Zombies - the slow kind, not the break-dancing fast kind - are like the weakest, least scary undead monsters ever. You can keep out zombies with a locked door.
I mean, Count Dracula can turn into animals, or even smoke, and basically can’t be permanently killed - the closest you can get is to stake him through the heart and bury him at a crossroads in a silver coffin full of salt on an island surrounded by running water. And even then his Gypsy friends will probably eventually find and revive him.
And the Mummy? I mean, c’mon, zombies are nothing compared to the mummy. The mummy can curse you, he’s a nearly unkillable magic user.
Even Frankenstein’s monster is scarier - he’s childlike and slow, but he’s huge and incredibly strong and extremely weather resistant. He can break down any door he can’t find the key to.
Nope. Probably not the right model for it. Its a nice piece that was reblued, but I can hold my own with $1000 Brownings on the range.
That sounds like a myth. The actual force a bullet or buck shot “pushes” into something isn’t that great. No more than the kick you feel on your end. Mythbusters shot a pig hanging on something by just the tip. If you went over and pushed on it, it would fall off. They shot it with a .50cal and it barely moved. Then again, 12 gauge buck shot DOES kick a lot compared to most things. Pretty sure it would just put a 1" hole in the corpse, though, as it wouldn’t even have time to spread out.
Bayonets were used more in WWI because so much shit ended up in melee in the trenches. Sharpened spades were also a favorite. (Read Earnest Hemingway!) They lost their functionality when the tactics and arms changed to make them less useful, which is why most WWII bayonets were much shorter.
I think the idea was that the recoil could dislodge a bayonet that was stuck hard, not that it would forcibly push away anything in front of you. Although I guess the shot could clear away some reasonably fragile stuck object like a belt buckle or whatever.
But seriously I’m just repeating war tales, quite possibly mythical! You know way more about firearms than me. And I’m not real knowledgeable about recent military history, either (though I can discourse learnedly on the battles of Cannae and Lake Trasimene ).
The accounts I have read indicate that most people bayoneted, even in WW1, were already surrendering. The Japanese use of bayonets in WW2 was an exception.
They are not super useful in modern warfare. But home defense is not modern warfare. The trench shotgun is what my wife keeps at hand when I am not around. A large part of that choice is the idea that the sound of chambering a round and the appearance of a angry redhead with a shotgun/bayonet combination should discourage any but the most dedicated aggressor. The goal is always to avoid anyone actually getting hurt.
Another advantage of the shotgun is that it is uncomplicated. That matters under stress.
I personally like bayonets as a collector’s item. Probably my favorite is the 1886 french Lebel. Most of the ones found today have been shortened, but the originals are tremendously stabby, with a cruciform cross section.
My small barky thing just wants to be friends with everyone, so he’s no good on the attack.
That said, he’s a beagle, so my partner and I will be awake before they get through the door, along with half the neighborhood.
If they still choose to break in, they’ll find themselves in need of emergency dental surgery courtesy of 34 oz of solid northern White Ash.
).
