Cougar Versus .458 SOCOM
BY Herschel Smith
7 years, 9 months ago
He pulled his gun to his shoulder, put her in his sights and pulled the trigger. He was shooting a Rock River Arms AR-15 chambered in .458 Socom with a red dot scope.
“Now, I’ve killed a lot of whitetail deer with my .458 and every single time I’ve pulled the trigger with a deer at the other end of the barrel, it’s like turning off a light switch,” Jason said. “When I pulled the trigger on this female cougar, she didn’t drop.
“Rather she did five back-flips and spun around 10 times while tumbling down the mountain and coming to rest within 90 yards of Chris’ blind. The cougar traveled about 200 yards from the point where she was shot.”
They tried to drag the animal in a dead sled, but it would turn and tumble. Finally, Jason threw the 120-pound animal on his shoulders and hiked down the mountain.
Good Lord! The .458 SOCOM is a 250 grain projectile travelling 2150 FPS. This was one bad girl. It’s good she didn’t have the stamina left to turn on him. She could have put a big hurt on him.
Congratulations to Jason Chavies.
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On March 23, 2017 at 10:31 pm, Josh said:
Trophy hunting is gross and decadent. It is the very opposite of being good stewards of our land. And no, I don’t want to hear about how much trophy hunters pay for tags and how that money supposedly helps anything at all, because it doesn’t. It doesn’t do anything but pay some asshole’s salary so he can order unmarked cyanide traps set on other people’s property.
Also, I would like an AR in .458.
On March 23, 2017 at 11:08 pm, Herschel Smith said:
In this case the article says his family ate the cougar.
On March 24, 2017 at 1:24 pm, Josh said:
No one eats cougar by choice.
On March 24, 2017 at 1:40 pm, Herschel Smith said:
You may be right – I’ve never done that. Like I said to Fred below, I’m not a huge hunter. That said, I have absolutely no problem culling the population if it becomes a threat. Because man is made in God’s image, animals are not.
On March 27, 2017 at 4:48 pm, TheAlaskan said:
Trophy hunting is a big problem, genetically speaking. Trophy hunters target the biggest, the meanest, the healthiest animal in a group or an area. Do that long enough and the viability of a species degrades, genetically speaking. Here in Alaska, trophy hunting is big business, so it’s not going away anytime soon. Natives will tell you about size, color, numbers, etc, of animals years past that aren’t around any more.
I’ve seen it myself in the salmon commercial fisheries in Bristol Bay. Bristol Bay has the worlds largest sockeye salmon runs…and the richest; $700,000,000 to $1b worth..EVERY. YEAR! It has been an industry standard to prefer the large reds over the smaller reds. We used to have huge numbers of king size red (sockeye) salmon. So the gear (gillnet) was built with large sized web that would gill (catch) the large sockeyes while allowing the small reds to swim through, thus not getting caught. What wasn’t known was the fact that the larger reds were large because of genetics, (not because they were more successful feeders while at sea,) thus having the effect of removing the ‘big’ trait from the gene pool. Now large web is illegal, but the ‘trophy targeting’ of large sockeye did much damage because now there are way fewer large fish returning to spawn.
Trophy fishing, trophy hunting is detrimental to a species well being. In nature, the weak, and the slow, and the sick, and the genetic oddity, is what’s removed from the gene pool.
On March 24, 2017 at 9:56 am, Fred said:
I’m partial. It’s his right but I would not shoot a Mountain Lion. (unless it needed killing of course).
On March 24, 2017 at 10:08 am, Herschel Smith said:
If they began to encroach on my home turf I wouldn’t hesitate. Just like a bear. Of course, that would likely get the *.gov after me. Other than that, I’m not a big hunter. Not that I’ve never hunted, mind you.
On March 24, 2017 at 11:14 am, Fred said:
Yep, “encroach” falls into that “needed killing” category alright.
They are notoriously reclusive. If you happen to see one around, especially after dawn and before dusk, that’s a problem right there. Young males get pushed out by dominant males in the springtime and move around and through areas. They are always hungry and lack of familiarity with an area leads to contact with people. This is a dangerous time to have them in your area. Young males, especially in spring or during drought, are under enormous pressure to find a place to set up and survive. Most attacks on people and pets happen in cali under these circumstances.
Hunters mostly kill the females because they stay in one area during breeding and young rearing into spring so they get found by dogs easier because their scent is everywhere especially around caves. Adult males are more mobile with bigger territory.
I’ve never seen one in the wild but I’ve petted one. Won’t say when or where. I’ve been in the enclosure with other large cats. The whole thing was highly illegal and would get the owner of that rescue shut down in a hot second by the greenies and their gov crony code enforcers. It was fun. Yup, I take those risks.
They’re not invasive, I like em, cat tastes nasty (i’ve heard). I wouldn’t bother them if they don’t bother me.