"On what basis are you ranking these guns? There's guns from all different families, you but the R700 as the first sniper rifle, but the Mosin Nagant was used as a sniper as well, then you mixed semi, bolt and automatic actions to the mix and it becomes obscure as to the point of the list. Snipers are situational weapons as are assault rifles. If you care about accuracy the M16 way out classes the AK. But all around best gun being an M1 Carbine? What about ammunition and difficulty of maintenance? I guess what I'm really trying to say is, how are these weapons better than others when it comes to killing zombies?"

"The original list was compiled as an, all-round rifle. We purposely did not specialize as to type, style, calibre, purpose.
But only limited it to, " Must be owned by whoever nominated it", must be commercially available, must be UNDER a certain price, must be common and with a common cartridge,and must be able to be used as either a medium range hunter or, self defense weapon.
Things like ease of maintnance, use and reliability were considered important.

The list I believe was 30 some firearms long. It was then voted on by the entire membership for some 2 months I believe.

The idea was not to pick a "BEST GUN" as you state but a "most rounded firearm to meet the purpose"

The object was not to pick a special purpose firearm, like a sniper or a hunter or an assault weapon."

"They did no such thing, They said TOP TEN, not BEST, there is a difference.

If you are talking about the Rem 700, While it is used by several militaries as a sniper, It is in fact nothing more than a commercial bolt action hunting rifle.

It is because of its inherent accuracy and the ease of its being able to be finely tuned that makes it a sniper in the hands of one so qualified.

However that appelation can be used on any one of the firearms, IF, they are fine tuned to deliver better than average accuracy, and are used in that type of manner.

The fact that the term Sniper was used on the 700 here, is realy unfair to it. That tends to stereo type it, as most people think in terms of ultra long range when they think sniper. But that is realy quite far from the truth.

The beauty of the list is however, you dont have to agree with it either in part, or in whole.
It is a compilation of many peoples opinions.
I myself feel there are a few firearms on the list that should not be there, but that is my opinion.
But, if you were to take say 2000 people from this site and let them choose one weapon that they own to take on a survival retreat, I bet the majority of the firearms will be found on that list, with very few exceptions."

"You're thinking too hard. Take a breath and relax, its going to be OK."

"I found out that it's all user submitted and only guns that users who participated owned. That way they didn't end up with someone submitting a lightsaber or some crap."

"I know what you mean, I've got a Mosin Nagant, but I think I'd rather have the Winchester to be honest. I still have a stiff Shoulder from the last time I took her to the range."

"I've tried all kinds of rubber butts, sleeves, recoil pads, nothing seems to reduce the recoil enough to be worth the loss of a good steel melee surface."