I'm sure that most of you have heard the terrible story about the attack of the Siberian Tiger on the three unfortunate young people at the San Francisco Zoo a few days ago. (another testament for concealed carry) My question is twofold: "what caliber handgun might be used to kill such an animal? Also which weapon and what ammo did the police use to kill the tiger? Anyone know? These kinds of maulings are usually caused by bears. Is a handgun up to such a task? Not many of us walk around with slug loaded shotguns or rifles.

NRA Member

I'm sure that most of you have heard the terrible story about the attack of the Siberian Tiger on the three unfortunate young people at the San Francisco Zoo a few days ago. (another testament for concealed carry) My question is twofold: "what caliber handgun might be used to kill such an animal? Also which weapon and what ammo did the police use to kill the tiger? Anyone know? These kinds of maulings are usually caused by bears. Is a handgun up to such a task? Not many of us walk around with slug loaded shotguns or rifles.

NRA Member

A .44 can do it. .40 s&w pistols were used by the police based on the reading I've done on the 'net.

Sure, even a 22 will do the job....provided the kitty is tied down and you can stick the barrel in his ear.

__________________
Dick Burg

Welcome to the forum. Here's a couple of links.

And yes, It'll take a tigers head clean off!

http://smith-wessonforum.com/eve/for...4/m/1531078962

http://smith-wessonforum.com/eve/for...4/m/3291035962

__________________
"I also cook."

Yes, eventually.

My Dad while stationed for a time on the outer islands in the Aleutian chain during WWII, told of the locals elsewhere doing in Polar Bear with a .22 in the ear from a kayak, at only an oars distance. Steely nerves and being a great shooter (along with being damned lucky!) would indicate that quite likely a .44 Magnum would, with several .44's being better!? Hardly any load is "enough" when poorly placed. Even a .50 BMG won't stop him/her if it only hits them in the lip?

A 44 magnum will kill a whole lot of things. I can't remember the name of the old govt hunter who killed hundreds of mountain lions. His gun was a Colt SAA in 38-40 which is a ballistic twin of 40 S&W. He was shooting them after they had been treed by dogs.
Lion vid
Here is a vid of a guy killing a lion with what looks like a K frame and is probably a 38 Special.

I good hit with a 44 is quite a hit.

I think a bigger issue is hitting a tiger that is running around pissed at everyone and jacked up on adrenalin and instinct.

....from my limited experience but 'lots' of reading, thin-skinned creatures the size of a tiger are not all that hard to kill.....IF you can manage to hit the 'off' button with proper terminal ballistics....

The large creatures with thick hides and a lot of volume generally require the penetration of heavy rifle calibers for sure results with minimal exposure to wounded prey issues.

Until I watched a mobile butcher put down my buddies yearling feeder calf it was hard to understand the nuances of 'proper bullet placement'...

...one magic shot from a 22LR dropped that 400# beef like flipping a light switch.....

cat weighed 350-400 lbs. a head shot at close range with a .357 or bigger should do it. would'nt want to be the guy that missed.

You can kill a tiger with a sharp stick, with proper placement and penetration. I'm sure a 44 mag will do the trick.

My question is "what is the tiger going to be doing while I'm shooting him?". The answer is probably "very nasty things that I don't want done".







44 Mag compared to 45-70 and .444 Marlin. 45-70 compared to 30-06 and 416Rigby.
44 Mag ~ 1000 ft lbs @ muzzle, 416 Rigby ~ 5000 ft lbs.

I think the 416 would by my LIGHT rifle if I were to go after tigers on purpose.

Recap:

The 44 magnum is better tiger medicine than a sharp stick, but a 416 Rigby would be better than a sharp whole tree.

An old Park Ranger responsible for maintaining the elk herd on Jackson's "National Elk Refuge" in Wyoming used a .220 Swift to provide immediate kills when thinning the herd. For actual hunting situations he would use a .264 Winchester Magnum. His theory was that "velocity" vs ft lb's of energy was a swifter and more humane method of dispatching large game. That the hydaulic effect created by the velocity was far more devasting than a heavier/ slower bullet.
But as someone mentioned earlier, shot placement is "king" / there has been far more animals killed by a .22 caliber bullet than any other.

Here kitty kitty kitty

BOOM From a 500 mag.......OOOH, the poor kittys not moving anymore....

__________________
NRA Benefactor Member

Where's Bettis when we need him?

My unprofessional opinion is tigger needs a teeth cleaning session. Anybody know if Bob swims?

__________________
Dick Burg

Luckily, if you don't cage and then taunt a tiger, there will be no need to shoot it.

There's probably some scarred people and remaining family members in India, Pakistan, and Southeast Asia who'd debate that with you...

All cats, including the big cats are thin skinned, with strong but not necessarily thick muscle structure. Many Cougar/Mountain Lions have been taken with 22LR. The energy required to penetrate to a vital area of the cat is easily within handgun capability. Of course you have to place your shots properly, a decent handgun load will break a big cat down if it is a shoulder/leg hit, and of course heart and head shots are usually terminal. The spine of a big cat is easy to hit and any spinal hit will put the cat down if not out. Given all of the above, a 12 GA. slug or A 45/70 would be my preference for a POed big cat.

I'd say it depends on if the tiger was charging or just passive when the shot is taken? Adrenalin can be a huge motivator.

__________________
NRA Life Member

If you are able to hit the tiger, yes a 44 Mag will do the trick.

This is the old Jack O'Connor vs Elmer Keith discussion. Been going on for a while.

I think, as you say, shot placement is what it's really all about.

I would not want to try to shoot an unhappy tiger with a handgun, but, if I had to, a 44 mag would be a good choice...

charging tiger = 12 ga. 00 buck, easier to hit with and hurts like hell!

Thanks to all! You have really answered all my questions. I have recently obtained a S&W .44 mag 29-5 Classic with a 5" barrel. It came with pachmayer (sp?) grips, but I changed them to checkered cocobolo.

NRA Member

I know a ISP trooper who had occation to, in the line of duty, shoot an armed woman using 00 buck and he told me that he would never again use buckshot but instead use a deer slug?

__________________
NRA Life Member

Cats are pretty easily killed with good shot placement. I've lion hunted for many years and I've seen a number of mountain lions, after being treed with hounds, shot and killed with .22 magnums. Most of the lion hunters I've hunted with prefer smaller caliber pistols. The reasoning behind this is the larger caliber guns will blow them out of the tree, and when they hit the ground they are often full of fight til they die. A double lung shot with a .22 magnum will not dislodge them and they'll stay in the tree til they bleed out and die. That way when they hit the ground you don't get dogs cut up. My preferred gun is my Model 16-4 in .32 mag. I carried a model 48 for many years until the day my hounds treed one back in a cave, I felt a little undergunned that time and decided I better move up to a little larger caliber. :^)

Time has made the details a little hazy, but I remember about 30 years ago some moron in NYC intentionally got into the enclosure with a polar bear. The bear, of course, did what bears do; it started munching on the guy. Killed him, I believe. The first police officer on the scene killed the polar bear with one round of .38 Special round RNL. Probably some luck involved, but obviously a well placed shot.

IIRC, the cop understood how things really are, he was more upset about having to kill the bear than he was about what happened to the moron.

Hoping you ain't got a tiger by the tail....

Yeah, but from earlier threads we found out this tiger couldn't speak english....presumably the language of the shooting officers. In those other countries, I'm sure all involved, both tigers and victims can communicate!

__________________
COURAGE=Fear+Prayer

+1

This isn't a ballistics issue as much as a "hitting a moving target" issue - IIRC, a tiger can run the 100 in less than 4 seconds.

FWIW, I carry a .357 at the zoo - again, HITTING a fast mover the bigger problem.

All this talk about various calibers, stopping power shot placement and hitting a moving target are all fine, well and good academic discussions on the board, but the only foolproof method for stopping a charging tiger is to take away his credit card.



Rn Awayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

__________________
Forum consigliere

bad man!

Knowing NYC cops fairly well, he probably was more upset about the bear than the idiot. The longer I do this job the more I like animals and hate people.

I think these just found out what happens when you bring a sling shot to a tiger fight. There would have been no need to dispatch the tiger had the kids not done anything. But that is just my humble opinion. Rant off.

Is it even legal to pack a gun to that zoo?
What is the chance of someone having been suitablly armed and responding in time to make a difference.
Check the LION Video: see how long it took an armed policeman to respond to the "man mauled by lion" call!

__________________
I've never met a .32 I didn't like!

MTS, that isn't specific to your profession.

I packed when I went to the Philly Zoo. I didn't see any signs that stated no concealed weapons.

Depends on how lucky he is!

Did you already fire 5 shots or 6?

"Do you feel lucky? Well......Do you pussy?"

A polar bear in the water can't really move that fast and with the natives being practical as well as economical, a 22lr would be fine.
Bob Peterson of Peterson Publishing took up the 44 Magnum/Polar Bear challenge many years ago. A S&W 6&1/2" Nickel 44 Magnum was used. It took 5 rounds to kill the bear. Since he was shooting the bear on the ice, he had a 375H&H with a guide as backup. Bob was not dumb. http://www.gunsandammomag.com/cs/Satellite/IMO_GA/Story...ecid%3D1198098376868
If you think that a 44 Magnum will protect you from any dangerous animal(homo sapiens sapiens excepted) think again and take out a large life insurance policy!-Dick

I thought in my reading the Alaskan native preferred .219 Zippers or .22 Hornets over rimfires. I know they did a lot of reloading. Any one got any insight? What did Sarah P use? OK, so she's not a native.

__________________
Dick Burg

From what I read of this story the only unfortunate one was the tiger that had to be put down.

Yep, it sure can, but so can a .375 H&H and it does it a lot faster in the event your aim isn't perfect and kitty isn't too thrilled about being shot!

A I grew up in NYC during the '60s and '70s, I recall two hi-profile episodes where zoo polar bears were destroyed because of idiots putting their limbs through cage bars and getting mauled. If memory serves, both attacks came roughly 35 years ago, and I believe each ended with NYPD shooting the bears with service/duty revolvers.

__________________
I'm with the banned ...

For what it's worth, I have a book by a Swedish girl who shot some Bengal tigers in India in the 1960's. She used a rifle, I think a Husqvarna .30/06, with a S&W K-38 for a sidearm. Thankfully, she never had to use the .38.

I know of one grizzly put down by a game warden whom it was attacking. He used an S&W M-66, with 158 grain .357 ammo of unspecified brand and type.

The polar bear in the NYC zoo was shot by a cop with a heavy barrel M-10 and lead HP ammo, according to Massad Ayoob. I asked him if he was sure that the ammo was HP, which wasn't allowed in New York cop duty then, and he assured me that it was. He's a member here, and may see this and expand on it.

Be aware that a frontal head shot on a big cat may cause the bullet to glance off of the rounded skull. A number of men were killed by lions in Africa for that reason. The mane also caused some to think that there was more forehead than there was.

+1

A wolf had to be shot at my zoo a couple of years ago. If anyone is wondering, it was with a .45 ACP. Everyone was more upset about the wolf than the idiot woman who put her arm through the fence so she could pet it.

It's not hard to kill a tiger, it's just hard to do before it gets to you!

Jim Corbett killed quite a few tigers in India with a regular 7mm Mauser. A famous ivory hunter (Bell) of the early 20th century killed dozens of African elephants with the same kind of rifle.

Lots of folks have killed lots of things with less than ideal weapons just to say that it can be done. But those weapons are less than ideal and leave no margin for error.

Shot placement is king and you'd better have a back up in case your shooting isn't perfect that day.

I'm surprised at the comparisons of cougars to tigers. There is really no comparison.

Average Cougar 175 pounds.

Average Tiger 700 pounds.

Next, when Peterson shot the Polar bear...

Polar bear had not seen him.

At about 25 yards, Peterson was able to put five .44 Magnum rounds into the heart/lungs in about seven seconds with the Polar bear still unaware of his location....and the bear just happened to be positioned for perfect shot placement so none of the rounds had to penetrate the shoulder of the bear.

It was dangerous and risky business and it went well because conditions were perfect.

Yes, you can kill a tiger with the .44 Magnum.

Yes, if it was after you, you would be lucky to survive.

Your survival would probably be because you put one in his ear as he chewed your other arm, and you'd probably be scarred for life.