Will a .22 LR take a cougar?

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heavyshooter

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Ladies and Gents,

I was in the neighborhood gunstore because I was looking for some .357 Magnum ammo for my trail excursions in Colorado cougar country. The store owner told me that I "should not worry about a heavy round because a 130 lbs. couger can be taken with a .22 LR (40gr.). He was being sincere; no joke. I am not as confident as he is and I don't want to be the one to test it! :rolleyes: I want something that is going to bring a cat down ASAP. When hiking in cougar country would a 357 mag., 158 gr flatnose do the job (I am using a Ruger SP101 3" barrel)? If not, what do you recommend. And do you think the .22 LR legend is true? ;)

Heavy
 
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i know a guide who has taken down a decent size black bear self defense of course with a 22lr unloaded on its head 2 made it through the eye socket you can take mostly anything with a 22lr or magnum but you will need great precision. Are you worried about weight? a 357 magnum would certainly do the job. there are many pistols that would suite you fine but what are you really looking for and what are you comfortable with is the question?
 
Tell him he can gamble with his life, but you won't! A 357 isn't that hard to carry and it's a whole lot more comforting to know that you have those big, heavy rounds instead of those tiny .22's. Yes, I've seen butchers put down big bulls with a 22 magnum, but my philosophy with dangerous animals is 'the heavier the caliber the better!'.
 
chriso,

I am really happy with the SP101. It is built like a steel ball, but it is small enough to reside on my hip without notice. .357 Mag. should handle anything I would likely run into (coyote, cougar), but having never shot a cougar, I am not aquainted with the instinctive/adrenaline reaction they may have with their last breath. My wife is often with me on these hikes so I want a one shot stopper. I was considering the flatnose or FMJ because I want good penetration on head and lung shots. My concern is more in reference to the ammunition than the gun or caliber. Maybe 200 gr. is better than 158 gr. and maybe the hydroshock is better than the FMJ. I don't know.

p.s. - It sounds like the guide took all head shots at the bear. Goodnight! How many rounds did that take? I'll have to take your word for it becasue I do not intend to test it. :)
 
Lots of TREED cougars have been dispatched with .22s, but if you need to shoot a cougar to stop it from having you for brunch, pack something more authoritative.
 
As is always the case with the "insert caliber for insert animal" questions, the answer is, with proper shot placement, yes. Of course, there are many better stoppers than .22LR.
 
not sure didn't ask how many rounds it took but the 22 i always see him using is a henry lever action. yeah 357 magnum is more than adequate a semi wadcutter will stop it in its tracks!!! haha ive heard from another member that the federal hydrashocks dont expand as well as other hollowpoint/defense ammunitions and he said he did extensive research on it i dont remember the other ammunition he recommended. As long as you can shoot the gun good i wouldnt be to worried i dont know about colorado but many of people have told me stuff like "you wont see a mountain lion" or what not and blah blah but 3 years ago my australian shepard treed a massive mountain lion and it was sizing him up getting ready to pounce on him when my father laid it down with a 300 winchester mag. I have had plenty of encounters with mountain lions not cougars. and for that reason i carry a 357 always bought hydrashock but im not sure about that ammunition anymore.
 
A .22 would work, esp dispatching an animal. However will it stop an animal during an attack? .22LR is regularly used to kill hogs, cattle, etc. which weigh in much more than a cougar. However those critters are in a pen and not going anywhere. Personally I'd stick with the .357.
 
I have had plenty of encounters with mountain lions not cougars.
Click to expand...
A mountain lion IS a cougar. :rolleyes:

And, if a Cougar/Mountain Lion/Puma/Painter/Panther/etc is pouncing on you, you won't have time to make a carefully placed shot.

In the good old days, the trappers in these parts used black powder rifles to wipe felis concolor completely out until they couldn't find any more to kill.
 
I tend to carry a .22wmr revolver, .357 (SP101), and my FN USG 5.7x28 when in the woods. Sometimes I'll substitute my XD45 for the SP101, but I feel a lot better with HEAVY .357 loads for anything that wants to eat me than I do about .45 ACP.
 
While offically there are no Catamounts (yet another name for a mountain lion) in NC, I have seen there tracks, and if one wants to make you its dinner, you want to get it down, NOW. .22 might kill it, but it will have enough time to kill you too.
 
:cool:

Be prepared for an influx of people who will tell you that the .22 LR will take anything that moves, or ever has moved, on the face of the planet - including a tyrannosaurus rex in rut.
 
^^^ yep...

I know for a fact that local cattle thieves take 500kg steers with a .22LR, so yea, a cougar can bite the big one if you place that little slug where it counts. The question is can you do it before your throat is in his mouth?
 
How do you know he wasn't joking? :D

I'm not an expert but I'm with bestseller and Drgong.

Years ago an older cousin who lived in Estes Park showed me a brightly plated pocket Browning in .25 ACP that he kept in his car. I had once fired one of those and couldn't hit with it very well at all, and I never had any use for the cartridge. To make conversation, I asked why he kept it with him. He replied "we have mountain lions around here, and you never know when you'll encounter one at night".

I know that my immediate laughter was not really very polite, but I could not believe he was serious. He insisted that he was!
 
A Few Years Back...

...when I lived in Douglas AZ, A friend asked a local man who is licensed as a cougar hunter and hunting guide what firearm he recommended for a person who would want to go on a guided cougar hunt. Warner Glenn's answer - minimum, a .38 Special out of a carbine.

(If you care to check out Warner's credentials, I suspect that they will hold more water than those of the gun-shop owner.)
 
I live in the Denver area also, and when I go up into the foothills and mountains, I carry a Ruger GP100 4 inch .357 Mag. Its a great woods gun and would take care of Mountain Lions as long as I did my part. Yes, I sometimes carry a .22, just for plinking, but more often the .357.

I'd rather have a .22 than nothing, it would at least, most likely, scare the cat away from the noise.
 
I know 3-4 guys that are really serious about lion hunting. They have the dogs, the horses and all the stuff that goes with it (horse trailer, truck to pull it with..............). It is their primary source of entertainment.

They all carry .22 handguns.
If they hunt together they take one .22 handgun between them.
 
If you've chased down and treed it with dogs, get close enough to shoot it and wait for it to bleed out, sure, you can kill the cougar with that .22. They are frequently hunted this way. If it is actively engaged in trying to eat you, you may not want to wait that long. :uhoh:

A .357 Magnum should be adequate. (As would a 9mm and up autoloader, but this is the revolver section, so I won't mention those.;)) Even a big one only weighs about as much as a medium-sized human, and they are not particularly thick-skinned or heavy-boned. Your biggest challenge is going to be hitting it in the first place (assuming it is not already on top of and chewing on you). Their vital organs are not a very big target, the head even smaller, and they move fast.
 
All this talk of .22lr for cougars, I have to ask... what barrel length? Are we talking about 3-4" barrels, or the 6" or longer barrels? I could see SOME utility in the longer barrels, but I'd sure as heck want something bigger as a backup.
 
Just as a sidenote, Louis L'amour wrote once that, during his extensive ramblings through the southwest, doing research for his books, he used to carry a .22 revolver. Then he had a close call with a cougar and started carrying a .357 instead.
 
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