certainly be up gos-se creek, but I would prefer only losing one or the other, as opposed to both.
Personally, I think the article was written as a joke, which fell flat because too many took it as written. Then again, I could be wrong. If the author was serious, it would be worth attending one of his classes simply for the amusement value. After all, his choice of a survival knife (and its storage location), by itself, kept me laughing for five solid minutes.
Oh, I am fair certain that a good bit of it was meant in a tongue-and-cheek fashion, but by the same token, there is a fair bit of inspiration there, especially given how small things can be, and how small a space they can be shoved into.