TL;DR: what are some rifles that are good for hunting first, and home defense second?
With the prospect of unbounded inflation, expensive food (e.g., meat), and getting late into the game of saving for retirement (spent a long time in grad school), I want to hunt. If I bring home enough wild game for food, I'll have saved a lot of money (especially if the price of meat skyrockets).
Suggestions?
Depends on where you live, what knowledge base you have. But right now I'd be trying to get a pump shotgun and a 22LR. If you can find a AR that's not doubled in MSRP get one. Or get a simple mass produced pistol in 9MM or 45acp. Think Glock or Sig or Springfield Armory. You can do everything with a 12GA shotgun including deer hunting and bird hunting and home defense. Birdshot is just as deadly at 25 feet as buckshot too. Anyway I'd go to local gun stores and see what's available and if you can find 500 rounds of ammo for the weapon I'd get the weapon. Right now you can't find 5.56/9mm/45acp under a $1.00 a round when its usually .18c-.24c per round. Everything is extremely expensive. .
This^
Apologies if this is a complete noob question, but don't shotguns spray scatter-shot that would be difficult to clean out of game? It'd be nice to have to clean out only one bullet.