If you carry a melee weapon, a machete is best. IMO... I do have a good background with blades ( 7 years fencing, 3 of those being a fencing instructor, and assorted other blade training) Just keeping it simple is best.
Nepalese Khukri? (
*NOT* I should point out, one of the Indian knock-offs, or worse, Chinese.).
I also advocate either an entrenching tool (The older 1950s style, not the new aluminum PoSes) or a Crowbar for a variety of useful tools and close combat usefulness. Machetes and Khukris are useful for brush work, as well, but a Crowbar can open doors and crates as well as zombie heads without damaging the blade.
Also, bring a whetstone or a sharpening steel if you have a blade.
Lever action rifle, and a revolver chambered in the same caliber. Not having to worry about fumbling around with different ammo. Although on another note, having the same ammo means you're limited to that. What if you use .45, and you come across a huge stash of 9mm?
Simplicity of design is a good thing, and you don't get much more simple in a multi-shot weapon than a lever-action or a revolver. Just make sure you get a Swing-Out Cylinder or a Break-Open revolver rather than a solid-framed one. A sliding gate reload is the last thing you want to try in combat. But as I've seen Lever-Actions in .357 Magnum and .44 Magnum, that shouldn't be hard to do. They're good civilian rounds as well. .357 would probably be a better choice, lighter to carry means more ammo, and it's more than enough to splatter a Zed but good. Also, gunslinger belts and ammo pouches are easy to get/make/improvise. Police your brass, however, in case you find a reloading bench (And know how to reload ammo, of course.).
A Medusa Revolver (If you can find one) is great. It'll chamber and use any 9mm/.38 caliber pistol ammunition you can find. Out of production for quite some time. Too bad.
The ammunition thing was a major concern for my group when I ran Deadlands: Hell On Earth, as they tended to keep a brace of different types of Pistols, SMGs, and Rifles just in case they found the different types of ammunition. Of course, they had a truck. The problem was keeping it fueled. But it shows how bad things can get when your .45 runs out of ammo and all you can find are 9mm, as the above example.
IRL, different calibers were major problems for almost every military for quite some time. An example is the US Army, which had... I think three different pistols that used .45 Caliber ammo, but some wouldn't take .45 Colt Long, but would use .45 S&W (Which had a shorter case.) and their logistics, well... BC: Before Computers. Just before the turn of the century most countries had finally standardized on a rifle caliber (Each) and was working on doing the same for pistol calibers when World War I came around.
NATO/Warsaw Pact standardized a lot, but the civilian stuff still causes headaches at times. And, with the Cold War over, I could see some return to the old "One Country, One Caliber" as people experiment around with different calibers.
As for bags, yes, bigger bags means you're likely to overload them, but if you're able to resist it, it means you're able to scrounge more as you go if you find stuff that's really useful that you didn't pack before. Army Surplus is your friend here as you can prioritize different bags and drop some for combat situations while keeping your essentials with you.
...
*Shrugs* I'm a gun nut, I talk to a lot of vets, and I role play. I also need mental distractions for a variety of reasons, so I plan and figure out what and how to improvise.
