Best Gun Builds for Preppers

Firearms are at the core of survival and prepping. Without some form of protection and a means to hunt food, you won’t make it in a survival situation. It’s that simple. For this simple reason alone, it’s easy to understand why preppers are so into guns and ammunition. This article is going to be about various gun builds for preppers.

Building your own guns is another common practice for preppers. For a survival weapon, we can’t say enough about how much we recommend building your own weapon. First of all, it allows you to customize every aspect of the weapon. You’ll be able to maximize your performance with the weapon by building it yourself.

Another aspect to keep in mind is the added positives of building from an 80% lower or frame. Starting with an 80% lower allows you to have an additional layer of security, due to the fact that you don’t need an FFL to purchase one. For some preppers, this is a huge positive, because it protects you in the event of a gun confiscation.

However, what are some of the best guns to build for a survival situation? In this article, we will talk about some of our favorite builds for preppers.

AR-15

Of course this weapon has to be on the list. It is one of the most popular weapons in the world, and is the epitome of a modern sporting rifle. It’s relatively small, pretty lightweight, has thousands of aftermarket parts available, easy to use, semiautomatic, and can fire some potentially deadly rounds. In a survival situation, it’s hard to think of a more perfect weapon to have on hand.

The “standard” AR-15 fires .223/5.56 NATO. This round is used in the United States military, and is pretty easy to come by. It’s relatively inexpensive, and does pretty well in terms of terminal performance.

For hunting smaller game, 5.56 is a more than acceptable round. For larger game, there are better options, which we will get to momentarily. For personal protection, 5.56 will get the job done, but we would argue that there are better options out there for that purpose as well. Overall, 5.56 is a pretty decent round. It’s a pretty versatile cartridge, and is more than acceptable for pretty much every survival purpose. If you had to choose one weapon for prepping, I would choose an AR-15 in 5.56 every time.

As far as gun builds for an AR-15 in 5.56, your options are pretty much endless. You could start with a forged 80% lower (https://www.ar-15lowerreceivers.com/black-80-lower-fire-safe-engraved-1-count/) or a billet 80% lower (https://www.ar-15lowerreceivers.com/80-lower-black-1-pack/). However, to be able to mill these, you will need a jig, such as this 5D Tactical jig (https://www.ar-15lowerreceivers.com/ar-15-80-lower-5d-tactical-jig-with-tooling/) or this Easy Jig Gen 2 (https://www.ar-15lowerreceivers.com/easy-jig-gen-2-tooling-ar-15-308-jig/).

To finish the lower, you’ll need a lower parts kit (https://www.ar-15lowerreceivers.com/ar-15-premium-lower-parts-kit/) and a butt stock and buffer tube (https://www.ar-15lowerreceivers.com/blackhawk-adjustable-carbine-stock-buffer-tube-assembly/). Lastly, you’ll need an upper. I like this 18” barrel with M-Lok (https://www.ar-15lowerreceivers.com/223-wylde-18-barrel-15-m-lok-handguard-ar-15-upper-assembly/), but there are other options (https://www.ar-15lowerreceivers.com/5-56-16-barrel-12m-lok-handguard-ar-15-upper-assembly/).

If you want to make all of this easy on yourself, you can by the Ultimate Build Kit (https://www.ar-15lowerreceivers.com/ultimate-build-kit-ar-15/), but that obviously won’t allow you to customize too much.

.300 Blackout AR-15

Obviously, we are fans of the AR-15 platform, especially for preppers. However, like we talked about earlier, there are other calibers available that would be better for hunting larger game and would do more damage against a human.

One of the biggest pros of the AR-15 is that it can easily shoot larger cartridges. It utilizes the exact same lower receiver that we already talked about, only with a different upper receiver. For most rounds, you’ll need different magazines, but everything else should be more or less identical.

There are dozens of different cartridge choices out there, but .300 Blackout is one of our favorites. It’s a little more expensive than 5.56, so it’s not as easy to stockpile a large quantity, but the results speak for themselves.

If you’re interested in gun builds for an .300 Blackout AR-15, all that you’ll truly need is an upper. I would choose either the M-Lok (https://www.300-blackoutupper.com/collections/300-blackout-rifle-upper/products/300-blackout-16-barrel-15-m-lok-handguard-ar-15-complete-rifle-upper?variant=44621633938) or the Keymod (https://www.300-blackoutupper.com/collections/300-blackout-rifle-upper/products/300-blackout-16-barrel-lightweight-keymod-handguard-ar-15-complete-rifle-upper?variant=44621635538).

Sidearms

For survival and prepping, I would always recommend having a sidearm. This serves as yet another personal protective measure, but could also be used as a hunting sidearm if the need arises.

While AR pistols are cool, I don’t see them as hugely useful survival weapons. If you wanted gun builds to create one for fun, you could try out this 5.56 AR pistol (https://www.ar-15lowerreceivers.com/ar-15-pistol-kit-5-56-caliber-10-5-barrel-magpul-hand-guard-w-80-lower-receiver/), but for prepping purposes, I would definitely look towards a 1911.

When it comes to 80% 1911 frames, there are plenty of different options as far as size, caliber, and color. I would personally start with this 9mm variant with a 5” barrel (https://www.1911-frame.com/collections/1911-frame-kit/products/9mm-government-5-inch-tactical-anodized-black-1911-8-frame-and-jig-bundle), but would also love this smaller .45 for carrying (https://www.1911-frame.com/collections/1911-frame-kit/products/45-acp-commander-4-25-bead-blasted-1911-80-frame-and-jig-bundle).

The aforementioned frames come with the jig, but there are still some other parts you’ll need to finish the weapon. The matching parts for these frames would be the following kits (https://www.1911-frame.com/collections/1911-parts-kit/products/9mm-government-5-inch-anodized-black-slide-1911-parts-kit) (https://www.1911-frame.com/collections/1911-parts-kit/products/45-acp-commander-4-25-inch-anodized-black-slide-1911-parts-kit).