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Posted by David Sherman on Thursday, December 13, 2007 at 16:17:31 :
In Reply to: OT Sorry: Difference between 22 & 22 "magnum" posted by Doinco on Thursday, December 13, 2007 at 15:12:32 :
I've never gone lion hunting, but if I got jumped by one like a friend of mine did, I'd rather have my Stevens single-shot .22LR than just my bare hands. At least I could whack him on the head with the .22. My friend was picking huckleberries with his grandson when he got jumped by a lion. He was an old man bent over down in a low spot picking and the cat probably thought he could take him. The guy spun around and hit the lion on the nose with his arm. The lion stepped back looked at him for a few seconds, and then jumped at him again. This time the man had his .44 ready and shot the lion, which ran off. Later he went back with a friend who had hounds and tracked the cat to make sure it was dead. He didn't want to go back there if there was an angry lion waiting for him. They found the cat dead a short distance away.
As for the .22 magnum, my theoretical opinion is that people used to take deer with a .22LR and a cougar is about the size of a deer, and a magnum has probably twice the foot-pounds of energy as a LR even though the bullet's the same size, so the .22 magnum should do the job if you're close enough, you're a good shot, and you use hollow-point bullets. It seems to me that for self-defense and close range, the gun you have with you, and that always goes "bang" when you pull the trigger is the best, whereas at long range, when you have time to think about it, the gun you've practiced with and can shoot accurately is the best. A small bullet through the cat's heart or brain is going to kill it a lot faster than a big bullet that misses the cat completely.
Now, the question is why does she want to kill a cougar? Is she afraid of getting attacked by one? Is there a particular one that's killing her livestock? If she was hunting, she'd be shooting the cougar after it was treed, at which point just about any gun would do the job. I had friend (different one) who shot a cougar that had been killing his goats. He convinced himself it was an old feeble cat with worn-down teeth and achy joints that couldn't catch deer any more, so he didn't feel too bad about killing it. He'd tried to chase it away and shoot near it, but it kept coming back and killing goats. Finally he'd had enough and he shot it. It turned out to be a young female who was feeding the goats to her young. He felt pretty bad about that. He ate the cougar, since it was his policy to eat anything he killed. I had a piece of it and it was actually perfectly fine meat. Shortly afterwards he became a vegetarian, and I think shooting that mama cat had something to do with it.
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