Rural vs. Urban Guns

[whiteoak]

I live in a rural area in a county small population. As a "Gun Guy" I follow internet at work looking at gun sights and forums. One thing that I have started to see is the "Urban Defensive Mindset" developing into the only mindset. Not that it's all bad but out in the sticks there are some things that differ from in-town issues.
I tend to look at defense against 4 legged critters more seriously than someone from an urban area. I have had several encounters with Dogs that ended in shots fired. Some of this is due to being close to state land that gets used as a dumping ground for strays or abandoned animals I'm sure. I also have land in one of the areas of the state that has a population of Timber Rattlers. I have never shot one but it is something that I watch for, especially with the kids.
There is also the need for pest control on our farm, from coyotes to skunks that take up residence in the barn or under the cabin. Turtles that take fish from the stringer during season. and Deer that surprise you during season while doing other things that just stand and stare at you, wearing all that impressive headgear.

So while I see all these threads about Glock vs 1911, I fell kind of strange telling y'all that I pack a 5" .44mag Blackhawk quite a bit. and still find that the Model 19 that fits my need best is not built by Glock! The .357 or .44 with specials in the chamber will cleanly kill small game, Snake shot capsules from Speer in a chamber or two make some sense also during mushroom hunting. And the Range and Power of the Magnums makes a lot of sense when you are in the woods or out in open fields and big game is legal.
I am not knocking the other guns, I own a Glock 17, and a Colt Gold Cup. but they tend to stay in the safe. I am also not saying my way is the right way just different from some others based on my perceived needs. Do any of you also find that the gun you pack changes when you are far away from where the sidewalk ends?

 

[ScouT6a]

I hear what you are saying. Same situation here. We normally always have a .22 rifle handy, with a full magazine setting by it. More often than not, I carry a 5.5" Ruger New Vaquero with the .45 Colt cylinder in it.
A lever gun, in the same caliber, is often grabbed over the AR, for four legged threats.

 

[sharpetop]

I also live in a rural area. While out fishing, hunting mushrooms, etc. I'm on the lookout for evidence of the leftovers of a meth lab, pot grow areas, etc. Those folks don't welcome strangers.

 

[whiteoak]

Ha, funny you mention the lever gun, my AR has sat in a safe for at least a year, but the Marlin 94 in 357 is taken care of but looks like a prop from a western with all its time in the fields and woods. I find more and more things that gun does well every time I take it along. I also bet it has not been shot at paper target for 10 years, but still gets 100 round box of cast Lee 158's loaded hot refreshed every winter.
I have been playing with Skeeter's .38 load for .357's only in it for a while also. I won't elaborate but its a documented load Sketter Skelton used for years that the guys over at Cast Boolits put me on some time ago, to use up the thousands of .38 cases I had on hand. and the Marlin Micro Grove like's them cast in wheel weights with a GC.

 

[stephen87]

Being from the city, I understand what you're saying. However, if you were to look at the distribution of people on the forum vs location, you'd find most of us are "city dwellers." My preparation for a day is entirely different than your preparation for the day. While you carry that 6 shot .44mag, I carry a Glock 19. Not for "stopping power" or anything like that, but because I feel that will address any issues that I run across from day to day. I drive 50 miles to work, all interstate driving. You may drive county roads to where you need to go. You keep a rifle nearby for animals. I don't keep a rifle nearby at all times. Critters here are different that county critters. Coyotes around my area are a little more skittish than out in the county. Deer are very few and far between.

With all of that said, my gun rotation is literally 2 different Glocks. A Glock 19 when I'm off of work. A Glock 43 on days that I work. These are the two that work best for me and my rotation works wonders.

 

[whiteoak]

Being from the city, I understand what you're saying. However, if you were to look at the distribution of people on the forum vs location, you'd find most of us are "city dwellers." My preparation for a day is entirely different than your preparation for the day. While you carry that 6 shot .44mag, I carry a Glock 19. Not for "stopping power" or anything like that, but because I feel that will address any issues that I run across from day to day. I drive 50 miles to work, all interstate driving. You may drive county roads to where you need to go. You keep a rifle nearby for animals. I don't keep a rifle nearby at all times. Critters here are different that county critters. Coyotes around my area are a little more skittish than out in the county. Deer are very few and far between.

Totally agree, I was taking a route to work at one time, that included 9 miles of gravel roads, before seeing blacktop. And I understand that Indiana is becoming more Urban all the time. In some ways my intention of posting is to give a nod to the guns that are often forgotten, and pointing out that for the more Rural landscape that was more common among gun owners say 50 years ago, when these guns were kings of the hill. Still exists today in more isolated pockets and the same guns still hold advantages over some of the more oft discussed models. And yet these arms have a proven track record in use as self defense arms in one on one conflict, that is hard to dispute.

 

[mrortega]

About the only time I spend outside in my fairly rural subdivision is when I'm cutting grass. I have some 300gr cast lead gas checked .44 mag loads for my Ruger Redhawk to use if I really feared any wild life. I live at the back of the neighborhood and have nothing but a pond and open country behind me. If I hike in the field I have carried the Ruger but have recently bought into the 10mm idea. I like the power of the 10mm and the capacity of the G20 (15+1). I'm almost done working up loads for the G20 and 29 and will use the 20 in the future for yard work or hiking. I'm real close to starting to carry the 29 for when we're out and around Evansville for 2 legged vermin, especially those stupid enough to try to pull this old man's car door open at a light.

 

[shibumiseeker]

There's quite a few of us rural dweller fellers here. Leadeye and I are neighbors (5 miles as the crow flies is neighbors around here).

The primary differences I see, along with what the OP notes about caring more about 4 legged problems being greater than 2 legged ones, are such:

I have probably killed more things with my EDC than most urban dwellers.

My "house gun" is an AR in 300BLK and it too has seen far more use killing predators than the average urban house gun. While in no way a substitute for combat against an armed enemy; trying to kill a raccoon at a dead run in the middle of the night gives one an appreciation as to just how fast a dynamic situation goes down and how poor our reaction times can be.

As far as what I carry, Glocks in either 10mm or .45, same as what I carry when I am in town, though unlike in town, when I am out and about on the ranch my EDC is a backup to a rifle. When I am in town the backups to the EDC are a .380 and an NAA minirevolver in .22lr.

 

[M67]

I'm rural......but most of the guns you list as "rural guns" are also typically hunting guns. I'm not a hunter, I'm a shooter, so a lever action to me, has never floated my boat unless I could put a can on it. I have a thing for S&W 657s so I do have a Mountain Gun just in case, but even though I live in the sticks, I still feel more than adequate with a 45, 9mm, AR in either 5.56, 308, or sub 300blk. When I travel somewhere, I typically take an AR and some sort of high cap pistol. Only rarely will I bring the a .41 mag.

I like to not classify my guns as urban or rural. That's gun-acist.

 

[snapping turtle]

Semi rural here. Neighbors building houses in area. But cows in the field behind me. Horse farm on the other and the new homes are huge. This will never be urban area. But it is no longer wa!hat I would consider rural either.

Always been a revolver guy. 410 is now the garden gun. Coyotes now no longer an option from the back yard.

Might need ever to sell out soon.

 

[BogWalker]

Much more use for a rifle in rural areas. I tend to carry carbine length rifles rather than handguns when out and about on the property. Like sharpetop sometimes you find piles of tinfoil and matchboxes, other times styrofoam cups and jugs of water.

 

[indiucky]

Well I am a little bit of both....Urban four days per week and rural (and I mean two tv channels, NOAA radio won't work, BF Egypt, "This here river don't go to Aintry rural).

What's funny is my weapons change very little...Two J frame Smith's in .357, one a 640-1 and the other a 3 inch 60 are my EDC's...If you see me you won't see them but they are on me..And an H&R single shot 20 gauge with an 18 1/4 inch barrel and a 13 inch stock with a shell holder with two number 6 shells, two number 3 bucks, and a slug in it.....

I have a bag I grab when I am heading up to BF Egypt to meet the wife..In it is either two K 22's or one K 22 and a Ruger Bearcat, along with a Model 19 Smith (with stag grips and a T grip) and a 1894 Marlin .357 Magnum in a canvas sleeve...If I plan on hunting I will bring either a deer rifle or my turkey gun as well but these mentioned always go....We keep a .410 Snake charmer and a T/D Ruger 10/22 well stashed at the property...

Our property is copperhead heaven and we have a decent population of coywolves (or eastern coyotes....) We have no A/C so we bought an old claw foot bathtub we on some flat creek rock beside the barn that comes in handy when I over heat myself or my wife wants to kick back and have a glass of wine in when the weather is nice...Obviously when doing that you are a little vulnerable so we have a shepherds hook where we hang the K 22 and keep one of the single shot short shotguns at arms reach.....

The house is late 19th century and to be honest an AR 15 looks and feels kind of out of place...



Before aging the grips..









A funny story about the tub and the moment I realized my L.A. born bride was officially a southern Indiana river rat/hill jack....We had just got the tub all cleaned up, white mason jar lids and aquarium cement went where the faucet and handles went....We had hauled rock all summer and it was finished...$200 and a lot of sweat and it was perfect...I snapped a picture with my cell phone and was sending a text of the finished project to my wife's brother and his wife...Now it's important to know that they live in Texas in a gated community with 1/2 million dollar houses...Her brother drives a BMW convertible...

"Wait...Who are you sending that to?"

"Your brother and his wife...Why?"

"Honey don't...I don't want them to feel like we're showing off..."

My jaw dropped and I began to laugh...

"Yeah...We wouldn't want to go putting on airs with our $200 bathtub behind a hundred year old shack by the old barn would we??? No siree honey...Wouldn't want to go getting above our raising would we?"

She realized how funny that sounded...But then she something that I believe to be true...

"Wealth ain't how fancy your house is but how it makes you feel...And this little shack with it's tub make me feel like a millionaire..."

She's right...

 

[indiucky]

Well I am a little bit of both....Urban four days per week and rural (and I mean two tv channels, NOAA radio won't work, BF Egypt, "This here river don't go to Aintry rural).

What's funny is my weapons change very little...Two J frame Smith's in .357, one a 640-1 and the other a 3 inch 60 are my EDC's...If you see me you won't see them but they are on me..And an H&R single shot 20 gauge with an 18 1/4 inch barrel and a 13 inch stock with a shell holder with two number 6 shells, two number 3 bucks, and a slug in it.....

I have a bag I grab when I am heading up to BF Egypt to meet the wife..In it is either two K 22's or one K 22 and a Ruger Bearcat, along with a Model 19 Smith (with stag grips and a T grip) and a 1894 Marlin .357 Magnum in a canvas sleeve...If I plan on hunting I will bring either a deer rifle or my turkey gun as well but these mentioned always go....We keep a .410 Snake charmer and a T/D Ruger 10/22 well stashed at the property...

Our property is copperhead heaven and we have a decent population of coywolves (or eastern coyotes....) We have no A/C so we bought an old claw foot bathtub we on some flat creek rock beside the barn that comes in handy when I over heat myself or my wife wants to kick back and have a glass of wine in when the weather is nice...Obviously when doing that you are a little vulnerable so we have a shepherds hook where we hang the K 22 and keep one of the single shot short shotguns at arms reach.....

The house is late 19th century and to be honest an AR 15 looks and feels kind of out of place...



Before aging the grips..









A funny story about the tub and the moment I realized my L.A. born bride was officially a southern Indiana river rat/hill jack....We had just got the tub all cleaned up, white mason jar lids and aquarium cement went where the faucet and handles went....We had hauled rock all summer and it was finished...$200 and a lot of sweat and it was perfect...I snapped a picture with my cell phone and was sending a text of the finished project to my wife's brother and his wife...Now it's important to know that they live in Texas in a gated community with 1/2 million dollar houses...Her brother drives a BMW convertible...

"Wait...Who are you sending that to?"

"Your brother and his wife...Why?"

"Honey don't...I don't want them to feel like we're showing off..."

My jaw dropped and I began to laugh...

"Yeah...We wouldn't want to go putting on airs with our $200 bathtub behind a hundred year old shack by the old barn would we??? No siree honey...Wouldn't want to go getting above our raising would we?"

She realized how funny that sounded...But then she something that I believe to be true...

"Wealth ain't how fancy your house is but how it makes you feel...And this little shack with it's tub make me feel like a millionaire..."

She's right...

[video=youtube;QMZCWGyk388]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMZCWGyk388[/video]

 

[Leadeye]

I like the leather holster on the web belt.