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Posted by David Sherman on Thursday, December 13, 2007 at 21:41:43 :
In Reply to: Doug, posted by MoparNorm on Thursday, December 13, 2007 at 19:20:22 :
I think a big part of the answer depends on why she wants to kill a cougar. Does she want to go hunting with dogs and kill one that's treed? If so, she can take her time about shot placement and probably kill it with just about anything. Does she want to shoot one on the far side of the pasture that's been killing her livestock? Then she needs a gun that she can be accurate with, but that also has enough power to kill the lion quickly no matter where she hits it. Does she want to protect herself when she's out hiking in the woods? I think that pretty much requires a pistol, because very few people want to lug a rifle around with them "just in case", and it suggests a pistol of substantial caliber because when the cat's close enough for her to hit it with a pistol bullet, it's close enough to keep on going and tear her up unless it drops dead immediately. The thing about animals, unlike people, is they don't think "oh my God I've been shot I'm gonna die" and then fall down just from the realization of what happened. Animals keep going until they're physically unable to do so. That means massive loss of blood or paralysis due to brain or spinal cord damage. If an animal's in the mood to fight, it's not going to stop just because of pain.
It sounds to me, since she's interested in a .22 mag, it's not a matter of self-defense. She's not going to go jogging or hiking with a rifle on her back. She either wants to go cat hunting or she wants to eliminate a predator, presumably at long range. Now we get into the same kind of arguments we have about winches, split-rim tires, and flat-towing. There's the ideal best right way to do it, which few people will argue with, but there's also a lot of people who have done it the less than ideal way for many years and it's worked fine for them.
Personally, I'm happy to find any lady who's not scared of guns, and one who actually likes to shoot is even better. I'd hate to discourage her by telling her she has no business shooting a cougar with anything less than a .30-06. If she can put 3 .22 mag rounds into a spot the size of a quarter at 100 yards, I think that's a lot better than making her try to use a big heavy gun that puts a bruise on her shoulder and scares her out of even trying. There's also the matter that good rifles aren't cheap. Maybe she can't afford a rifle in the absolute ideal caliber, although WASR type rifles in 7.62, 5.45 or .223 are still reasonably priced and have fairly light recoil. For around $300 new, they're decent guns. They're not going to win any matches for accuracy, but they're good enough to do the job she needs.
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