Because weapons are such an important part of daily life in the post apocalyptic world, we felt it necessary to devise a way of rating weapons to assist fellow survivors with making the proper choices to preserve life.

Weapons are reviewed on a variety of factors including accessibility, accuracy, composition, damage, maintenance, size, skill required, speed, stopping power, and weight. The list goes on. Extensive background research is done with the intent of getting the best opinions from the world's foremost weapons experts. Whenever possible, we try to take a more hands-on approach with our reviews, rigorously field testing anything we can get our hands on.

After all necessary data is collected, it is broken down into five major categories taking all the above mentioned factors into account. These categories are functionality, effectiveness, portability, practicality, and either ammunition for ranged weapons, and durability for melee weapons. The weapon is then rated in each of the five categories on a 0 to 10 scale (0 being the lowest and 10 being the highest). A written review is also provided to better clarify the given score.

The values of the five categories are averaged together to get the overall weapon score. For example, the above sample scores yield an overall weapon score of 7.2.

For simplicity, we also give the weapon a written grade based on the overall weapon score. For example, a score of a 7.2 is considered to be "GOOD". The scale used to grade weapons is as follows:

We do not recommend that you use any weapon receiving a score of 4.9 or less, unless absolutely necessary, as they have failed our strict evaluation process.

We hope that our evaluation process allows you to be more knowledgeable when the time comes to choose adequate protection for surviving the long hardship ahead.