As adapted from an article on Orion Woods Brigade.

Continuing our discussion of great rifles for the undead . . .

3. AR-15 Series rifle – I know I’ll get a lot of flak for not making this number one on my list – especially with some of the crowd I run with. The reality is that there are way too many parts to go wrong on an AR to make it a truly reliable post-TSHTF type of weapon. However, since we are talking about taking head shots on half-rotted zombies, then the usually complaints about the AR’s less-than-manstopper round are not applicable here.

It gets lots of points for accuracy – nice to take care of zombies before they start shouldering into the side of your house and keeping the kiddies up with their incessant moaning – and the fact that you can carry a hell of a lot of ammo for it with minimal weight issues. Plus, the scrounge factor of .223 Remington is really high – especially in the parts of the country where we do a lot of hog hunting.

4. SKS – Despite being a cheaper, more accurate relative of the AK-47, the SKS gets points for being a much more civilized looking version of its notorious cousin. Maybe this will make the shell-shocked villagers less apt to take a pot shot at you as you make your way through their plowed field in the middle of the night. Also, because it is a more “old school” weapon it’s very, very robust and can be used as a club in a pinch. Most even come mounted with an integrated bayonet – which would be great for keeping the undead at bay while you are fooling around with the stripper clips. 🙂

It loses points for not being able to hold as much ammo (10 round stripper clip vs. a 30-rd magazine), but a user can be trained to load an entire 10-rd stripper clip into the rifle in the same amount of time it takes someone to load one round into a magazine. There are some after-market accessories for the rifle that allow it to have a larger ammo capacity, but I have never seen any of these that I would consider robust enough to take on a hoard of the undead. There were a few versions of the rifle that take an AK mag (the best of both worlds), but these are usually pretty rare.

Also a great choice for the zombie hunter on a budget.