What gun for Dinosaur and Mammoth

This comes up pretty regularly, so before people recommend various light artillery / 50 BMG, let me say that if the hunt is ON FOOT, which would limit the discussion to guns that can realistically be carried and fired from the shoulder, I'd recommend a 460 Weatherby with 500 grain monolithic solids, although the 577 T-Rex, 600 NE, etc. would also serve.

This begs the question of where to shoot. A heart / lung shot is out of the question. It would probably be fatal eventually, but eventually won't cut it with a T-Rex!

Brain shots would be tough. The brain isn't all that big, reptilian nervous systems are decentralized, and the skull is massive.

What I would recommend is a immobilizing shot, probably to the knee. A T-Rex isn't going to go far on one leg. Then you could sink in a few heart / lung shots that would finally finish it off.

All things considered, there are other things I'd rather do. Have fun!

.380 hollowpoints will not penetrate. I'd go with jacketed round nose.

A late Halloween night of Jurassic Park movies? :banghead:

Here is an interesting thread on BIG bore guns. 1000gr slugs at 3000 fps should do some damage (to your shoulder). http://www.guntalk-online.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3237

Anything up to and including a T-Rex; 10mm is all you need.

If I'm going all out on a jurassic safari I would prefer an A 10, maybe even some sort of UFO I haven't thought of. Yeah that's it and a lightsaber should make short work of skinning...

Having seen dinosaur bones, and having a chunk of a fossilized leg bone in my possession, I figure that breaking a leg bone in order to cripple or immobilize one of the very large types would be the rational way to go.

Figure a bone of four to six inches in diameter, as you consider what might be "enough gun".

Maybe H&H knows the diameter of an elephant's femur, which is about the only comparable bone for size.

45-70 marlin with garrett hardcast loads. If it works on the big game critters in africa it should do for dino.

45-70 lever action as above, two shots into each knee joint. If that doesn't bring the critter down to your level, then maybe it will slow him down as you try to run away.

However, if he does go down, then several shots into eye socket angling back to brain case might finish the job.

Ron in Cretaceous Era Texas

Something in .700 Nitro Express like what they use in Africa for Elephants?

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I would start with something commonly used on African safaris for dangerous game. Nothing less than .375 and up. Mammoths shouldn't really be any different than what you would hunt elephant with, the way I understand it they are basically hairier elephants so a .470 nitro express would be good. With that being said, I have heard they credit the Atlatl with making the mammoth go extinct, so don't discount archery.

To make one's BIG5, they shoot rhinoceros with a tranquilizer gun, because there are not enough of them.

I know a woman that has bed and breakfast at her ranch for dinosaur fossil digging.
Good luck even getting an elk tag for open country like that.

If the Allosaurus or T Rex were around today, but as rare as they were in their day, I think we could get a tranquiler shot at best.

Bell waltz'd Africa with his 7mm I stroll Arctic Alaska with a M-39 Mosin Nagant...... I just havent shot one yet, and now I here theres oodles of Dianosaur Bones and such nearby, I think I'll track a few down ~~LOL!!~~

The 12gauge from hell would do the job
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=178655

But you'd probably be better off with a .50 bmg, you certainly can carry them around, and semi auto capability would almost be a requirement for such dangerous game.

I recognize the mammoth molars from watching TV about their extinction.

It's not the arrow, it's the Indian. Put that .22 in his eyeball, T Rex will fall.

I think probably the BEST caliber is .223. Everyone tells me it's devastating, kills better than .458 Win Mag because the bullet tumbles, or something like that. Some even say it bounces around inside the animal. Sure, it's only 70 grains and .224" and only has 1200 ft lbs at the muzzle, but hey, it KILLS better than a .458. I know this because I've read it on the internet. The internet is always right!

Gotta go now. I have a date, met her on the internet, she's a French model. ......

If an RPG is too much, then an African double - 577, 600 Nitro, or similar would work well

Apparently Im the only nutbag that is ok with the old 50 Cal Muzzleloader and one of them fancy lead bullets with water inside it people use for Elk. Id go double lung and let the cards fall where they may. Besides you can use the smoke as cover to make a hasty get-away

Just read all the posts.........That`s it.

Pretty funny. Too much is always better than not enough. Bazooka and flame thrower. Kill, process and cook. Gotta love modern technology. They kill whales with explosive harpoons. My favorite weapon in 'Nam was a Ma Duece (50 cal. Machine gun) mounted on a 5 ton backed with grenade launchers and M60s. Some gun trucks had 20mm anti aircraft guns. That would be about right.
45-70 guys always crack me up. Ask Custer how that worked out.
To kill a Dinasour you should be smarter than the Dinasour. Good thread for amusement.

This is an old idea. L. Sprague De Camp wrote a fantastic radio script on this very topic for X Minus One (now public domain I believe)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7edFWC-120

Brain shots with dinos would, as the show notes, would be of little value. And heart/lung would probably not kill fast enough in a charge. So you would indeed have to have a gun big enough to take out a major joint and knock them off their charge.

The mammoths were close cousins to elephants, so the standard elephant guns would work fine for them unless that hair got covered with ice or something.