Was the snake head-shot, and did the impact of the shot charge move it any distance? I have in mind having shot a lizard with a Hi-Standard .22. The Long Rifle HP at some ten feet blew it out of sight. I finally found it some 15 feet away, up on the side of the hill above where it had been. I've wondered since if the energy of the bullet did that damage, or if a spastic last lunge took it up there. The bullet hit just behind the left shoulder. Wonder if a .357 Magnum might have a similar effect on a larger monitor lizard or a Gila monster. This was just a little lizard of the sort that I think is called a green anole.
I fet bad about shooting it. It wasn't a needful death, and it'd probably have eaten some mosquitos or something, had I left it alone.
One fellow posted here or on one of the Ruger boards about shooting a snapping turtle with a Glaser round from what I think may have been a .357. The entire head was just plain gone, with the neck also missing, back almost to the shell, where there was just a bloody stump. One shot, and it was totally over for that turtle which had been acting aggressively on a friend's patio.
I know of a Montana game warden who had to shoot a grizzly that was being relocated or tagged. It got hold of him, and he drew his issued S&W M-66, four-inch barrel, and fired all six shots in a panic. One hit the heart, and killed the bear, apparently at once. I know only that the bullet was a 158 grain JHP, make unknown.
One of my brothers had to shoot a big dog, I think a Doberman, in his yard, when it went for him. This mutt had been terrorizing housewives on that street for several months, and it is fortunate that no one had been seriously injured. People were afraid to call the police, because the dog's owner was a big, mean-tempered man, and they feared him.
My brother used a S&W M-60 snub, loaded with some Winchester lead HP ammo that I'd given him. He panicked and popped off all five shots without staying cool and shooting for a vital mark. One bullet hit the dog in the right shoulder from above. It put it down, and it crawled, whining, back to its owner's yard. Police were called, but refused to take any action, saying that the shooting seemed warranted.
I think the bullet went in between the shoulder and the body cavity. Had it hit the body, results might have been better.
The animal lived (went to the vet) but never again set foot in my brother's yard. Come to think of it, the owner did a lot less swaggering after that incident...
He was, of course, in violation of the leash law, and maybe could have been charged with harboring a dangerous animal and reckless endangerment of the public. I wanted to explore those options, but when the police didn't hassle my brother, we decided to let the matter go.
My son lives in a semi-rural area of central Texas. He went out to see why his dogs were barking one night a few months ago. He was on this way to tell them good night and take them some table scraps, too, I think. Must have had a mental lapse, and didn't take a gun. The dogs were in an enclosure and unable to assist him.
Some fairly large canid growled at him and charged from the shadows by some bushes. My son threw it back from him and got one of those thumb-stud opener knives into action, it having been clipped in his pocket. I disremember (unrecollect?
) now whether it was a Benchmade that he'd recently bought, with a tanto point, or a Pakistan-made knife that a fellow contractor had given him in Iraq a couple of years before. That Paki knife is basically okay, I guess, and he carried it for some time out of sentiment. I've handled both of those knives, and they have blades of about 3.5 inches. The Benchmade is much better made, of superior materials, of course. It is definitely the knife that he now carries.
Whichever knife he had, he held the dog/coyote/whatever away from his throat with one hand and stabbed it productively with the other. The animal yelped, in great pain, broke off the assault, and fled. The stab wound was followed with a slashing motion after the blade had entered the side of the animal, which was brownish gray in the moonlight. He said that it was smaller than his Rhodesian Ridgeback, but bigger than an average coyote. Probably a coydog, was his best guess. It did look a lot like a really big coyote.
He had blood all over him, mostly the animal's. His wife cleaned him up and dressed some scratches and, I think, a bite, although not a bad one, I don't recall now if he saw a doc about the possibility of rabies. He thinks the animal was stalking a sick, old horse that his wife has since had put down. He is fully satisfied that the animal meant to get him by the throat. The event was a wakeup call, and he now routinely carries a pistol when going out after dark, especially if the dogs have alerted.
Next item: I interviewed a fellow who lives on Vancouver Island, who was stalked and attacked by a female cougar, who took him from behind, a total surprise. This being in Canada, he had no gun option, but did have a Schrade lockblade folding knife in a belt pouch. It was their version of the famous Buck Model 110.
He told me that the hardest part was keeping the cat from disembowelling him or getting to his throat before he could draw and open the knife. (My son mentioned the great advantage of being able to get his knife into action one-handed. That probably saved him.)
The gentleman, who was in his 60's if memory serves, got the Schrade open and killed the cat, but he was a bloody mess. He staggered into a logging camp, and they thought he had been cut up by criminals and called the police. The RCMP questioned him a lot, but got him to a provincial hospital, where he went into extensive surgery. His scalp had been pulled almost off, and only a thick collar prevented the cougar from getting him by the neck. He had MANY stitches, but they got the scalp on right, although signs of his encounter will probably be with him for the remainder of his days.
If memory serves (this was about 15 years ago), he never got his knife back. I remember asking the Schrade PR lady to see about getting him a new one, maybe doing an ad featuring him. She said they'd look into it, but I don't think anything came of it. Actually, I think he said that he wanted to avoid further publicity, as the incident made the news, which is how I found it, and wrote it up for a knife publication. I think that some men did send him replacement knives, and the Discovery Channel incuded him in a story on cougar attacks. The province of British Columbia, especially Vancouver Island, has more of them than any other place in North America. Now that I think of it, his wife was reluctant to call him to the phone, as he was trying to avoid the media. I suspect that the mainstream press and some animal rights groups had been bugging him. After I explained that I was with a knife magazine and wrote outdoors material, she reluctantly called him to the phone. He was very gracious, but did ask not to be given a lot of publicity. Said that he'd rather the whole thing had never happened, as one might imagine!
It was some time later that I saw his case on Discovery TV, so I guess he felt better about talking about it a couple of years later.
T-Star
P.S. I have personally had knives out twice to discourage dogs from attacks that I feel almost sure would have occurred, had I not drawn the knives. If anyone is interested, I can tell you which knives I had. These days, the knife most often on my belt in town is a Benchmade McHenry & Williams pattern, with a blade of some four inches, and part of the blade serrated for rougher cutting. It has their Axis lock and black G-10 handle scales. I like it very much. I keep it for emergencies, using a Swiss Army knife for normal knife needs.
