I think I would feel under gunned in an EOTWAWKI situation. No one has a 10/22 on "The Walking Dead", heh. I'm grabbing an M4 type. In a "Last Man on Earth" situation, a 10/22 might be okay.
Age old question and the answer is...Yes and No!
1) If your intention is to survive and avoid any conflict it's a great choice and if you are a dead shot with it you can defend yourself in light, very light conflict. Its draw backs are range and knock down power so you have a ten ring shooter if you go up against anyone. As a defensive weapon unless the odds are high against you in head count and you are in a great defensive position you should see daylight. The Ruger 10/22 is a great gun and yes you can haul a lot of ammo, but better think twice on that. If you intentions are to fly below the radar and avoid conflict all costs the 500 rd should take you well past the 6 mo mark. If the Ruger was to be my only weapon I would DEF consider a can for it. Keeps you quiet!
2) The other option is the AR 15 in 5.56 its going to give you a margin of safety the .22 LR will not. No you cannot carry as many rds, but unless you get into a firefight 300-500 is going to last you 6 mo or more and keep food on the table. Get a can for it for sure.
Mail, I would love to subscribe to that theory but not so much. Sure gonna be a lot folks out there 80% will be going home in the first 30 days or less. The biggest cull of people will come in the first 72 hrs.The idea that one will be able to feed themselves during an all out TEOTWAWKO is laughable. All the game is going to be gone within a month or two at best. There's going to be A LOT of people trying to do the same thing. You also run into the problem of preserving meat from larger game.
In Forstchen's One Second After he talks about people killing cattle to eat one meal and move on. They had no way to preserve the meat, and were only concerned about immediate survival.
Mail, I would love to subscribe to that theory but not so much. Sure gonna be a lot folks out there 80% will be going home in the first 30 days or less. The biggest cull of people will come in the first 72 hrs.
There is a reason why its called "HUNTing", cause you got to hunt to find them. There is not a lot of easy game getting and given that 80% have never hunted on their own they are gonna starve. Most folks will head back after all their rations are gone, hunger will drive them back to the cities. In addition water, NOTHING is more important than water and all those city dwellers, first creek they drink out of will have them pukein and poopin within 24 hrs.
Yea a 1000 lb cow will be shot to eat one meal, but in 30 days all the 'low hanging fruit' will be gone.
In a TEOTWAWKO situation I would be hauling my AR10 for 2 reasons: 1) Likelihood of a hostile engagement goes up and I want to be able to engage out to 800m; 2) easy game is gone and I need to reach out 300++ m to get the game that has become so spooked it jumps when it sees its shadow. My AR 10 is a .308 but hoping by then I have gained a 6.5CM upper.
As for preserving meat, that not a problem, at least for me it's not.
When I leave out I will carry 3 days water, 5 days food, after that I am on my own.
IOW I am not worried