Gun of choice, bovine slaughter?

'matrem', Thank you so much for your edifying responses, your contribution to this post has been invaluable! Keep up the good posts!

Have a great evening!

Click to expand...

You're certainly welcome. I'll be looking for you and you can count on more of the same.

I've butchered quite a few cattle and used a 22 rifle with adequate results. The local butcher shop uses a 22 mag with fmj bullets. I have seen 22 pistols fail to properly stun animals requiring a 2nd or 3rd shot before they dropped. We never used a centerfire of any sort.

.22 mag revolver here. Dad used a sledge hammer or .22 lr.
Once had a wounded Holstein bull on a rampage.

Me and my brother shot a cow's skull from the front with .22lr about 50 times and a large portion of the rounds hit the skull and bounced over.

A cow's skull is ridiculously thick in some parts. I'm sure that .22lr would work fine if you hit it in the right spot but honestly if it was me I wouldn't do it with anything less than .32acp, that seemed to go through every time in about 35 rounds.

A buddy of mine was in the Peace Corps in his youth and spent some time in some African country or other, building wells and irrigation. One village they were helping was going to cook a pig. Somehow he got elected to help the pig on its journey to the afterlife. He smacked it over the head, stunning it, and was over it with a knife, just about to bleed it out when it decided that dinner was not going to fit its schedule after all, and made a break for it. This ruined the cut my friend was trying to make. It was bleeding a little, but not nearly enough. All it really did was make it harder to hang onto. He didn't want to let go of it because they had no corral. They were only a few feet from a pond, so he dragged it in to try to drown it. The pig was having none of this, and kept thrashing around and squealing like - well you know. The pond was very shallow for the first few yards, which made it just about impossible to keep the pig's head under water. The villagers weren't much help either - they just stood there staring in awe like "look at that crazy white boy". Eventually, the pig worked its way back to dry land, and my friend was barely hanging onto a leg when one of his fellow Peace Corps volunteers ran up and capped the thing in the head, finally bringing the impromptu wrestling exhibition to a close.

"Why the heck didn't you tell me you had a gun?"
"I didn't tell anybody I had a gun."

How does this help you with your question? Do not wrestle the cow. Just shoot it.

On the farm I worked on we used a .22 lr to the forehead and it worked fine.

start weight lifting if you are going to carry the animal to the barn. (LOL)

Click to expand...

We used a tractor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCYs1CSsbqs&list=UUlGkC8Z5GKbh-_r2zQTcwuA&index=1

FastForward to aprox 4:35 and you will see where the pros strike cattle with their captive bolt guns. Insta-kill.

FWIW cattle rustlers/poachers in my neck of the woods have been using .22LR long guns to kill bovine cattle and steal the meat for ages.

Is this what you are asking about?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAz76j3Ir5k

A .22 will work fine.Don't shoot it between the eyes that too low it might work with a bigger gun it won't work with a .22 Make the x ears to eyes.Make sure the barrel is at right angle to the head.Get close the muzzle is inches from their head not yards.Stick it quickly you will have a little time before it starts kicking.Some kick a lot some very little.Stay back and be careful.Another thing its not hunting its not sport.The reason you want to be close is in case something does go wrong and so you can stick it quickly

VTmtn.man, one of the issues hso alluded to is the problem with the critter moving it's head and ruining the shot. Up close and personal greatly reduces the margin of error.

I lived on a pig farm for several years and all the slaughter was done with a .32 ACP single shot device, very much like a Pen Flare launcher.

toiville2feathers perfectly described the best targeting (IMHO) method to get the bullet into the brain on a critter.

There have been lots of posts on close up above/between the eyes 'X' mark, shot placement BUT, no comments on 50 yds back w/ a .308 or equivalent. HSO (the moderator) did make a statement to the negative on this method but has not yet qualifed the veracity of his statement.

Click to expand...

hey - we tried... It's all good. You want to hang way back and use your scoped centerfire rifle, you go right ahead.

It's a cow, no need to make pretend it's an elk or something.

correct

The slaughter house I worked at in my youth, used an air powered bolt gun, X marks the spot style, on the farms where I have helped at they all used .22 wrf or larger to dispatch either cow or pig. As far as HSO's comment, if you are too far away there is more room for error, and you need to be pretty close to use the bleeding knife before they start to thrash around. Yes the 06 will do the job but it tends to make more of a mess. just my .02 worth.

You don't want to kill it with the bullet; you just want to knock it out so you can immediately slit its throat and have its heart pump out as much blood as possible before it stops.

I had a neighbor who did "on the farm butchering" as a sideline and he used a 22lr or 22 mag from about 10 to 15 feet, head on for cattle and hogs. Occasionally on a large bull or a buffalo he used something a little bigger.

When I was a kid I took a tour of a slaughterhouse on a school field trip and they just used a sledgehammer to knock out the cattle as they came through a blind chute. They then hung the unconscious animal from its real legs and slit its throat to bleed out.

True. You don't want the bullet to kill it, you want it stun it long enough to cut its throat. You want it to bleed to death.
22lr is plenty. 30-06 will kill it dead before it can bleed out.

Sent from my DROID RAZR HD using Tapatalk 2

When I worked in a small slaughterhouse we just used a .22 rifle. Make the "X" between the ears and eyes and pop 'em right in the center of the forehead. Kills 'em dead. Anything larger, and you're endangering YOURSELF from ricochets and shrapnel. Plus the loudness. Don't need anything but a .22 rifle. Pistol may not achieve enough velocity.

Me and my brother shot a cow's skull from the front with .22lr about 50 times and a large portion of the rounds hit the skull and bounced over.

A cow's skull is ridiculously thick in some parts. I'm sure that .22lr would work fine if you hit it in the right spot but honestly if it was me I wouldn't do it with anything less than .32acp, that seemed to go through every time in about 35 rounds.

Click to expand...

Dead bone is much different than living bone.

It was very recently deceased. I don't know how it died, I just know that the dog dragged in an intact cow skull up from somewhere out at my grandfather's house.

All I had at the time was a .22lr pistol and a .32acp pistol and I decided to do some testing against the cow's skull. The .22lr was very ineffective at punching through. I will admit though that there is a beefalo farm pretty close by and the skull was huge so it may have been a skull from one of them. They're pretty large and bulky cows so the bone might (most likely) be much thicker.

I still say use a .32acp minimum because I've seen dogs shot point blank in the head with the .22lr and while all but one of them died in a single shot, it was horrible being there for the one that didn't penetrate the dog's skull and had to be shot again.