"Sir, I wanted to thank you for your information. I am new to survival prepping but I think I am an example of how you can do prepping when you are broke. I am a former Marine, 4 years in the Corps as a mechanic but first a rifleman. My wife left me and gave me a shit pot of debt which I am paying off. My father died last year too and left me a .45 pistol. As I am trying to get out of debt and do some prepping with basic foods. I work at a automotive shop and I am a good mechanic and not just with cars. I put cards up all over town advertising myself as a honest and responsible mechanic who does house calls. Think about it, most people have car trouble and can't get their car to a shop. I do estimates, routine maintenance, small repairs and even workout tows to my shop (my bosses) or any shop the person wants to go to.
I worked on a an older Olds for a elderly woman. I guess she liked me as I was respectful. She made brought me ice tea and asked me if I knew anything about guns. I said a little bit, so she showed me a couple guns that her husband left when he died a few years earlier. The end result was that she traded me a Marlin .45 Camp rifle and a old side by side shotgun for the labor and parts (oil, filter, air cleaner) I put into her Olds. The Marlin does not have any magazines. I think it can use the .45 pistol mags? And I am trying to get out of debt by am now thinking if the country collapses how would it be bad to have debt if everything is gone and they wouldn't be trying to collect. Thanks.
UrbanMan's reply: Mechanic Man, good for you finding multiple streams of income to fund not only your debt reduction but your survival preps. Remember that survival preparation for the coming collapse is not just about guns, but about stocked food, essential survival gear and equipment, maybe some junk silver coins or silver bullion, a defensible safe place to hide out and a plan that includes contingencies such as multiple Bug Out sites, maybe caches of essential supplies,....
Yes, the Marlin Camp Carbine can use the same magazines as your M1911 .45 ACP pistol. Make sure you stock up on them. Camp carbines, which they also made in 9x19mm parabellum, are probably going for around $350-$450 at gun shows if you can find them, so yours is a real good find. However it is still a carbine firing a pistol caliber. The .45 ACP even when fired out of a carbine length barrel is still less than a 100 yard gun.
The pistol, carbine and shotgun that you now have is a great start to a survival battery. The good thing is your ammunition compatibility. The bad thing is you don't have a gun using a longer range cartridge,..e.g.. .223 Remington, .308 Winchester, etc. Via e-mail, I sent you links to several ammunition shops selling .45 ACP at the best prices you will find. I suggest you stock up on some ammunition. You did not send the make/model of the shortgun you traded for, but hopefully it is a 12 gauge. For any shotgun I suggest having a good supply of buckshot, slug and bird shot as well.
I am too trying to keep my debt as low as a I can. If (or really when) an economic collapse hits this country, it may not necessarily be an Armageddon type situation. Maybe it is a major depression type of collapse where the money supply is restricted and value deflated where interests rates skyrocket, so this is the scenario where having debt is not good, not to mention it just takes away from the maximum spending power you would otherwise have.But I would agree that if you could predict a total, catastrophic collapse having a brand new truck with extended fuel tanks, etc. would be a great thing to have especially if there weren't banks or financial corporations around to hound you for payments. ha ha
With you being a mechanic, I think you have skills that may be in demand during a really bad collapse. In the latest James Wesley Rawles book, "Founders", one of the characters is a mechanic and built a pre-electronic ignition vehicle for survival, but it got shot to hell as they were bugging out and the character was forced to move on foot, - hence the Bug Out Bag and contingency plans.....you just got to have them.
I don't want to be too redundant, but since you already have a good start of survial firearms, you may want to consider filling your other basic needs. Good luck to you.
