So you want to learn how to build an excellent zombie survival kit, and honestly your best bet would be to read zombie survival guide by max brooks. However if you lack time, funds or are just lazy I'll cut to the chase and give you a quick, light and excellent kit to survival the undead nightmare...
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Signing UpStep 1: What you need...
Here's what your Kit should have...
- Rifle,Shotgun or Assault Rifle. I'd prefer a good reliable sks carbine. semi auto, 7.62x39 mm ammo (same as the ak) and a five round clip. Good all around package...and it's a relatively cheap to get.
- 300-600 rounds of ammo. Because you never know.
- Good comfy backpack. You'll need a lot of storage for you gear.
- Sleeping bag. You will have to sleep sooner or later.
- Ear plugs. To drown out the moaning of the undead.
- Red glow sticks. Good light source.
- Hachet or machete. Both make great close quarters weapons and both are excellent survival tools.
- Folding shovel. Another good close quarters weapon... also good for digging latrines.
- Local map. Preferably a state or provincial map with roads/backroads and bodies of water.
- Compass. To work with your map and help you navigate.
- Self powered flashlight and radio. You need to see and keep up with current events.
- Rope. You'll need a lot, say a few hundred feet. And make sure it's of good quality.
- 8' x 10' tarp. Makes a good, quick tent.
- First Aid Kit. Make sure its not a cheap one, and put it in a waterproof bag that gause won't do any good wet.
- 12 big thick garbage bags. Good for everything from waterproofing your pack to making a poncho, to making a shower.
- 2 Rolls Paper towels. Good for toilet paper and snot rags.
- 2 or 3 sets of spare clothing. Obvious reasons...
- Dehydrated/Non perishable Food. MREs, Ramen noodles, canned food, granola, beef jerky it's all good.
- 2 Litres of Clean Drinking water and a means of getting more. Meaning either have a filter kit, or purification tablets or a stove to boil water.
- Deck of Cards and a novel. You will get bored.
- 2 pocket knives. The uses are endless.
- Multitool. again they can do anything from opening cans to cutting wire.
- Credit Card. Who knows when you'll need plastic...and it can jimmy locks.
- 4 Burlap sacks. If you'd like to make a quick foxhole/barricade.
- Waterproof matches/ flint and steel. You'll need fire.
- Rifle,Shotgun or Assault Rifle. I'd prefer a good reliable sks carbine. semi auto, 7.62x39 mm ammo (same as the ak) and a five round clip. Good all around package...and it's a relatively cheap to get.
- 300-600 rounds of ammo. Because you never know.
- Good comfy backpack. You'll need a lot of storage for you gear.
- Sleeping bag. You will have to sleep sooner or later.
- Ear plugs. To drown out the moaning of the undead.
- Red glow sticks. Good light source.
- Hachet or machete. Both make great close quarters weapons and both are excellent survival tools.
- Folding shovel. Another good close quarters weapon... also good for digging latrines.
- Local map. Preferably a state or provincial map with roads/backroads and bodies of water.
- Compass. To work with your map and help you navigate.
- Self powered flashlight and radio. You need to see and keep up with current events.
- Rope. You'll need a lot, say a few hundred feet. And make sure it's of good quality.
- 8' x 10' tarp. Makes a good, quick tent.
- First Aid Kit. Make sure its not a cheap one, and put it in a waterproof bag that gause won't do any good wet.
- 12 big thick garbage bags. Good for everything from waterproofing your pack to making a poncho, to making a shower.
- 2 Rolls Paper towels. Good for toilet paper and snot rags.
- 2 or 3 sets of spare clothing. Obvious reasons...
- Dehydrated/Non perishable Food. MREs, Ramen noodles, canned food, granola, beef jerky it's all good.
- 2 Litres of Clean Drinking water and a means of getting more. Meaning either have a filter kit, or purification tablets or a stove to boil water.
- Deck of Cards and a novel. You will get bored.
- 2 pocket knives. The uses are endless.
- Multitool. again they can do anything from opening cans to cutting wire.
- Credit Card. Who knows when you'll need plastic...and it can jimmy locks.
- 4 Burlap sacks. If you'd like to make a quick foxhole/barricade.
- Waterproof matches/ flint and steel. You'll need fire.
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1 food and water - 8 oz of water a day to live, 16 oz if your moving, so 3 days is 48 oz of water/ 1500 cal of food a day to live (yes that is to live, you will die on a 1200 cal diet) 2500 if you shooting, running, and jumping, so 3 days is 7500 cal of food.
2 protection - guns are good for long range and fast kills but are loud. Sword are good for short range if your good and have training (real training not "i seen this in a movie"). Knifes are grate if you need to kill 1 or 2. would look in to something like this. Beretta 92fs with 20 round mags and 2-3 boxes of round (cheap), a crowbar, and a k-bar.
3. shelter - unless you pack a couple monster (like me) you need sleep. A drill and long self tapping screws can make any place a safe one. Putting a couple screws through the door and in to the frame is easy and will keep any walkers out just keep the noise down, and the screws can be reused later.flint an steel or a good zipo can tern any trash can in to a heat lamp.
Try coming up with a better BOB with these in mind
@ Remoah
I have guns, most people here in Oz don't.
Chances are i'll band together with some trustworthy people, we'll stick together, we'll all be armed. We'll take what we need, no questions. It's survival, and frankly we all know that we're not together because we're friends or neighbours, we're together because it's convenient and the only way to survive.
Fuel? Yeah, if i want it then hand it over, or you can die trying to protect it.
Food? Awesome, i'll take it, no bartering.
Water? See above.
Ammunition will be key. In the early stages, i'm hoarding all weapons and ammunition. Gun shop is gonna get raided, hell i don't want competition. Those who can arm themselves will join one by one, before they have time to form a rival gang, leaving us in control. We'll weed out the remaining armaments and keep them for ourselves; Fact, if we're the only ones with viable weapons like rifles, we're the only ones who can take control.
Want to join us? Better be able to pull your weight. No slackers here, if you get lazy, you get kicked out. Try and betray? We'll kill you without a second thought and the corpse will be left out for the dead.
Basically, it's not about one man in a forest trying to live. It's about edging out a small civilisation for yourself. If that's half a dozen of you in a house somewhere; so be it. If it's a few hundred in a small town, then thats how it is.
Enjoy your little hut in the forest, But sooner or later we'll come along looking for food or fuel and how effective will that bow and arrow be?
I know people can say they would be able to take a gun and blow everyones head off but put the gun in their hand and make them shoot someone... that a different story all together
my plan is simple I already have my survival gear ready in my garage, if zombies do start roaming the street I can just grab the back pack and my bowie knife, make my way to the gun store by my mall and loot whatever I can, you see the gun store by mine has a gun I know alot about its an AR-15 and its has tonnes of 556 ammo in the back ( i used to work there) so I could take that, and make my way to arthurs pass where there is a hut high up in the hills, if any of you guys live in the south island of NZ join me and we can survive together but one word of warning I am only allowing 5 people and we will have to work shifts in case any of the undead manage to track us to there also u need to carry your own weapons and gear I am not lugging around someone elses gear because they cannot handle it,
any questions?
freakin awsome
My bet would be SKK, since it can be top-fed like a regular SKS, you can keep replacement mags for those 'last ditch' scenarios where you really need a reload. Dealing with one or two walkers or the odd lurker, just top it up from loose ammo in the pockets or wherever.
Booyaka
Optional: plenty of carrot, bean, corn, spinach, tomato seeds, provided that you live somewhere warm.
Use a gun
When you very first start your arm will get sore. But once your muscles build up, no more soreness, just deadliness.
Headshots, while hard to achieve with a bow, are doable. I have an average of 4:7 human brain shots (between nose and top of head, full head width) at 20m. My bow shoots about 250 fps with 30 inch arrows for the first 20m. One of those arrows weighs about 300 grains, which makes their kinetic energy about 41 foot/pounds. According to ChaCha, around 33 ft/lbs are needed to crack the human skull (where I know not). That means that a pointed arrow would easily have enough power to make it into the brain. Lastly, an archer's arm doesn't get very tired. Mostly its the pulling fingers, but with a glove that pain is minimal.
However, one can EASILY carry 1000 rounds for a carbine. It is not that heavy to carry or hard to pack. It will take up maybe as much space as a quiver, but probably less. Also, if you have a gun, the rate of fire is greatly increased, and you can kill 30 zombies before reloading. If you are good and have trained with this gun, you could probably get about 30 kills in a minute or two.
All in all, i believe a bow is crossbow is good defensively, but the carbine is so much better if you are on the run.
Get a gun or become a zombies snack. Sure, ammo isn't something you can make on your own with a knife in the woods, but, you can also carry enough that you live long enough to find more. There's no risking infection reclaiming spent arrows covered in zombie brains. Sure, hitting a moving target while malnourished, scared out of your mind and starving is more difficult, even with a gun, but that's why a clip holds so many bullets, retries are expected. Also, double taps, if you learned anything from Zombieland...why they never use silencers in movies, I'll never understand, they may not make firearms silent but they sure reduce the sound, at least the whole town doesn't head your way. But I digress...
Anyway, gun strategy cannot really be compared to bow strategy because a big part of bow strategy is that you don't actually let zombies locate you in the first place. Then none of that fear or inaccuracy will crop up.
(there are materials that can be added to a bowstring to take the vibrational energy and disperse it, further reducing the "twang" while only reducing the arrow velocity a tiny amount i.e. fine down)
Guns do run out of ammo, and it wont last forever. Making firearms is a lost art, and there is no way that you will learn to make ammo for modern guns. However, with a good carbine or accurate rifle, you can take out multiple zombie in the time it takes for someone to take out one with a bow. Rifles are much more accurate and way more powerful than bows. If a zombie grabs you, you cannot kill it with a bow. You can, however, kill it with a pistol.
Bows and crossbows have their downsides and benefits too. They are slow, not nearly as accurate as rifles, and they take a lot of arm strength to use. A good bow with a forty or fifty pound pull takes a lot out of people, especially when you haven't eaten much. Whereas you can break a zombie's skull with the butt of a gun at close quarters, you can't do that with a bow. I you have ever tried to make a bow and arrows, you will find that it isn't easy. The bow needs to have a certain amount of curve, it needs to be flexible while snapping back tot shape quickly. The arrows need to be perfectly straight if you want them to fly in the general direction that you are pointing. Making arrowheads is very hard, while fire hardened wood tips might not be able to punch through a skull. Skulls are really hard, and you wont be able to get a clean shot through the eye. However, crossbows are much more accurate than bows, and if you can make arrows you have almost infinite ammo.
Bow and gun strategies are really not that different. The point is to survive. Just because someone uses a bow doesn't mean that they have infinite wisdom and therefore will not get eaten. You cannot assume that you will find food, or water, or shelter, or not encounter a horde of fifty zombies. In either situation, you need to get the hell out of there.
In the long run, having and using a crossbow is probably better. However, when trying to escape or kill a lot of zombies quickly, a gun is so much better.
Where do you live? Almost every country has an immense stockpile of munitions. If zombies wipe out the human race in short order (like in just about every zombie story ever written) then there will not be that many people left to loot and plunder. Leaving years and decades worth of bad arse bullets to fuel my gun toting rage, bringing the hurt to the zombie hordes. If the military is still around you'll be hiding in the army base with them defending you, if they're not around, you're free to loot. It really depends how the whole infection goes down, but most versions of the mythology have the human race wiped out rather quickly. Aside from that, your biggest threat in dire times is not the zombies or the economy or whatever is causing the hardship, your biggest threat is other humans in the same dire straits as yourself. And well, if you take a bow to a gun fight...see 'The Untouchables" to find out how that will end up. Keeping in mind, it's way easier for a guy with a gun to avoid being seen due to the increased range and lethality. Having a gun doesn't mean you can't hide from zombies...they have silencers too.
It's actually really hard to get an arrow through a skull, much like a .22 cal, glances off the side will happen most often. There's really only a small area in the center skull (from whichever angle you fire from) that will have the force of the shot focused THROUGH the skull, it's like a 2" circle shooting straight from the front or back, maybe 3" from the sides. If you go lower it's under the brain, if you hit the left or right sides, or the top, the shot will most likely be deflected. Most people can't make that shot at any distance...there might be a handful of people on the planet that could do it with a bow or a xbow, even if they used a nice compound bow, I'd doubt there's even a handful who could do it reliably to a moving target.
At any rate, if you make it past the "first few months" and especially "decades" you're pretty much set. I mean you can't get that far without some skills and resources. Also, bows don't last forever. Especially bow strings. They wear out, string wear out fast. Replacements may or may not be easy to come by, depends on how things play out, but after "decades" you're out of luck too. Bullets and twinkies DO have a shelf life, so, we're all going to have to be self sustaining after a while.