Texas tigers

[Jim Watson]

Not by me.
When you screw up and wound a leopard, your PWH will likely track it with a shotgun, but a tiger is a LOT bigger animal.
There is a lot of big game poached by underpaid Slobbovian troops who just hose the animals with automatic rifles, but it is not something one would do on purpose. I guess if you are faced with a loose "pet" tiger or lion, you will do the best you can with what you have, q.v. Ray Ordorica vs a bear with 9mm.

The typical Howdah Pistol maxed out at .577. Hamilton Bowen built a modern version of the rare .577 revolver on a Ruger action. It got a 400 gr bullet to 725 fps on black powder, so it would really have been a last ditch defense, these days you would be better off with something like a .475 Linebaugh.

T. Roosevelt thought a .405 Winchester was a suitable lion rifle.

[Doc_Glock]

I was under the impression that all the big cats were still thin skinned and relatively light (for their size). Meaning, you actually don't need a cape buffalo caliber.

Wasn't it the Howdah "pistols" essentially being short barreled shotguns that were used primarily for defense against tigers when mounted on an elephant? Or is that me conflating fiction with reality.

Put another way: 12-gauge buckshot or 5.56 JSPs, would that not be adequately effective?

In at least one Corbett story he regrets taking his easily carried, light, .275 when all of a sudden things get real and he finds himself a bit unexpectedly tracking a large man eater through the jungle. It made me laugh because things never change in some ways.

[jh9]

In at least one Corbett story he regrets taking his easily carried, light, .275 when all of a sudden things get real and he finds himself a bit unexpectedly tracking a large man eater through the jungle. It made me laugh because things never change in some ways.

True. I wonder if his impression would have been different if the .275 had a 30 round magazine, higher rate of fire and an aimpoint.

There is a lot of big game poached by underpaid Slobbovian troops who just hose the animals with automatic rifles, but it is not something one would do on purpose. I guess if you are faced with a loose "pet" tiger or lion, you will do the best you can with what you have, q.v. Ray Ordorica vs a bear with 9mm.

Right. The thought is less "hunting with the aim of taking game humanely" and more "shit shit shit SHIT SHIT SHIT".

[Joe S]

I highly recommend the book The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival by John Vaillant



https://smile.amazon.com/Tiger-Venge...s%2A=0&ie=UTF8

I emphatically second this. Great book. A 600 lb cat that was personally determined to murder you, while being capable of moving completely silently over snow or through underbrush, who by the way can jump 20 feet? Crazy.

[Coyotesfan97]

I think it was Maneaters of Kumaon where Corbett wrote he actually went out hunting with only three rounds of ammo,had to fire twice, and was down to one round with a man eating Tiger in close proximity. I highly recommend it along with any other Corbett you can find.

Corbett also spent a lot of time in his later years taking photographs of Tigers.

Maneaters of Kumaon

[Duelist]

I was under the impression that all the big cats were still thin skinned and relatively light (for their size). Meaning, you actually don't need a cape buffalo caliber.

Wasn't it the Howdah "pistols" essentially being short barreled shotguns that were used primarily for defense against tigers when mounted on an elephant? Or is that me conflating fiction with reality.

Put another way: 12-gauge buckshot or 5.56 JSPs, would that not be adequately effective?

400-600 pounds. Think on that for a moment. A medium sized cow elk will weigh about 400 pounds. A large bull will clear 600. Would you shoot an elk, which is not likely to hurt you except under extraordinary circumstances, with a 5.56 or with buckshot deliberately? My .270 Winchester is a good elk rifle, but some consider it inadequate/too small.

Howdahs, from what I understand, were not loaded with buckshot, but with a large slug in each barrel. A .577 round ball or slug is much more of the kind of medicine an adult tiger would call for. A semiauto 12g with a tube full of Brennekes sounds like what I would be looking for were I to need to protect life and limb from a >400# tiger. Alaska grizzly bear medicine.

[jh9]

400-600 pounds. Think on that for a moment. A medium sized cow elk will weigh about 400 pounds. A large bull will clear 600. Would you shoot an elk, which is not likely to hurt you except under extraordinary circumstances, with a 5.56 or with buckshot deliberately? My .270 Winchester is a good elk rifle, but some consider it inadequate/too small.

Howdahs, from what I understand, were not loaded with buckshot, but with a large slug in each barrel. A .577 round ball or slug is much more of the kind of medicine an adult tiger would call for. A semiauto 12g with a tube full of Brennekes sounds like what I would be looking for were I to need to protect life and limb from a >400# tiger. Alaska grizzly bear medicine.

I think what I posted earlier adds some important context:

Right. The thought is less "hunting with the aim of taking game humanely" and more "shit shit shit SHIT SHIT SHIT".

If a 600lb tiger warrants "Alaska grizzly bear medicine" then it is what it is, but I'm still wondering if that is what it is. Especially since the question at large is something like bonded 5.56 soft points with the intent to use a lot of them as needed. Maybe 12-gauge buckshot is, for this purpose, not really comparable like it is for human threats.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter. Houston is Way Over There and until some asshat lets a tiger loose in Austin this is all merely educational for me. But the responses so far have all been from the "hunting" angle and my interest is more from a defensive angle where I'm not limited to a bolt action with three bullets. I do think that changes the calculus, but I could be wrong.

[OlongJohnson]

Given the speed of a large predator such as this, you may not have time to use more than low single digits of rounds, even with a semi-auto. I wouldn't plan for it with anything I wasn't confident had the sauce to penetrate stem to stern, and 5.56 ain't that.

I am unsure of whether I'd rather confront such a threat with the 1301 w/Nordic full of Brennekes or a semi-auto with 10 or 20 times of .308. Ten of .30-06 would be even better. Unsure whether I'd like four of .338 WinMag more than more of .30 caliber. I suspect that of these options, the best would be bonded or monometal .308s as fast as you can put them on target from as far away as you need to start until either it stops or the fight becomes an ECQC problem.

Several years ago, Phil Shoemaker was faced with a committed attack from a big brown while fishing near town. Hadn't expected trouble, so all he took that day was a 3953 (9mm) loaded with nine rounds of someone's heavy penetrator. Few people on the planet know more about where to put bullets in a big brown than Phil. My recollection of the story is that he shot and hit six times from near contact distance, with the bear turning and coming back for multiple passes. Three of the bullets did useful work, and the bear stopped. He only had three left.

[BN]

A few years ago, a man near Zanesville Ohio turned loose his collection of wild animals and then committed suicide. The Sheriff's department ended up killing a bunch of them with .556 carbines.

https://www.gq.com/story/terry-thomp...-february-2012

18 Tigers, 17 Lions, 8 Bears, 3 Cougars, 2 Wolves, 1 Baboon, 1 Macaque, and 1 Man Dead in Ohio.

[MickAK]

Several years ago, Phil Shoemaker was faced with a committed attack from a big brown while fishing near town. Hadn't expected trouble, so all he took that day was a 3953 (9mm) loaded with nine rounds of someone's heavy penetrator. Few people on the planet know more about where to put bullets in a big brown than Phil. My recollection of the story is that he shot and hit six times from near contact distance, with the bear turning and coming back for multiple passes. Three of the bullets did useful work, and the bear stopped. He only had three left.

He had one left. Bear didn't really turn and come back multiple passes, just kept whirling trying to bite whatever was biting him which makes it more or less impossible to place a bullet - a bear can whirl pretty damn fast. Shot placement on a pissed off brown blur is mostly a guess.