Taxonomy of Modern Dangers
I realize that the likelihood of me encountering a Komodo Dragon in the wild is about the same as my chances of encountering a leprechaun or global warming, but Tam asks:
What gun for lizard?
I’d say the same gun you use for face-eating monkeys.
March 25th, 2009 at 10:22 am
I respectfully disagree. A face-eating chimpanzee, while very strong and robust of constitution, can be stopped about like a human attacker. Handgun rounds should prove effective at across-room distances, although incapacitation time would be improved with a high powered rifle round.
Komodo dragons, on the other hand, have oral bacteria that can kill you even from superficial wounds, so a standoff defense is preferable. Definitely a scoped rifle, or at least a 12 gauge loaded with alternating buckshot and slugs. (The Hunter Thompson load!)
And thinking back to the Jurassic Park movies, apparently all firearms are ineffective (one way or another) against large scaley critters. So you might have a problem with your lizard, should it get fractious.
March 25th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
I’ve read that primates can be stopped just by a bullet to the heart, just like homo sapiens sapiens. Blood pressure is everything. I’ve never done it.
For lizards, I would say, just like birds you don’t want to lose. Disable the muscles and bones. Birdshot, no larger than #4 shot (BB?), not buck. At least for the lizards we have now. I’m not talking dinosaurs. Forget brain. They don’t have much of one. And their circulatory system is pretty bullet-resistant too. Nothing like primates’.
March 25th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
Come to think of it, lizards are a lot like zombies.
March 25th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
^ lol
I stick by my original answer. A SOCOM 16 would put a stop to the overgrown iguanas.
March 25th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
For Komodo Dragons you need more than #4 buckshot. 00 or slugs with the plug out.
March 25th, 2009 at 9:33 pm
BTW, I’ve never shot a big lizard, either. But a Cajun down in Louisiana who hunts alligators, he called them “snakes”, told me that it does no good to hunt them with a rifle. They’ll still crawl off and you’ll lose them in the water. He said a baited steel hook was the only way to do it.
March 25th, 2009 at 10:35 pm
^ I dont think we were talking about trying to hunt the damn things, but rather, what to shoot it with if it were attacking us. I HOPE it crawls off into the water.
March 25th, 2009 at 11:27 pm
Well, like Uncle said, the only way you’ll run into one is if you go looking for it. And if you are going to be using a twelve-gauge defensively, at handgun ranges, I think for a reasonable compromise between energy, pattern, and pattern density, #4 to BB is the shot size to use.
March 26th, 2009 at 1:44 am
If I were shooting anything a Komodo Dragon, I wouldn’t be thinking about compromising energy.
9 feet long and 150 pounds? I’d be thinking a shotgun with slugs, personally. 3″ magnum would be comforting.
A wire-guided missile in a shoulder holster wouldn’t hurt, either.