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Comment by James Roberts on December 12, 2019 at 9:03pm

My (counterintuitively) personal favorite is the Harrington Richardson Young American,

the 7 inch barrel version. A .22 short caliber revolver, they've been around for a long time, long enough to be antique guns, and thus not require registration. I have a thing for miniature guns for personal carry. In addition, I had a .22 rifle when I was a kid, I also made a zip gun (improvised one-shot pistol). I bought some percussion caps (primers for later versions of black powder guns) and pushed them onto the soft lead bullets of CB Caps (low velocity .22 rounds used for gallery guns). When fired at an old fence post, the percussion cap would explode, creating an impressive hole.

I also like the Astra Cub, a miniature .22 short semi-auto pistol. I always wanted to make a survival rifle  out of one (like the Charter Arms Explorer) by machining an 18 inch barrel, and making a "wire stock", and a 30-round clip.

But if I had to choose a military rifle, for survival or civil / revolutionary war purposes, it would be the Swiss SIG (Swiss Industrial Group) 510 "Sturmgewher" (storm gun) in 7.50 mm Swiss caliber. Probably the ultimate survival or war rifle, it had provision for a bayonet attachment, and likely was the best "assault rifle" ever made.The civilian version, the PE57, had no fully automatic option. I've done guard duty with an AR-15, a 12 gauge pump shotgun and one of these (24 hours at a shift), and I very much prefer the SIG 510. The obvious problem, in a survival / war situation, is getting more of the rare 7.50 mm Swiss ammo when you run out, but as an Imperial Wizard once told me when I was 19, "If you have a weapon, you can get another one".