Comment poster Sean reminded me of something when, in response to The 2005 Hardyville Freedom Festival, he nominated "Jurassic Park 2 as the most asinine, corrupt, and contradictory movie [he's] ever seen."
In his musings about how totally ineffectual armed men were portrayed as being, he reminded me of a discussion that took place over a couple issues of my favorite gun magazine.
Andy Breglia shared his thoughts on which ammunition would be most effective against a T-Rex.
His conclusion: "[T]he .30-06 is a true do-all cartridge and, when loaded with the appropriate bullets, will take anything that walks on, or used to walk on, this planet."
The editor was skeptical, and countered "I believe the minimum T-Rex blaster would be an M2 .50 Browning Machine Gun mounted on something faster than a rex. Something with so little brain would take a lot of bleeding out or would need to have its pelvis shot to doll rags and fall before sinking his teeth or weight on you."
Breglia came back with "More Rex Whacks" in a later issue, leading the editor to speculate that "[a] brain shot would have that thing doin' the dead chicken dance all over you."
In fact, as evidenced by Mike the Headless Chicken, it might not even kill the thing.
I think it's an interesting discussion and would like to hear more opinions on this.
Which gun/ammo would be the best to use to effect a quick T-Rex kill, and why?
And we should probably eliminate long-range sniping, as that assumes the thing doesn't know you're there and is stationary. For the purposes of this exercise, let's assume it's a dynamic situation where you and the Rex are both aware of each other and facing off to kill or be killed.
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
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21 comments:
This is something that I've given a little thought to- Edgar Rice Burroughs is one of my favourite authors and his Pellucidar tales of man and dinosaur have given me many happy hours.
.50 BMG would seem to be a good choice but it's hardly a shoulder held weapon- if we're taking anything goes mounted how about an automatic 30mm grenade launcher? If we're talking about hunting a T. Rex however, that option goes out the window.
For a shoulder held rifle I can harldy see a .30-06 doing the job. A T Rex is about 7 tonnes in weight and 13m long. With a notoriously small brain a head shot would seem to be inbcredibly difficult. A body shot is also problematic- unlike a lot of big game a shoulder shot cannot be taken, instead you'd have to aim for the massively thick bone of the hip/pelvis. A heart/lung shot would seem to be the best option but this in itself would be difficult if the beast were to charge.
Personally I'd have to go for one of the bigger bore traditional African rifles- a .600 Nitro Express or the wildcat .585 Nyati (or the powerful .577 Tyrannosaur) loaded with A-Square Monlithic solids. A double rifle would seem preferable to a bolt action for a quick follow up shot. And an RPG in the hands of your gun bearer probably wouldn't be amiss either.
As has been proved a hot 45-70 will take any game Africa can provide but a T. Rex is not an elephant- it's a canivorous predator and so I'm thinking that bigger would be better.
Great food for thought by the way. What are your own thoughts on the matter?
"What are your own thoughts on the matter?"
It's probably not fair to introduce this into the mix with the way I set this up, but I think I'd go with a flame thrower.
Oops--I definitely cheated--unless you really stretch things and consider a flame thrower to be a gun. I suppose you could make the case that it kinda is, but that's not the way my set up for this would imply.
jay.mac, I agree, a heart/lung shot would be tough, as I understand the new thought is these things ran stretched out horizontally, so the head would probably be in the way.
A 30.06, 180gr.soft nose would do the job. 5 rounds. 1st shot, either knee. 2nd shot, exposed neck,jugular. 3rd shot,eye(window to the brain). 4th shot, other eye. 5th shot, spine nearest top of neck, next to skull.Since the T-Rex never had enemies that could reach that last area, and it is an axis where flesh is thinnest, it would be the coup de grace if you needed it after all the others. I know I will never be able to prove it, but I would go out and shoot one to prove it, alone. It's always a good day to die.
I'd have to go crew-served.
A German MG-42. *mm (ballistic equivalent of the .30-06) and a very high rate of fire.
I think it would do the job, and you can fire it off the shoulder.
As long as someone else acts as the bipod.
Where is this T-REX you guys are having trouble with? See my latest blog post. "Have Gun Will Travel"
AB5--nice firepower. Remember though, the dino is charging you at darn near 50 fps--so hope you have time to heft that monster, acquire a sight picture and place a round or two where they will do the most good...
How about a good old WW II bazooka? We really don't know enough about T-Rex anatomy to make an educated guess so I'll go for overkill.
If you miss, Stephen, you won't have time for a reload.
Mebbe the Thunderbolt II's 30mm GAU-8/A (along with the T-bolt) would work. Or a tactical nuke. You can't be too careful.
Damn...good thing these critters are extinct; but if had to kill one
I'd have to go with a shoulder fired explosive grenade launcher like an RPG..or even a TOW mounted on a Jeep....I do like the nuke option though....
Why not a flame thrower, David? After all, it is a "fire"arm!
As I see it, the thing is comming after you and may be pretty close. That rules out a grenade launcher as the grenades are spin-armed and may not arm before impact. Since a relatively short time is required before you are eaten, full automatic fire is probably your best bet. That said, a T-Rex is very large, with lots of muscle mass between you and vital organs, therefore penetration is a must and takes precedence over any factors normally used on present day terrestrial creatures. With that, I present the following two choices:
BAR loaded with AP ammo. 20 rounds capable of being fired from the shoulder full auto. Bonnie did it, I;m sure most of us can.
Barrett M82A1 .50 BMG AP. Can also be lifted and fired from shoulder unlike M2. Has muzzle break for recoil control. Possibly convert to full auto. May be uncontrolable, will require further research.
As a further possibility, MiniGun chambered in 5.56mm. Once again, AP ammo is a must. Shower "Barney" with a veritable wall of lead. Also needs further research.
In the taking of a T.rex I can only suggest two possible rifles. A double rifle to be sure firing either 700/577 Nitro Express or 600 Nitro Express. Firing Solids, of course. With that incomprehensible amount of bone shattering power and penetration (many feet of penetration) I think that a T.rex could be dispatched with relative surety. I suppose a bolt action 600 Nitro Express (which can be loaded much hotter / to the same levels as the 700/577) could get the job done too. I just wouldn't want to have to work the bolt in order to get off a second shot after taking that much recoil.
I think that people tend to forget just how much power and penetration a steel jacketed bullet of 900 grains traveling at even the minimal 1,950 feet per second of the 600 Nitro double (not to mention the 2,300 fps of the other) really has. Consider, the Royal Navy used to use them in ship-to-ship combat during the first World War. Those rifles offer more power than we modern mortals can fully comprehend.
For those who are thinking it:
The 700 Nitro Express might work too, but the bullet design used in that caliber would limit penetration by a considerable amount (of course they can still blow holes through a quarter-inch steel plate and keep going).
The 577 Nitro Express, given its lighter weight bullets, would likely come up a little short of adequate. It would work fine on a juvenile (like the one in the Jurassic Park movies) but against a record size T.rex (about three times the size of the movie T.rex) I don’t think that it could really be counted on to get the trophy in the bag.
Cheers,
rexgun
577 outpenetrates 600 actually due to bullet shape of original loads.
and most fast medium bores like 416 wby or even 375 h&H will outpenetrate either.
The old argument is that at rhino/ elephent sized game big bores offer little real world advantage since nothing you can fire is big enough to shock the beast at that size (which is true) so might as well have something easier to aim and that penetrates better anyway.
As to the Trex main question is whether just hunting or stopping charges.
for hunting most normal calibres would of course do as with hunting any dangerous game, especially considering such points as already made about thin skull of the TREX, also the ease of immobilising a two legged animal.
Stopping charges, the real question for dangerous animals, the main considerations are anatomicl specualtions.
Can the brain be predicted and hit through all that long skull during a charge.
How fast does a possibly warm blooded reptile succumb to heart lung shots(probably not fast enough as with most game).
Will a non fatal head shot at least turn it, as in the case of large bores can cause elephants to turn and run away even if the brain is missed.
In all I think the game of Trex hunting would look a lot more like elephant hunting was in the 1800's with muzzleloaders on horseback.
-it was all about how fast YOU could move after the first shot.
Just a quickie here... Explosive rounds have to penetrate before doing any good, so grenades are out unless you coat them in something that makes the Rex swallow one. I would take a .50 Barrett semi-auto with an anti-tank tungsten core bullet, followed by a double 4-bore with a monolithic 1200 gr. bullet-not very fast, but packs punch, and if shots intersect at a predetermined range, even better. Five .50's to the pelvis, 2-4 bores to the head on the fall. Anybody know what the butchering tools would include? Chainsaws, maybe.
Further to last. Doubel really big bore (nitro express, 4-6-8 bores) were back-up pieces. Elephants, since they have really low blood pressure, aren't victim to vital organ shots like most other game. Since their brains are amall and encased in a styrofoam like mass, the big, slow .5-.800 hunks of lead would send a shockwave thru and separate the brainstem-making them effective stoppers after you'd suitably irritated the beastie with a Jeffries, or heaven forbid, a .30 cal.
i would personally prefer nice size camping backback packed with explosives, RDX, or C4, with an electric fuse wired to a radio frequency interupter switch, and smeared with pigs blood. i figure a tyranasaurous has been identified by modern palentology as a scanvenger, and it would probably go for the backback over me. though im not sure now much explosives it would take, 5 lbs, 50lbs?
4 bore uses 2000 down to 1400grain bullets usually(since a lot of 4 bore were actually 5 or 6bore) 1200gns is more of an 8 bore common weight.Calibres are .835 for the 8 and .935 to 1 " or so for the 4.
They did not 'separate brainstems' or shock the animals dead.
In fact the bore guns biggest problem and why they were superceded was penetration problems.They could never be fully relied up to kill with the frontal brain shot on elephant.A 6.5 x55 by comparison with solids is more reliable than the biggest 4 bore from this angle.
The barret semi auto would be a good idea if you could shoulder fire it.I would load roundnose elephant gun solids in it, like 600grain barnes desgined for the 500 A-square.
Anti armour bullets/Pointed FMJ actually destabilise badly and veer off course after a foot or two in largely fliud media(animals). Which is why solids used on African game have always been blunt or roundnosed.
G.e. minigun(25,000 rpm)
See the book: rexGun by Dr. Stephen W. Templar, ISBN: 978-0615224138
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