Yes, that’s right. The Undead Report’s Zombie Targets are back! Starting Dec 1, you will be able to purchase and download targets and then print as many as you desire to your zombie hating hearts content!

Fresh from range testing, the targets are here once again for ordering and shooting. The targets are now print-at-home, so you’ll be able to print as many as you want for all your bow-hunting, plinking, Nerf battles, paintballing, Airsoft zombie hunting and dart throwing needs!

The targets will be available individually, or you can save and download the three pack! All targets are 8.5″ x 11″ PDFs and specially designed to print in only black ink for ease of printing at home. Targets include areas to mark weapon information, highlighted killzones and more!

Special discount code will be mentioned on launch day on Facebook and in the chat box for my regular members!

It’s time to prepare. We’ve a little over one year left. Let’s get ready.

In your pursuit of information about survival,  zombies and the undead, don’t forget to do research on other websites and blogs. A fantastic place for survival advice, hero training, life coaching, cooking and more can be found at the Art of Manliness.

If you’re readying yourself for a long term survival situation, zombies or not, you’re going to want to be proficient with a rifle for defense, hunting, or just recreation. Some pertinent information from the article follows.

The Four Cardinal Safety Rules of Firing a Rifle

1. Always treat every firearm as if it were loaded. No ifs, ands, or buts. Even if you know the gun is unloaded, still handle it as if it were loaded. (I’d like to add a better practice is to remember that every gun is loaded. Keeping that in mind clears any questions. Every gun is loaded.)

2. Always keep the firearm pointed in a safe direction, a direction where a negligent discharge would cause minimum property damage and zero physical injury. Make darn sure the thing you’re pointing at needs a new hole in it.

3. Always keep your trigger finger off the trigger and outside the trigger guard until you have made a conscious decision to shoot.

4. Always be sure of your target, backstop, and beyond. You want to be aware of what’s in your line of fire. This isn’t usually a concern if you go to a professional gun range. They make sure that people and property stay out of the path of the guns firing downrange. Where this becomes a concern is when you go shoot with your buddy out on his property. This is especially important when firing high powered rifles as their bullets travel further than bullets fired from a handgun.

And may I add a fifth:

5. The sights are on the top of the gun for a reason. No Hollywood or gangster stuff kids, you’re trying to conserve ammunition and hit a target, not look like an idiot.

How to Shoot a Rifle (The Art of Manliness)

More firearm articles from Art of Manliness:

How to Fire a Handgun Safely and Correctly

The Best Guns for Home Defense

There are no more bullets. All rounds have been fired into head upon head of relentless zombie, including those from your plentiful .22; not like it mattered — the darn reports drew every curious Deadite and the occasional rabbit from miles around. What else to do? Your trusty AR-15 is now your trusty bayonet holder and club. If only you could retrieve your ammo, and perhaps be a bit more silent next time.

It won’t be all bullets and blades in the zombie apocalypse. Especially if your country has banned sharp and/or explody things. Enter the humble crossbow, modified, re-engineered, and accurate enough for the zombie apocalypse.

You won’t want to be swinging that sword or knife the whole apocalypse right? Your arm’s going to get tired pretty quickly. By using arrows and darts, you can retrieve that ammo, wipe off zombie goo and reload. The PSE Tac 15 is that mighty weapon which will enable you to stalk your undead prey in the dark, without risking exposure from brilliant flashes or noisy reports (and yes, suppressed fire is still loud). The Tac 15 attaches to your standard AR-15 lower receiver, and accepts all standard rail mounting hardware. Scopes, stocks, lights, lasers, grips, bipods — you name it.

Yes,  I sell it here. Click below or visit the Undead Report’s  Zombie Hunting Gear Store for the Apocalypse.

The PSE Tac-15. Click to buy now!

The Tac 15 uses special bolts designed to fly true and accurately, as well as to withstand te immense power coming from this machine. The bolts fly at 412 fps with 160 ft-lbs of kinetic energy. Yeah, you’ll kill more than  few zeds with this. Be sure to rinse off those bolts before you use them for game hunting.

See also:

Tac15.com — the official site of this mean machine.

The PSE TAC-15 super weapon of the Zombiclypse

The good, gun totin’ folks  at DPMS Firearms in St. Cloud have produced a fantastic zombie hunting event with various stages, scenarios, tactical situations, reactive targets and more. A prize table includes excellent zombie rifles, lasers, optics, mounts, kits and more!

Edit: www.OutbreakOmega3.com/

DPMS Firearms, LLC and Del-Tone/Luth Gun Club are hosting another “fun shoot” at the Del-Tone/Luth Gun Range in St. Cloud, MN on April 24-25, 2010.

This is one of the largest zombie shoots in the US. This is a “fun” shoot, any and all are invited.  Saturday night includes, a Zombie Hunters Ball, featuring a live band and a pig roast. Staff at the event will be zombified! come as you are, whether it’s a pizza delivery man, ninja, tacticool operator, or office worker. These are real live firearms here, aimed at zombie targets, dummies and the like. This isn’t an HvZ Nerf shoot or a Paintball shoot.

There will be several scenarios to join and shoot at to test your mettle, shotgun skills, rifle skills and reloading abilities.

Up Close and Personal – A nearby farmhouse has been overrun with the undead, but it is full of ammo and supplies, so get a clearin’.

Twinkie Factory – Clear out and hold the Twinkie Factory (Zombieland fans?) and a night’s sleep and Twinkies are your reward.

Live Zombie Open Range – You know what to do. Shoot anything that’s already dead. Rifle/Shotgun/Pistol

Air Drop From Heaven – An air-dropped crate of ACR’s? Retrieve it and then get a shootin’!

Sound The Alarm! – Eliminate all resistance swiftly and sound the alarm. You have 60 seconds to ensure the safety of your fellow survivors!

Anybody Home? – After walking the wilds of Central Minnesota for what seems to be an eternity, your small band of survivors has come across an abandoned house. Guess what? You drew the short straw and you get to make sure it’s clear before you stop for the night. Shotguns.

From the Waters of Lake Luth - These zombies are very active both day and night, straining the senses of the watch crews, and can only be killed with a perfect head shot.   Rifle/Squad shot.

Rule # 32: Enjoy the Little Things – Trap shoot.

Un-Load and Un-Lock - Navigate your way through a series of locks and doors in 60 seconds or the cure is lost!

Zombie Assault Training Site -  These 2 stages have multiple head target and you must wager your skills and life on your training and your shotgun.

The Wooded Valley of Undeath – Guard duty in the forest with your shotgun.

This weekend, St Paul is the place to put your mouth where your money is.

This week, UndeadReport.com reader Mr Match from Australia writes a thorough guide covering weapons and armament for your long term survival.

I am going to have to agree with ‘GoingToSurvive’ that everybody here is focused on how to fight zombies more than actually surviving a shit-hits-the-shit-that-hits-the-fan scenario. But I think that’s just because it’s the fun part, so that’s what I’ll be discussing first. My opinion is that your strategy, and therefore your tactics should revolve around lasting (as in living) as long as possible, in a zombie situation given that the majority of the population (whether local or global) has zombiefied, the cliché ‘the best defence is a great offence’ may not be the best, there are a number of reasons as to why avoiding confrontation can be beneficial but three of the main ones that I can think of are:
Confrontation will most likely draw attention to yourself, making you a target.
Resources i.e. bullets are finite, conservation will make them last longer, more so true if you only have what you have prepared.
Why put yourself in a dangerous situation and risk your life?

In my tactics, if you can call it that; it simply involves staying hidden and only engaging in confrontation if absolute necessary.

Some people have raised the point that you will be most likely taking on multiple targets if it comes to having a fight, yes it’s a good idea that you should have a proper force that is capable of take down large numbers of zombies and who wouldn’t love one of those full-auto shotties that everybody here goes nuts for, but if you try to avoid the zombies as much as possible then you wouldn’t need to fight them, and therefore the most common encounter involves you taking a zombie on one-on-one in sudden situations where you have been jumped by a zombie that you were unaware of, for example walking through the streets and there’s a zombie hiding behind a car or if you’re in the process of looting a building with many obstructions/obstacles, etc.

A good way to avoid the aforementioned situations is to stay in clear open areas i.e. in the middle of the street rather than next to a car or next to walls/buildings, however this also means that you will be spotted easier but lucky for you (or so I hope) zombies don’t use ranged weapons. If you really must travel in technical areas such as a trashed shop or a street full of crashed cars (for some reason movies love to depict the apocalypse as a destruction derby released onto the streets) then just ensure that you’re checking every single blind spot around you.

OK now to the fun stuff, Weapon selection!

Weapons

There are a few prerequisites for choosing firearms, the four major points of concern for me are: reliability, sustainability and compatibility, firepower and rate of fire, and finally ease of use. They are discussed in detail below.

1. Reliability, speaks for itself however this is often subjective. A gun that is broken-in and shown faithful flawless operation that you commonly use is ideal for weapon. One thing you really need to do is ensure that you have a field cleaning kit and reasonable access to replacement parts if anything should fail or particularly susceptible to failure.
2. Sustainability and compatibility, choosing a calibre that is common is a double edged sword; it means that your choice of ammunition is widely available, from firearm stores, military forces, milsurp, police stations and even companions. However everybody with a gun has the same mindset as you, so it really is a matter of luck whether you can ransack the ammo before someone else does. It does however provide you the second chance to salvage/request ammo from other sources such as other survivor-turned-zombies or just plain survivors, military personnel/vehicles/compounds, LEOs and LE vehicles. However if you have some knowledge of firearms or even common sense then you should know that you should resort to ammunition of unknown origin last, particularly handloads. For you unawares, handloads are ammunition produced with simple machinery with commercial components, they are often produced to certain specs for utmost accuracy or stronger loads, or even both. However you cannot know what is inside, ‘hot’ loads could put much stress on your firearm, while component and manufacturing quality is questionable.
   But when it comes to calibre choice, they are listed most commonly available from left to right.Small rifles: .22 Long Rifle, 9mm Parabellum, .357 Magnum .44 Magnum, 17 HMR

   Rifles: .223 Remington (a.k.a. 5.56 NATO, beware they are not always interchangeable), 7.62×39, .308 Winchester (a.k.a. 7.62 NATO), 243 Winchester.

   Larger rifles: 30-06 Springfield, .30-30, .303 (In Commonwealth countries). These rounds for larger rifles are widely available and often much cheaper for stockpiling. But they are excessive and probably more firepower than you need, not to mention they are all very old calibres too, bulky and much heavier to carry and WILL put much more strain on your body to carry/shoot.

   Shotgun: 12 Gauge, 20 Gauge

   Pistol: 9mm Parabellum, .45 ACP, .40 S&W, .357, .44 Magnum, .38 Super, .38 Special (Our police force are equipped with k-frame six shooters in Victoria, Australia)

3. Firepower and rate of fire, Having the comfort of full auto is pleasing but probably not often utilized (from what I understand it’s not that easy to get in America either, near impossible in Australia =/) whereas sustained well-placed shots is always going to be better than sending as many rounds as you can downrange regardless of zombies or normal people targets. I think any of the calibres in the ‘rifle’ category listed above is capable of doing the job properly, on the other hand I’ve always thought that if you were to engage a low number of zombies (1-3) from a distance of around 50 meters/yards in offensive mode, then you could probably take them out with a .22 rifle, the abundance of these rounds and rifles means that you wouldn’t need to hesitate about taking as many shots as necessary, sure they’re a small round but if all you’re aiming for is headshots, they are fully capable of penetrating a skull. Think about this, a 50 round brick of .22 is almost as big as a 10 round magazine of 223. Remington
4. Ease of use, this is one part many people overlook. BE FAMILIAR with your choice of weapon, and I don’t mean just reading the instructions once, know that shit. IT WILL save your life, proper and safe handling of weapons is of utmost importance, learn how to strip, maintain/clean your firearm, and of course learn how to hold your weapon properly with the proper stance, don’t fall into bad habits and get yourself into a shooting education program, especially organisations such as IPSC. Two things that you can benefit from learning is how to reload your gun on the fly in a high-stress situation, sure you can do a mag change on a bench at the range, but how about cowered in the drivers seat of your vehicle? Or bracing against a door with zombies trying to get in? OK these things might be a bit much to train for (IN FACT I HIGHLY DISCOURAGE YOU FROM TRAINING IN YOUR CAR, AND ESPECIALLY DO NOT TRAIN WITH LIVE AMMUNITION,) but the point is get familiar with using your firearm, become proficient and use it as an extension of your body. You don’t want to forget how to use your gun when you’re in the same room as a Zombie, you’d like to use it as if it were the index finger on your hand.

It should be noted that these are ALL equally important and not really written in order.

Australian Apocalypse Survival

Here where I live, Australia we have many restrictions on choice of guns. We pretty much have access to bolt action long arms, lever actions long arms, pump action ‘rifles’, break-open shotguns, combo guns. If you can be bothered, you can get a handgun, magazine limited to ten rounds, minimum barrel length is 100mm I believe, and some limits on calibre choice, I mentioned if you can be bothered because part of the licensing requires that you enter a certain number of ‘shooting competitions’ and ‘training sessions’ per every handgun category in which you a gun, i.e. IPSC 9mm, Metal Silhouette .44Mag. It works out to about 9 range sessions per category.
My current arsenal includes:
Ishapore SMLE in 7.62 NATO, 10 round bolt action rifle
Remington 7600 in .30-06, 10 round pump action rifle
Remington 7615 in 5.56 NATO, 10 round pump action rifle (My primary)
Marlin 81TS in .22LR, 17 round bolt action rifle
A .177 Air rifle

I am currently saving for a shotgun, IAC Model 87 which is a lever action shotgun with a 5 round tube mag, totally legit in Australia. It’s the shotgun Arnold has in Terminator: Judgement Day. It’s china build quality, but the highest cap, quickest action available to me. Look it up on YouTube and you’ll find a video of some guy who has become incredibly fast at it. When I get out of university, I will start attending my pistol range once again and keep my attendance up, I’ll probably go for a 1911 variant chambered in .38 Super.

I also have various china/eBay ‘samurai swords,’ knives, a long pole.

The American Option

Here’s what I’d get if I was in America,

Some kind of ar15 variant, I’ve never really looked into the brands because I have no hope of actually picking one up. If I had the option, then I’d take an m4 any day or failing that a burst fire or full auto sear will suffice.

I love 1911s, and would probably pick one up in .45acp however the relatively low mag count and functionality isn’t very convincing. But on a more practicality based recommendation I would suggest a full sized Glock in any chambering, some of the benefits are a higher capacity magazines, safety that doesn’t have to be disengaged manually as such and thus pretty much in condition 1 or other words ready to rock and roll anytime, it’s also lightweight and cheap to buy.

And to round it off, you need some kind of back up melee weapon; I’d suggest some kind of war axe with a spike on the top. I think these three weapons are enough to get you by; carrying more than one long arm and sidearm is ridiculous. You have a reasonable level of stopping power will these selections, keep in mind that your targets will not go down easily from being wounded, they will only stop from the quintessential headshot, so having the biggest calibre you can possibly shoot will not help at all, nor will a knife and a sword is unlikely. Try not to add too many accessories to your guns, sure all the add-ons look awesome but you really need to keep it light weight as possible, having said that a spotlight and quality sling is an absolutely necessity in my opinion.

Ok now you’re thinking these sounds like boring suggestions, everybody has one right? Think about it, that is exactly why you want one. Spare parts, magazines, ammo, knowledge, aftermarket support are all extremely plentiful. As you can see they can reasonably satisfy all the prerequisites mentioned above.

This all is of course dependent on whether Zombies are actually going to eventuate, logical? Not really, doubtful? Yes, possible? My logic also yes! but I’m terrified of zombies and thus I’ve given them some consideration in preparing my bug-out bag and home survival kit, which is catered for all situations, from earth quakes, floods, black outs, biological outbreaks etc. You should be prepared for almost any situation and ensure that you’re always aware.

But remember these are merely tools. Your most useful tool, weapon and advantage is your brain.
Hope this was helpful!

Well, it’s not something I’d like to be on the wrong side of. One part electric chainsaw, plus one part tactical rail mount equals twelve parts zombie decapitation. There are distinct benefits to using this weapon attachment – you won’t need a strong body to kill the undead, there is a great morale boost to carrying one of these around, it would be handy for carving particularly thick-skinned venison. As the video below shows, sometimes a zombie head won’t be destroyed by bullets alone.

Yeah, it’s pretty badass. As a tactical zombie weapon, it has some merit. When you run out of ammo in a tight spot, an electric chainsaw attached to the end of your rifle will be a nice thing to have, but you must realise you risk contamination, friendly fire and other hazards by waving that thing around. It should be your last defense. If a zombie infection is a blood-borne pathogen, you won’t be wanting any of that getting on you. The bayonet could come in very handy for entering places and point defense / room clearing. Carrying around a charger and spare batteries will cause problems.

There’s plenty of mess to clean up after you’re done carving those heads. I’d say leave the chainsaw bayonet as a novelty. You don’t want blood in your eye and if the power goes out, you’re not going to find any extension cords handy. I must admit, however, that it would be a great tool to have for de-limbing trees. And zombies.

If you can, get your hands on the AA-12. And somebody please send me one to review!

Undead Report reader Kender submits the following weapon review.

Ever find yourself waking up in the morning and thinking: “Boy, if there was a zombie infestation today, what would I do to protect myself and those around me?” If you don’t you are a total selfish jerk who should be more concerned about the important things in life, such as not being eaten by hordes of the undead. If you’re like me and don’t much favor the idea of having your flesh decompose in the bowels of the living dead then I have the solution for you. In this article I will be discussing the pros and cons of a variety of firearms and other weaponry that could make you a survivor instead of a snack.

Now I know what you’re thinking: “Kender, why should I listen to you? What do you know about firearms and fighting off an army of the walking dead?” To answer your question, I was a Deputy Sheriff for two years and in that time I learned a lot about ballistics and the operation of many firearms; I was also born and raised in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and as a Yooper I spent a lot of my time shooting guns and hunting stuff.

There are some basic rules to zombie slaying, first rule – Unlike the movies, fully automatic weapons are not the best. When you’re dealing with an enemy that can only be “killed” by being shot in the head and doesn’t have any sense of fear, throwing a large amount of lead down stream isn’t going to do you a lot of good. Full auto is great for living enemies, getting hit by one of those multiple rounds will wound or kill your target, and it can also be used to keep them bogged down behind cover. All full auto will do against the dead is eat up your limited supply of ammo, and during a full-blown infestation you need every round you can spare. Single shot weapons (bolt or pump action) are good for limiting the amount of ammo you waste, but it also slows you down, and when you are out numbered ten to one you need every second you can spare. My recommendation is semi-automatic fire arms, you’ve got speed and ease of fire in a battle, but aren’t tempted to go all willy-nilly and waste all of your ammo.

The first weapon we will discuss is the M1 Garand semi-automatic rifle. The Garand has a long history, it was originally developed in the 1920’s to replace the bolt action Springfield 1903 rifle, and after more than ten years of testing and design what is now known as the M1 was produced. Production was slow prior to the war, but with the outbreak of war in Europe production increased, and by 1941 the American Army was completely outfitted with M1 rifles. By the end of the war almost five and a half million M1s had be produced by several different manufactures, including Springfield arms, Winchester, and Beretta to name a few. WWII General George S Patton was quoted as saying that it was “The greatest implement of battle ever devised.” The Garand saw action during the Korean War, and the beginning of the Vietnam War until it was officially retired from service in 1965.

The M1 rifle is a gas-operated, semi-automatic, clip-fed rifle. By modern standards, the M1′s feeding system is archaic, relying on clips to feed ammunition, and is the principal source of criticism of the Garand rifle. Officials in Army Ordnance circles demanded a fixed, non-protruding magazine for the new service rifle. At the time, it was believed that a detachable magazine on a general-issue service rifle would be easily lost by U.S. soldiers, and would render the weapon too susceptible to clogging from dirt and debris (a belief that proved unfounded with the adoption of the M1 Carbine), and that a protruding magazine would complicate existing manual-of-arms drills as well as firing and reloading the weapon in the prone position. As a result, inventor John Garand developed an “en bloc” clip system that allowed ammunition to be inserted from above, clip included, into the fixed magazine. While this design provided the requisite flush-mount magazine, the clip system increased the rifle’s weight, and prevented it from being fired without a clip, such as while reloading.

The Garand is loaded with a full clip of 8 cartridges. Once all eight rounds are expended, the bolt will be automatically locked back and the clip ejected, readying the rifle for the insertion of a fresh clip of ammunition. Compared to contemporary detachable box magazines, the M1′s “en bloc” clip is light, simple, and only has to be oriented with the bullets pointing forward prior to charging the rifle (the clips have no top or bottom).

PROS:

• Powerful round, capable of penetrating a skull or doing massive damage to CNS.
• Ammunition readily available, can be purchased in eight clip bandoleers via catalogs or gun shops. Should be pretty easy to track down during an infestation, 30-06 is a common hunting round.
• Eight round clip reduces the need to reload.
• Quick reload, just place full magazine into open magazine and it chambers the next round itself.
• Sturdy weapon, can be used as a club / melee weapon
• Easy to field strip / clean.
• Bayonet mount, so when the going gets tough at least you’ve got a blade on the end.
• Relatively easy to find, US Government had a few million of them made between WWII and the Korean War and many of those are still functioning.
• Highly accurate up to and past 500 yards.
• Battle tested. (Mother approved)

CONS:

• Heavy – Weights over 10lbs.
• Has to be loaded with special clips, clips are ejected out the top when they are emptied so you need to keep track of them and try to pick them up if you get a chance.
• Loud as all hell.
• Hard to be accurate in the dark with iron sights.
• Ammunition is large and heavy, can’t carry a lot easily.