Okay,

I'm in the high desert and spend a lot of time by myself, hiking and such (unarmed for the moment) and wanted to discuss the general principles of carrying the lighest load possible for moving solo across desert country. Assume that water is scarce but there are springs and small creeks. You may have access to other supplies, but they must have been laid by logistical cells or you are putting them yourself.

1. Sleep. A lightweight silk sleeping bag liner and a lightweight sleeping bag is good. It gets cold at night, so be prepared. In this case, one might move at night and sleep during the day.
2. Clothing. One combat uniform consisting of BDU trousers (desert camo pattern preferred but solid colour cargo pants or practical civilian is okay) and a tee-shirt. You should also have a battledress blouse or a civilian windbreaker. I also suggest silk long-johns and four pair socks. Shoes should be lightweight boots/shoes. if possible. Merrell hiking shoes are good (I own a pair), and are more practical in the desert than parachute boots.
3. Clothing part two. One should obtain a boonie cap, one combat vest and a shemag or OD/brown scarf. In the event of a standstorm, it will protect you. The boonie cap should be milsurp or similar. You should also have a poncho of some tactical colour. It will save your life if it rains.
4, Rifle. The scout should be armed with a common rifle of a reasonable maker. There is no need to buy an AR-15 if you're really an AK kind of guy. In the event of a social breakdown, there may be submachine guns and such available. It's really personal choice, and you need to be comfortable with whatever you choose. A scout should carry no more than 5 magazines. Typically an advanced element scout should not be engaging in firefights.
5. Knife. Get a SAK. Any fighting knife is personal preference. You may knife a sentry, but you are not holding off a large force. I have a WWII Brit commando knife but have never used it in combat.
6. Food. Carry as much as you can. Freeze dried rations are king. If you are being supplied by logistical cells, you're living pretty good. If you are supplying yourself, Clif bars, powerbars, candy, minute rice, tinned meats and granola or oatmeal are good.
7. Food prep. Carry a canteen cup and a pocket stove. I like the MSR Pocket Rocket. You may want a Sweetwater filter.
8. Webbing. I use solid black webbing. I carry six half-liter bottles of water, spare ammo, a FAK, a bit of food, some kind of commo and my knife. I would rather spend the whole day sitting around, moving at night and relaying coordinates of enemy positions to other elements. Memorize radio codes and how they change rather than carrying a codebook.

Summary:
1. Have something you can shelter in during the day.
2. Plan to move at night. Activity will fight off the chill, but you cannot be too lightly clothed.
3. Have a weapon. Be comfortable with it. Carry spare ammo.
4. Carry good shoes.
5. Carry enough food and water to do you for a while.
6. Don't plan to enter a firefight. Your goal is to be an advanced element for a larger force.

CK

Some thoughts on that:

Food, as much as you can carry... Anything that is on that "as much as you can carry" program is probably the sort of thing you can't personally carry enough of on your back and you need to be thinking pre-positioned supplies along with supplies on your vehicle and probably not venturing too incredibly far from your vehicle on foot. A mile or two at the most unless hiking in is mission specific, then if a mission is so critical that you can't afford to risk taking your vehicles along, then it is probably not campfire and griddlecakes time either. Energy drinks and power bars for the mission, feast beforehand and afterwards.

Something specific to AKs and any weapon where the predominant supplies of ammo are either steel core or have that "bimetal" bullet jacket material that has steel in it and in an environment that is both rocky and bushy, firing it means fire hazards. Even the lead core .223 and .308 have issues with bullets skipping off rocks and starting fires. If you are really in the middle of nowhere and can outrun a fire, then fine.

Up in Canada, my recommendation would be the Chinese M14s that are imported there at very reasonable prices, and there is one fairly popular model with a midlength 18" barrel that often goes under $600 on private purchase deals. Gun retailers not far from the border on the US side know the score and sell hicap mags for them. That's the "Plain Jane" version of the M14, which the Canadian laws apparently regard in the same class as the Garand and SMLE, but if it has all of that Tacticool stuff on it then the legal classification might change and NONE of that tacticool stuff does anything to enhance firepower on the weapon while nearly all of it adds weight.

I am told that those rifles can now be traded privately in Canada now legally, usually with few ten shot mags. The Chinese rifles differ from the US variant in that they usually have chrome lined bores. If that is the case, a little cross border discreet diplomatic pouch transaction type of trading will score you some good quality unpapered handguns from your brothers to the south. If you cant hook up with other freedom loving patriot types or they decide not to trust you, there are always the bikers and Indians. Several tribes ignore the border on a regular basis but the border security situation has apparently been stepping up to challenge their cross border sovereignty.

I would officially advise against illegal trading of guns. That is my official position.

If one has a decent rifle, or a modern submachine gun (obtained legally of course) a scout should be able to operate deep into enemy territory.

Look at it like this. A scout might be ordered to head fifty kilometers into enemy held territory. He is not there to engage targets. Rather he is there to locate enemy positions and return and report to friendly forces.

Perhaps a scout might better be utilized by carrying a radio, and as lightweight as possible that the other necessities are. If I were to say, locate an enemy missile battery, I could radio friendly elements for a platoon level strike.

Breacher,

The Chinese (Norinco) M14s are rough around the edges, but generally shoot quite well for a battle rifle. What I will say is that you may have to have them partially rebuilt for the best reliability. I had one with a crooked guide-rod disassemble itself on me in a shooting match once, luckily nobody was injured but me (and my pride). Provided the Barrel is at least 18.6" long, the rifle is non-restricted, and may be used for hunting or other sporting purposes outside of a designated range facility (20" bbl AR15s, by the same standard, are restricted by name in the Criminal Code).

Technically, over-the-counter gun sales are still supposed to be done in an official capacity, but it appears that in reality, this is not the case with private individuals.

Semi-automatic center-fire rifle magazines are limited to a 5-round capacity (with the exception of the 8-round en-bloc clip). This is without exception, though interestingly enough, it is perfectly legal to stick a 10-round pistol magazine into a rifle that uses a similar magazine. This has allowed the de-facto magazine limit to approach as high as 15 rounds (the 10-round .50 Beowulf pistol mags can hold 15 rounds of 5.56mm). It would be awesome to see somebody make an M1A pistol, so that Canadians could have legitimate 10-round M1A mags.

Subguns are pretty limited niche weapons at this point in history. The shift has been more toward compact carbines that use the same ammunition and magazines as the standard infantry rifles and then what used to be CQB subgun turf is getting more into the realm of slightly larger format high capacity full power variants of service pistols generally referred to as "tactical handguns".

The idea on the tactical handgun is not so much concealability but portability. Such handguns are legal in Canada and 10 shots of .45 in a modern format handgun is just fine for that. While subguns could be "effective" out to 200 meters, real world, its 50 meters and a glammed up tactical handgun can do that without the legal issues involved with the subgun. Cost issue is relative to the relevancy of the laws in obtaining the weapon more than cost of manufacture or complexity.

Regarding nuances of law, if you don't commit to what it takes to be combat effective, then you will not be combat effective.

I should clarify one other thing, in case my last post was a bit confusing. A 5.56mm pistol mag and a 5.56mm rifle mag are different, only in the fact that the pistol mag has "LAR-15 10-ROUND PISTOL MAGAZINE" stamped on it somewhere. Having these for non-restricted rifles is infinitely better, because pistols are considered Restricted class weapons, and are illegal to transport anywhere other than your house, a gun smith, or a designated pistol range.

In Canada, a lot of us have AR-15s too. We just also have other guns that we can take out into the bush legally and practice with in seclusion.

What about the keltec SU16 or any of its variants? They are not total junk but some variants are CA legal and can take the STANAG magazines.

come to think of it . . . I believe there is one variant that has the 18.6" barrel! That would make it non-restricted! Good thinking Breacher, I should look into obtaining one of those in the near future.

Don't you guys get cheap as shit pistols up in Canada too? A good friend of mine was only yesterday rubbing his case of Tokarevs delivered to his door in my face yesterday...

Hahaha yes, Norinco is the great equalizer as far as the underclass Canadian gun owner is concerned. As much as I try to support North American businesses when I can, I may have a few ChiCom weapons in my safe...