quote:

Originally posted by amals:
Where do you place those head shots for quick kill?

Right in the middle of the forehead, just above the eyeballs.

To kill an amped up lion? Yer gonna need a 10mm

I'm thinking (hoping desperately, really) that it must have already been obvious that the intern was dead.

Otherwise it is impossible to reconcile all the clown-college f'ing around they did while a 22 year-old girl was bleeding out.

I don't plan on lion hunting or being in the vicinity of a pissed off lion, but if you are hypothetically putting me there and I have to pick one round to do the job, I want a 50BMG. We can argue if it was overkill when I'm still alive and the lion is see through.

Reading about this they other day I only had two words in mind, belted magnum.

quote:

Originally posted by Tubetone:
Also, it seems to me that buck will mess up a paw something terrible. Why not take a mechanical shot to slow mobility?

I would offer that shooting a moving lion in the paw would be akin to shooting a gun/knife out of a perp's hand

I have never shot anything at the base of the ear, broadside, with a .223/556 that didn't drop on the spot. Center of mass shots will kill....eventually. Brain stem shots stop everything. This was shooting a fish in a barrel, not stopping a charging animal in open terrain. Pistol or rifle round in the ear hole would have stopped things much quicker.

quote:

Originally posted by barndg00:

quote:

Originally posted by corsair:

quote:

Originally posted by kkina:
Interesting, it took only 7 rounds of .40 from Sig pistols to put down Tatiana, the Siberian tiger in the 2007 incident at the SF Zoo. 2 to the head, 5 to the chest. Not sure what kind of ammo they used.

I remember hearing the story break on the police scanner. A dispatcher asked if an officer had any shotgun slugs. (He didn't. I was ready to drive over and lend some of mine.)

That was a complete shit-show, not only in one of the officer's pants but, the idiots who started it, the responding officers, the zoo, the lawyers...clown shoes.


Back to OP: That read like a What NOT to Do manual.

Good grief, not a single action that was done was clean or, incident free. Surprised they didn't mention something like the responding fire truck experienced a flat tire on the way. It's unfortunate that, that lion basically suffered because somebody or, a series of people couldn't get the job done.

If you're a zoo/conservation center/animal retirement home, you need to carry the appropriate weapons to deal with your most deadly animals; there's got to be a paragraph in their insurance coverage stating the need to have all contingencies covered. Unbelievable that there was not a second dart gun. If you're the LE agency in that jurisdiction, you also need to have the right firearms available to deal with said animals, you WILL BE the responding agency (see insurance) to an attack or, escape, what's your plan chief?

Can't say I blame the police for their choice of weapons, I suspect it was the only long gun they had available - most of us would approve of shotguns with 00-Buckshot to deal with the majority of sub-urban two-legged threats, and any native wild animal in North Carolina as well. This was a private zoo, not the public one in Asheboro, NC (I'd expect that Sheriff's Dept to have a plan to deal with those animals - which include a large number of elephants and hippos. It's one of the best zoos in the country.) These guys got the biggest guns they were issued and used them to the best of their ability. Why they waited for a second blow gun and fire using a hose, I can't answer, but I doubt they went in having selected those weapons with any other reasonable choices.

To me, the onus is entirely on the owner to have had adequate firepower and the skills to apply it rapidly in this situation.

Clearly the owner of this place should take a vast majority of the blame, their unpreparedness plus questionable employee practices resulted in this tragedy. However, if you're the local LE agency that has jurisdiction...how did you sign-off that this place was ok and there was no in-house contingency? I get it, there's a lot more to this than what's been reported and more info to come.

quote:

Originally posted by Sock Eating Golden:
Reading about this they other day I only had two words in mind, belted magnum.

Yep! I had a 458 Win Mag and shot 510gr solids out of it. Three and I'd had enough. I'm sure the lion would have as well. There's no excuse for that facility not having something like that on hand. God speed to the victim.

All in all a sad thing to happen. That could have been avoided.

My neighbor and friend's daughter worked/volunteered there a few years back. He and I talked about this the other day. His daughter told him they were taught never to make eye contact with any of the predators.

People get complacent. Wild animals caged don't.
Hate hearing tragedies broken down as to best caliber discussions.

quote:

Originally posted by Bigboreshooter:
Killing a lion and stopping a lion whose adrenaline is up are two very different things.

This. A lion will kill you, if it's close enough and mad enough, with its heart blown out.

Most of the zoos don't talk about it much, because killing an animal is usually a last resort for them, but many do have armories with rifles and trained shooters. If the need arises due to an escape or somebody entering an enclosure, staff is available to respond to put the animal down.

I believe that's what happened with that gorilla that got a hold of a kid that fell into his enclosure a few years back. It was zoo staff, not law enforcement, who shot the gorilla.

I can't believe that anybody that would deal with those types of animals wouldn't have the firepower on hand to deal with a situation like this.

quote:

Originally posted by 9mmepiphany:

quote:

Originally posted by Tubetone:
Also, it seems to me that buck will mess up a paw something terrible. Why not take a mechanical shot to slow mobility?

I would offer that shooting a moving lion in the paw would be akin to shooting a gun/knife out of a perp's hand

The lion laid down according to the article. It was not always moving. Still sounds as though each tried for one killing shot even after others failed.

It also seems from the article that the lion may have still been enclosed, just not contained within the enclosure.

It still sounds like there was a focus on killing the animal, not stopping it so as to get to the keeper.

Maybe it is the way the article is written but it sounds like this played out over a long period of time.

There was a lot of seemingly needless suffering that day.

"(T)hree deputies went to the center on East Hughes Mill Road after the attack to help staffers get the lion away from Black so she could receive medical attention." - that seemed the goal.

---

Another thing that occurs to me is that we know nothing about the shotguns in the story.

I talked to a LEO a couple of years ago and he showed me how his department's armorer sawed off all the department shotguns - not finished very well I might add. It was in his cruiser.

It was memorable because of what I learned about a single errant pellet from an 870 killing a downrange officer. Even the standard configuration can loosen up quite a bit.

We all know velocities decrease and patterns get bigger with shortened barrels so maybe they subscribed to a blunderbuss theory of some sort in that town; thus, rendering shot less effective at some distance.

Were they using 870s old or new? Did they have "blow-by" from after market forcing cone work? Did the supplier sell them 870s with the lengthened forcing cones? I'm just saying we don't know what was in play there.

How well would a lever gun in .44 magnum worked in this situation? Say with 300 grain loads?

Shot placement and bullet choice for lions I've bolded what I thought was interesting:

" Wounded or annoyed though, and the lion becomes a very different beast. LG (OOOBuck) buckshot and even .458 Winchester ‘Lion Load’ have been repeatedly documented as failing to penetrate the massive chest muscles of a charging lion. 9" of hard, sinewy, tensed muscle is a difficult challenge to any bullet."

"This susceptibility to shock is usually attributed to a highly developed nervous system, but large, fragile lungs, coupled with a very large heart and big blood vessels (for its size) must surely also be contributing factors.

Consequently, in many countries Lion are classified as large soft skinned game and may be legally hunted with rifles suitable for sable, eland and giraffe. Most of the time a rifle in the .300 magnum class is perfectly suitable, particularly when hunting in daylight and being backed up by somebody with a heavier rifle. For hunting at night or following up a wounded animal something considerably heavier is definitely needed. For night shooting, something in the order of a .338 Win Mag or a 9,3x62 should be regarded as the minimum. Here bullet selection is important, since rapid destruction of the lungs/heart is vital, and yet penetration may be crucial. Bullets such as the Norma Oryx really stand out as a truly great design for lion, especially in the smaller calibres.

For following up a wounded lion, nothing under the .400 class of rifles can really be considered satisfactory. In their modern loadings the .404 and .416 Rigby are very effective, along side their newer counterparts such as the .416 Remington. Again, bullet selection is the key to satisfaction and safety. A charging lion is definitely NOT a soft-skinned animal, and light-for-calibre or frangible bullet designs are going to fail dismally. Premium softpoints such as the Norma Oryx, ‘Barns X, or Woodleigh ‘Weldcore’ are a better choice for this than the ‘Partition’ style bullets since the massive chest muscles have to be penetrated before the vital organs can be reached. A lion tensed up to fight probably offers nearly as much resistance to a bullet as a Cape Buffalo, and bullet selection for this specialised task needs to be much the same. Solids, however, should NOT be used. The shock and tissue damage created is simply too small to conclude matters quickly enough. A Lion can reach 80km/h (50mph) in a charge and is a relatively small target:- Stopping it- dead- is a top priority.

As with every animal, bullet placement is important. No amount of foot-ponds of energy can make up for a bullet in the stomach and lion’s famed susceptibility to ‘shock’ definitely does not apply to gut shots or bullets through the leg etc. The brain is a tiny target, located behind the eyes if the lion is looking directly towards you. From any other angle the brain is an extremely difficult target since the mane obscures the head and even the ears making it virtually impossible to determine where the skull actually is. Even when the head is clearly visible (such as on a lioness or maneless male), hunters tend to shoot too high. The whole top of the skull is covered by massive muscles to work the jaws and the brain is located several inches lower than one would normally expect (see photo 1). Consequently the brain shot is to be avoided if at all possible.

For the chest shot, there is nothing startling about a lions anatomy except that it is rare to shoot a lion in the classic broadside on standing position. If shot from a blind the lion will probably be standing on its back legs feeding or lying down near the bait. If it is tracked down it will either be lying down, with its head lifted to keep a lazy watch, or it will be crouching facing the hunter watching him. The heart is large and situated low in the chest, somewhat further back than on the antelopes. Above are the major arteries and veins, whilst above and behind are the lungs. If the lion is lying down it may not be feasible to try for a heart shot. It is too easy to place the bullet too low and miss everything vital. Much better then to take a lung shot and try to ensure that both lungs are raked by the bullet. In short, the whole front half of the chest is the target area and any shot here with an appropriate bullet will result in rapid, if not instantaneous incapacitation."

LINK

A .416 Rigby is ideal. Typically it fires a 400gr solid at 2 500 fps. A 5.56 doesn't even begin to compare.
During National Service days there was a lot of M193 floating around which some people would use for hunting. Even on something as small as Impala, the round was mediocre.

There's a very good book, "The Perfect Shot" by Kevin Robertson, which shows where the vital organs are on African big game and where you need to aim for.

Marlin 45-70 Guide gun topped with a red dot, loaded with Garrett 540 grain Hammerhead ammo is my recommendation.

http://www.garrettcartridges.com/4570540tech.html

quote:

Originally posted by pbslinger:
Marlin 45-70 Guide gun topped with a red dot, loaded with Garrett 540 grain Hammerhead ammo is my recommendation.

http://www.garrettcartridges.com/4570540tech.html

There is a long post/story on www.marlinowners.com from a few years ago (that I can’t find now) where an experienced hunter made arrangements to go to Africa and test various 45-70 loads, including Garrett’s, on dangerous game. As I recall, the Garrettt hard cast rounds did not hold up. Interestingly, Randy Garrett sold his company to an outfit in Texas a while back (after the story) and it looks like the new owner has expanded from hard cast ammo into some serious dangerous game bullets from third party manufacturers.

Anyway, one of the rounds that did well, with an elephant in the story I referenced, is the Punch Bullet from Grizzly Cartridges.

https://www.gunblast.com/Grizzly-Punch.htm

http://www.grizzlycartridge.co...oghz467zu435520jnop7

Thread drift off.

quote:

Originally posted by BB61:
As I recall, the Garrettt hard cast rounds did not hold up.

Hardly surprising.

I used to read many accounts of hunting large African game back in the days when there were many professional hunters (guides, mostly) and few, if any, restrictions on what animals were killed. The one thing that stood out for me time again were references to the need for really stout bullets that were capable of deep through and through penetration without deforming or deviating from the shot line. That was obviously most difficult on the largest, toughest animals such as buffalo shot into the body through the horn boss.

In none of those discussions did I ever read about anyone using any bullet without a thick, hard jacket. As I recall, some bullets of the era even had (copper-washed) steel jackets. No “hard cast” lead alloy bullet I’m familiar with could possibly be as hard and resistant to deformation as the jacketed “solids” of that era.

How bout the neighbors. Doesn't seem like chain link fencing is a secure enclosure.