I posted this in another thread, but relevant here:
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At the end of the day, every day from the dawn of time to the present, knowledge is the only thing of actual value. For every material advantage in a crisis there is a required knowledge pertaining to its use that has ten times the cost to obtain.
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http://www.shtfplan.com/emergency-pr...-zone_10252011
You need a skill, not an item.
That 22lr rifle is a god way to develop that skill. A 10/22 would do the job as would a few AR-22s at the upper end of your price range. You are going to need to put THOUSANDS of rounds down range. Maybe tens of thousands.
A Ruger 22/45, or, as I prefer, a Ruger MK II(you have to buy used either way), would serve you well in developing another. Normally one can shoot 22lr 4 times as much as 9mm and about 6 times as much as 223 for a given dollar amount of ammo. That is a HUGE edge in training.
Some people will say the training won't transfer b/c of recoil and such, but it works fine for me and almost all the good shooters I have met. Some are lucky enough to train with near unlimited resources on someone else's dime, but if you aren't...
I was once a fan of the pump shotgun and all its mythical glory. Unless you want to hunt every game animal in NA, which the shotgun alone is capable of doing to some degree, I think it is overrated as a "do anything" gun. Also, not cheap to shoot. Slugs are $1+ each as are many shot loads. Really cheap sporting loads are as much as really cheap 9mm. I have yet to personally witness a shotgun, rifled scoped with sabots or anything else, that is at all accurate compared to and decent 22lr.
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Sir, if the time comes I need one, there'll be plenty lying on the ground
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Which is only helpful if you have some idea how to use it.
If you absolutely positively have to get a centerfire... I recommend a hi-point C9 pistol or Hi-point 995 rifle. Cheap and reliable. Can often be bought and later resold for the same price. If you wreck one somehow making a newbie mistake, say you decide to soak one in muriatic acid to give it a deep clean, Hipoint will kindly replace the gun no questions asked.